Rude Customers? How Training Can Help.

How do your employees address difficult and rude customers? The end goal should always be to “turn that frown upside down.” Everyone wants to create a positive customer experience and have long-term loyal customers. This starts with the proper employee soft skills training to learn how to take control of the situation.

When customers' expectations are met or exceeded, companies gain measurable business benefits, including the opportunity to gain more of their customers’ spending dollars. Customer service is the leading factor for U.S. consumers to stay loyal to their favorite brands. Around 83 percent of respondents to a Statista survey considered good customer service an important or critically important driver of brand loyalty.

According to The State of Customer Service report published by Netomi, 39% of people have less patience now than before the pandemic, and 43% of consumers find long wait times frustrating.

The world has changed. Not only are customers less patient, but they are more willing to post negative reviews and videos on social media about their anger at a company due to poor customer service. Companies can lose current customers and potential customers as well. It only makes sense to invest in ongoing customer service and soft skills training to increase customer retention and employees! Customer service teams and frontline employees need the support of their company in how to handle difficult and rude customers. Training is the support they need.

“It takes months to find a customer…seconds to lose one.” – Vince Lombardi, former American football player, coach, and National Football League executive

Best Practices for Addressing Difficult and Rude Customers and Support Training

Whether the employees’ role is serving customers in person or over the phone, the approach is the same, but the training may be slightly different. For example, HSI has video-based courses on Call Center Training and Using AI for Customer Service plus content lessons such as How to Win Over Customers.

Be Prepared

Every person who approaches customer service team members or frontline workers is like a pop quiz. One never knows what they’ll ask or request. Employees need to be prepared with an understanding of the company’s products, services, policies, and operations. They need to be prepared with an answer, respond appropriately, and know how to problem solve. A rude or upset customer’s emotions will only escalate if employees answer with “I don’t know.”

The company’s customer service team training should include everything workers need to know about the company, their role, and their authority in solving problems, offering refunds, etc. Ideally, customer service training would also include soft skills training topics such as emotional intelligence, active listening, communication skills, and problem solving.

Let the Customer Talk

The first step to take when faced with irate customers is to let them talk. Give them space to vent their frustrations and don’t interrupt. Let them tell their full story and listen carefully. If the customer starts going into detail, it may be helpful to take notes. The employees should let them know they are taking notes. Be sure to document the details in the company’s customer account software. This can be helpful if the same customer calls back and speaks with different customer service representatives in the future.

To help with this first step, customer service training should include courses in active listening and note-taking.

Repeat the Information

Once the customer fully explains their situation, the next step is to repeat the information back to them. “Here is what I heard…”

Always stick to the facts of the problem and leave their own emotions out of it. This will reassure the customer that the employee is actively listening and they have all the pertinent details. Hopefully, this step will start to calm the angry customer down and de-escalate the emotions.

HSI offers courses that help in these difficult situations, like How to Stay Positive with Customers and Proven Conversational Techniques with Customers. Remember, if employees are positive, their actions and communications will be positive, and in turn their actions with difficult and rude customers will be positive. Our training teaches employees how to turn an angry customer into a satisfied one by using positive language and eliminating certain phrases. The unhappy customer and the negative experience will long be forgotten as the outcome was favorable.

Remain Calm

This may be the hardest part of dealing with upset and rude customers, but the best way is to remain calm. They need to control their tone of voice and body language. They should sit or stand up straight to convey confidence and take deep breaths, even if they are on a phone call. Frontline employees need to consider eye contact, body language, and their personal space, too. Employees should not take what an upset customer says personally but instead try to empathize with their situation.

HSI’s courses in nonverbal communication will help keep the tense situation from escalating. Check out our free content-based lesson, The Importance of Empathy in Business.

Trust Them

It’s easy for employees to get jaded when they work in customer service. The reality is there are people who will lie, cheat, and scam companies to get something for free. However, in most cases, upset customers are telling the truth about the problem, product, or issue that upsets them. And they might just be having a bad day.

Employees must follow their company’s policies on returns or problem- solving. This can make their job easier and empower them to quickly solve the issues.

HSI offers a course on empowering employee decisions. This is a key training topic that is critical during the trust phase of communicating with upset customers.

Sincerely Apologize

If a customer is rude and upset, something occurs to trigger those emotions. Employees need to take responsibility on behalf of the company. Taking the blame will help to diffuse the anger.

• “I am sorry that happened.”
• “We messed up and we will fix it.”

Employees should try to empathize with their situation and put themselves in their customer’s shoes. They should keep in mind if they had saved money to buy something and it broke, they’d be upset too. They should handle the situation with the same tact and service that they’d like to receive.

This is another instance where emotional intelligence and empathy training are helpful. Knowing how to make the customer feel plays upon the outcome of the customer interactions.

Solve the Issue

Ideally, employees will be able to solve the issue or execute the fix during the conversation. Apply a credit for a billing error. Replace a broken product. Offer a freebie or a coupon for a future purchase. Hopefully, employees are empowered by their company and have the authority to take these actions.

If a customer is asking for something and the employee can’t do it, they should tell them all the things they can do to help. Let’s say the customer demands that the employee comes to their home to pick up the item, but this is against the company policy. What can the employee do? “I’m sorry, I know you’re frustrated. While we can’t come to your home to pick up the item, I can reimburse you for the packing supplies and coordinate UPS to pick up the package from your home.”

In some cases, there are no viable solutions. The employee will still need to remain empathetic and polite.

Offering employee training in problem solving will boost the employees’ confidence, giving them the confidence they need to solve a situation with an upset customer and retain them as a customer.

Be Respectful and Polite

Unfortunately, dealing with rude and upset customers is part of the deal when employees work in customer-facing roles. They must always be respectful and polite, even in the face of unacceptable, rude behavior. Employees must always remember they are representing the company. They’re the brand ambassador and their actions reflect the company.

Business etiquette courses help teach things like how to remain polite in the face of difficult customers and using proper tone and volume. And for those who work in a call center, courses on how to be a better call-taker and how to politely place people on hold can be helpful.

Someone Will Always Be Upset

You can never make everyone happy. Someone will always complain. Someone will always be upset.

Dealing with the public is unpredictable. Customer-facing employees need to be prepared for any tense situation, question, or request a person can concoct! And even if employees know that they can never make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time, they need to try.

HSI Can Help

Back to the original question... “How do your employees address difficult and rude customers?” Clearly, effective, ongoing training will empower employees, giving them the soft skills and confidence they need to face situation after situation.

HSI offers a vast range of courses that encompass effective customer service training:

Soft skills training:

• Empathy
• Negotiation
• Active listening
• Communication
• Problem solving
• Unconscious bias
• Stress management
• Conflict management
• Emotional intelligence
• Working well with everyone
• Nonverbal communication skills

Additional trainings include:

• The Extra Mile Club
• Customer Retention
• How to Win Over Customers
• What is Customer Experience?
• Handling Customer Complaints
• Customers Come in Many Flavors
• Good vs. Bad Customer Experience
• Paying Attention to Personality Types
• Telephone Techniques: Angry Callers
• 7 Pillars of Customer-Centric Strength
• The Four Ps for Creating Loyal Customers
• The “B’s” of Great Customer Relationships
• Tough Customers: The Bully, The Expert, The Grump, The Entitled
• Difficult Customers: Handling Angry Customers & Challenging Personalities

HSI offers microlearning courses to companies of all sizes. It’s simple to curate a curriculum for customer-facing employees. Many HSI customers open the course library for employees to access at any time, which makes learning so easy and flexible for those on the frontline.

Please contact HSI to learn more about courses to empower employees to face difficult customers daily and retain them as customers for life.

Additional Resources

• Soft Skills Training Topics
• Customer Service Training Videos
• Customer Service Training Topics
• 10 Customer Service Best Practices for Customer Retention