Treat Them Mean, Keep Them Keen: But Not Your Customers
Running your own business can be hard enough, and that’s without any complications coming to the surface. But how about your customers? Do you have a good relationship – or do you not have one at all?
It’s important to realize that the lack of customers you have – the lack of business, because let’s face it – you’re nothing without them. But what if your customers aren’t being very kind? How do you give them a great service when they’re being impolite and rude? – Here’s how.
Remain calm.
As difficult as it may be at the time, if you have a customer screaming at you or being rude – don’t react, just stay calm. They will soon realize that you aren’t willing to communicate with them until they calm down. So that gives the person one of two options. Either carry on yelling until they’re blue in the face and dizzy, or calm down and have a proper conversation with you or another member of staff. The most important thing is that you don’t allow yourself to lose it, because quite frankly, it’s not worth it.
Go to the professionals
Sometimes it may be the right time to ask for help. Maybe you feel as though you’re lacking some training in certain areas, or in fact, you just want to go over some things that you may have forgotten from the past. Well, there are plenty of courses on how to be a Master of Human Resource Management. This will cover so many different areas, but it will be rather fitting to teach you the best techniques to remain professional while dealing with an unhappy customer.
Use your best listening skills.
When a customer is annoyed or has lost their temper, the most common way for them to react is to let it out, and the only way for them to do that is by having someone that’s willing to listen to them, so lend an ear and let them speak. Sometimes the act in itself is enough to calm the other person down, and you didn’t even have to say a word. When the person has eventually stopped talking, try ending the conversation on a positive, or at least a sense that the problem had somehow been resolved. Make sure that your body language is deemed open and caring, and always keep eye contact.
Take a few minutes on your own.
When the scene is over and dealt with and the customer has left – go and take five minutes out to compose yourself. Even if you feel okay, your face and body language may be saying otherwise, and you don’t want any other customers reading that as this may affect their own experience. So go outside for some fresh air, have a glass of water, go and splash some water from the tap over your face, retouch your lipstick – and you’re good to go.
Remember that although you will most likely encounter some awful people throughout your job – that’s only about five percent of the people. So have hope. They’re not all like that.