How to deal with angry customers: 4 conflict resolution tips

Learning how to deal with angry customers is an essential skill for every small business owner. Conflict resolution tools and tactics can help you to de-escalate a tough situation.

Check out this short video that illustrates how to deal with angry customers:

Jump ahead to learn:

• Steps to help prevent angry customers
• Unhappy customer vs a rude customer: What’s the difference
• 4 tips for how to deal with angry customers
• How NEXT can help protect you and your business from angry customers

First you’ll need to determine if the customer’s anger is actually valid — resulting from a negative customer experience — or if they’re just a difficult customer for no reason.

Once you’ve determined the source of the customer complaint, you can take steps to address the customer’s concerns in a strategic and methodical fashion in order to salvage the customer relationship — and maybe even convert a customer issue into an opportunity to increase customer loyalty and retention.

Steps to help prevent angry customers

The best way to handle an angry customer is to try to avoid angering a customer at all! Of course, this is easier said than done, but there are a few important steps you can take to try to to reduce customer complaints from the get go:

• Identify anticipated problems. Does your business not accept cash payments? Does your establishment have a dress code? These are things that can rub customers the wrong way and lead to a negative customer experience. Brainstorm all your policies that have the potential to upset customers.
• Clearly state your policies. Once you’ve identified potential problems and crafted your official policies, make these policies clear and decisive. For example, does your restaurant not accept walk-ins? Have a sign at the front door that outlines this policy. And be prepared to explain your policy — and the rationale behind it — if confronted by an unhappy customer.
• Document, document, document. Many customer complaints are rooted in disconnects between what customers expect and what they receive, in terms of services and products. You can mitigate these types of complaints — and greatly improve customer satisfaction — with clear documentation. Before you start a job make sure you have in writing what you are promising and what your customer is agreeing to.

Unhappy customer versus rude customer: What’s the difference

Even if you plan ahead and take steps to mitigate customer complaints, it’s likely you will still at some point find yourself at the receiving end of a customer’s anger. But the question is: are they a justifiably unhappy customer who is upset about a negative experience — and who can potentially be appeased — or an angry customer who is just plain rude or a bully or someone who is determined to take their bad mood out on you?

It’s an important question because in the case of an unhappy customer, you can not only salvage the customer relationship, but might even be able to turn this bad experience into a positive one — and build customer loyalty.

Let’s look at the difference:

• Unhappy customer. When dealing with an upset customer, try to find the root cause of their dissatisfaction. An unhappy customer may be unhappy because of a misunderstanding about your service, product or payment.
  This kind of unhappy customer is frustrated for a reason — which means they might be really angry, but if you practice customer service skills and offer real solutions, they can be calmed down. Unhappy customers are great business opportunities that can often transform into customer success stories. Business studies show that they can become happy and loyal customers once their concerns are met politely and professionally. You can leverage the negative situation to build long-lasting customer retention.
• Rude customer. You’ll know you’re dealing with a straight-up rude customer when the person simply cannot be calmed down. Their voice may be loud, their body language aggressive. No matter how great your communication skills may be, and even if you have an entire support team trying to help diffuse the negative customer situation, neither a solution or an agreement will help. In many cases, no matter what you do to empathize, apologize, problem-solve or validate their complaints, the angrier this kind of irate customer will get.

4 tips for dealing with unhappy customers

Try these tactics to diffuse tense situations with difficult customers:

1. Take a deep breath

Staying calm in the face of an upset customer can be a real challenge. But it’s important that you don’t escalate your own emotions when faced with anger or verbal abuse.

If you feel your temper rising, try some anger management exercises. For example, take a deep breath and slow your breathing.

It’s a good idea to practice your response ahead of time, even if it’s just in your head, so when you’re actually confronted with an angry customer you aren’t caught unprepared by this sort of high-stress customer interaction.

2. Practice active listening

Make a conscientious effort to hear someone, empathize with their position and engage with what they’re saying.

To get the most out of active listening:

• Face the speaker. Give the customer the courtesy of your attention.
• Maintain eye contact. Not a stare-down, but eye contact is an important part of effective communication.
• Don’t interrupt. Let the customer say their piece about why they’re unhappy. Sometimes when they’ve vented their frustration, it gives them a chance to cool down. Interrupting or talking over them is likely to aggravate them more. Simply listening is a way to silently show empathy.
• Ask questions to understand. Wait until the customer has paused and ask for clarification. Asking thoughtful follow-up questions is validating and shows that you’re really concerned about your customer’s needs.
• Say “I hear you.” “I hear you” could be three of the most powerful words in customer support, especially with challenging customers. Say, “I hear you” and repeat the problem to the dissatisfied customer as they described it. For example, if the customer feels you didn’t perform a service well, say, “I hear you. We can handle that.” Or, if it isn’t something you understand and can handle right away, try saying, “I hear you. Let me see if I can understand exactly what is the matter.”

Active listening skills can help you get to the root of a customer’s complaint, figure out how to deal with it quickly and come up with the best plan for addressing the customer’s issue.

3. Respond professionally for effective conflict resolution

If you don’t offer validation or a solution, then you’re not providing an effective response to a customer complaint. You don’t want to exacerbate the initial problem with a poor service experience. Instead, follow these steps:

• Offer an apology. Sometimes an apology is in order. If so, make it simple and genuine.
• Don’t just say “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry isn’t always the best response to a frustrated customer. Forbes offers effective communication alternatives to repeating “I’m sorry” with no resolution.
• Acknowledge the customer’s concerns. Having practiced active listening, you should be clear on how your customer feels. Acknowledge their negative experience — or perception of a bad experience. Respond to their concerns factually and professionally. And make clear that you are there to partner with them in problem-solving.
• Offer a solution. If you’ve gotten to the root cause of the issue and it’s in your power to resolve it, offer a solution politely and quickly.

4. The most important thing: Know when to walk away

This is your business. You don’t have to let anybody walk all over you.

If the customer starts using profanity or threatens you, it’s okay to tell them you won’t tolerate being spoken to that way. Tell them you’re there to help but, if they continue the abuse, you will call security or the police.

If you’ve stayed calm, practiced active listening and responded professionally and you’re still not close to a resolution, it’s time to end the conversation.

Politely but firmly say you have disagreeing viewpoints and you can no longer go further with the conversation. Advise them of your policies and suggest they take complaints to an industry regulatory board or authority.

If you’re on the phone, hang up. In person, ask the angry customer to leave the premises. You have a right to refuse service to rude customers.

No matter how satisfying it might feel to retaliate, resist the urge. Manage your tone of voice. When someone is agitated or angry, you may want to match their tone and energy. Instead, try to speak calmly and get the customer to match your tone.

You want to put out the fire, not fan the flames. Sometimes walking away is the best way to put out that fire.

How NEXT can help protect you and your business from angry customers

While business insurance can’t magically make angry customers happy, it can protect you from costly business disagreements or accidents.

NEXT helps small business owners thrive by making it easy to get business insurance online. You can get a quote, review options and purchase coverage in less than 10 minutes.

Your certificate of insurance is available immediately, and if you have any questions, our team of U.S.-based, licensed advisors are standing by to help.

Start a free quote with NEXT.