Customer service: 10 practical tips for dealing with an unhappy customer

Effective management of customer dissatisfaction is a key factor in creating value within a company. It helps to strengthen customer loyalty, increase trust in the brand and preserve its credibility.

Yet managing customer dissatisfaction is far from easy. De-escalating the situation must always involve understanding the customer’s dissatisfaction and listening to them, whatever the cause of their anger: late delivery, a problem with the service or product, an order tracking error, or whatever. Here are 10 tips that can help your customer service department manage your customers’ dissatisfaction online.

1. Reduce waiting time

For an already angry customer, having to wait a long time before speaking to an agent can become even more irritating. To prevent the situation from getting worse, it would be wiser to reduce the waiting time. There are many ways of doing this, including deploying the latest technological tools or delegating some or all of your incoming calls to an external service provider.

2. Listen carefully to the customer

If a customer expresses anger, it’s because they want to be heard. If you are their first point of contact, remember to let them express themselves and listen carefully. Give them time to relate their experience and express their resentment. Use this time to determine their expectations and find appropriate solutions to the problem they are presenting.

If you are the customer’s second or third caller, don’t simply repeat the explanations of previous call centre agents, as this may upset them even more. The advantage of using a CRM tool is that you can access the complete history of the customer’s interactions with the company. Gathered on the same interface, this information allows you to better understand the situation and propose the most appropriate solution.

Adopt an active listening approach by recording what they say and responding with words such as “of course” or “I see”. Above all, note the important words they say so that you can understand their concerns and contextualise your answers when you have the chance to speak.

3. Understand the customer’s emotions and apologise

It is crucial to show empathy when faced with an angry caller on the other end of the line. As a representative of your company, your agent must be able to identify, understand, accept and even share their feelings. Through his language, the agent must be able to show the dissatisfied customer that he understands the reasons for his annoyance and that he also shares the same feelings. Depending on the circumstances, an apology may be useful to ease the tension.

4. Being sincere and honest: the key to good customer service

One of the most common mistakes agents make is to take their customer’s displeasure or malice personally. When faced with such situations, it is crucial to maintain a professional attitude. In most cases, angry customers calm down as soon as they realise that they are dealing with a sincere and honest customer relations agent.

Let’s suppose, for example, that the customer’s dissatisfaction is linked to a delay in delivery. In this case, the agent can honestly tell the customer that the problem is due to a stock shortage. Sincerity and honesty play an essential role in appeasing and reasoning with the customer.

5. Use positive language

Avoid using negative language when talking to a dissatisfied customer on the other end of the phone, or the situation could escalate. Every time you answer, make sure you use positive language. By doing so, you are showing them that you are happy to help and that you want to find a solution to the problem together. Avoid words like “unfortunately” or “I don’t know”. Instead, use words like “certainly”, “absolutely” or “I’ll find a solution to that”.

6. Suggest a solution

Your contact centre advisers should be able to propose a compromise or a middle ground, or at least an alternative that partially resolves the customer’s concern.

In some cases, it may be difficult to identify a solution that satisfies the caller. They may even reject the proposal outright. In this case, the ideal solution would be to give them the option of finding the solution that will satisfy them. For example, the advisor could say: “If our proposal doesn’t suit you, we’d like to know what will make you happy. If we can do it, we will. If that’s not possible, we hope we can still work together to find another solution”.

7. Thank the customer

During the conversation, it’s a good idea to thank the customer for sharing their concerns with your customer service team and for helping to resolve the problem. Thanking the customer allows them to see themselves as an important part of the company and to renew their relationship with it.

8. Follow up

Once you have agreed on a solution, remember to explain to the customer the various steps to be taken to achieve it. They should also have the name and contact details of the agent to give them a sense of control and the option of calling back if necessary.

Your agent should also follow up with the customer some time after the initial contact to check whether the solution has really satisfied them.

9. Share the experience with other employees to improve customer service

The reasons for customer dissatisfaction and the solution found to resolve the problem should be shared with other advisers so that they in turn can resolve recurring problems. The experience gained can also be shared during training and coaching sessions. The aim is to enable your customer service department to deal better with unhappy customers and optimise service quality.

10. Hang up (after all options have been exhausted)

This is one of the possible alternatives if one of your agents is faced with an angry customer. But this option should only be used as a last resort, when the customer is, for example, harassing, physically threatening, personally insulting or shouting at you. Before hanging up the call from the unhappy customer, the CRM advisor should have first contacted a manager who may be able to find other options to try and resolve the problem.

Enjoy peace of mind by entrusting the management of your incoming calls to ProContact

Dealing with unhappy or dissatisfied customers in-house can become a real source of stress, which is why it is a good idea to delegate the management of your incoming calls to an expert in the field, such as ProContact. Thanks to our trained, qualified, hand-picked and multilingual agents, we help the companies that choose us to gain credibility and above all to satisfy their customers, whatever the situation and in complete transparency.

Contact us today to build your tailor-made offer.