The author Steven Covey told the story of a badly behaved family on a train. While the boys annoyed other passengers with their loud noises and by running up and down the aisle, their father did nothing. One of the passengers reached boiling point, and he reprimanded the father for not keeping his children in check.
The father apologised. He explained he had just come from the hospital where his wife had died. He was beside himself with grief and didn’t know what to do. Furthermore, he hadn’t even told his children about their mother. Upon hearing this explanation, the passenger was no longer angry but was instead filled with compassion for the father and his children. His perspective had changed, and so too had his attitude.
Why is this anecdote important for customer service teams? Because it’s critical to realise that you must first understand why an angry customer is behaving in a certain way. Because if your team cannot understand (and then defuse) a situation, unpleasant encounters with customers can:
- Impact the morale of your entire team.
- Push their buttons, causing them to react unprofessionally.
- Erode the professional reputation of your department or organisation.
- Create headaches for you, their manager.
- Make your best team members want to quit.
Understanding different types of angry customers
Identifying and understanding the different types of angry customers is a critical step in the angry customer de-escalation process’ As soon as the angry customer’s “type” is identified, a response can be tailored accordingly. In other words, the strategy required to defuse a “hostile” customer will not work on a “know-it-all”.
Here are 11 different types of angry customers your team may encounter. Do any of these seem familiar to you?
- The hostile: This customer is volatile, threatening, and uses physical intimidation instead of meaningful verbal discourse.
- The know-it-all: This customer is condescending, dismissive, never listens, and won’t take your advice either.
- The defensive: This customer is biased, opinionated, easily triggered, and rejects the fact they may be incorrect.
- The anxious: This customer is frustratingly negative, fearful, and often triggered by things that haven’t happened yet.
- The argumentative: This customer argues incessantly and has to be right, even when they’re not.
- The entitled: This customer is condescending, patronising, and acts like the world owes them everything.
- The foul mouth: This customer uses bad language and abusive communication to shock and manipulate.
- The never happy: This customer complains frequently, is impossible to please, and has a hidden driver for their actions.
- The ranter: This customer is set to attack mode and delivers an abusive, nonsensical verbal overload.
- The serial complainer: This customer is adept at finding flaws, playing the victim, and will continue to argue their point after you’ve fixed it.
- The silent objector: This customer uses silence, inaction, and passive-aggressive strategies to manipulate a situation.
Three powerful tips for de-escalating an angry customer
Of course, identifying an angry customer’s type is only the beginning. Here are three tips to help you and your team better handle angry customers:
- Use language to validate the customer’s emotions. This will make them more aware of the impact their emotions and actions are having on other people. For example, “I understand that you are feeling frustrated right now” or “I can see you’re hurting at the moment and I want to help resolve this for you.”
- Defuse the customer before addressing the problem. Their emotional reaction will probably be clouding their ability to communicate. For example, “I know it’s difficult when you’re feeling angry, but can you please walk me through how this happened? I want to resolve this as quickly as possible, but I need the full picture to do that for you.”
- After a negative customer interaction, step aside and reset your own emotions. Take a few deep breaths and intentionally release the negative energy from your mind. You may want to implement some self-care techniques after particularly emotional situations.
Give your team the skills they need to handle all types of angry customers
Aggressive, angry, and emotional customers are creating major issues for frontline customer service teams. In response to an alarming increase in negative customer interactions, we provide angry customer and PD courses customised specifically for your industry. Workshops like our MARATE skills training can give your team the skills they need to:
- Identify, interrupt, and extinguish angry and abusive outbursts before they have a chance to spark.
- Stop frustrating customers in their tracks.
- Bring rude, entitled people back down to earth without insulting them.
- Lead demanding people to accept more reasonable expectations.
- Diagnose the underlying, driving force of difficult situations, so your team can deal with the heart of the issue and provide an agreeable solution.
- Build rapport (with words, tone of voice, and body language) and steer customers/patients towards mutually desired outcomes.
- Resolve conflicts and restore trust with customers and team members.
If you’re interested in further training, you can request a training quote by clicking here or calling 1300 762 421.
