Customers, Conflict and Confrontation

Overview/Description
 Is there anything that can torpedo your work day more than an arrogant, obnoxious, rude customer? YES! Not knowing how to handle one! It's challenging to stay service-minded when the person you are dealing with is being "difficult." This course will give you the perspective to effectively cope with customer conflict, and sound methods to deal with all types of potentially confrontational situations. You'll be able to identify elements of emotional response that interfere with good customer service. Staying cool, calm, and customer-connected is a critical learning objective for this course. Develop communication skills that defuse customer complaints. Learn and differentiate the best methods to handle difficult customers in person and over the phone. By the end of this highly interactive course, you'll have the strategies necessary to restore customer confidence and move beyond the thorny issue to an even stronger relationship.

Target Audience
 Front line personnel, team leaders, and customer service managers.

Expected Duration
5.5 hours

Lesson Objectives:

What Creates a Confrontational Customer?

  • recognize the behaviors and issues that typically trigger complaints and conflict from customers.
  • identify behaviors that generate customer confrontation.
  • list the product-related issues that anger customers.
  • apply the steps that ensure effective follow-through on a customer complaint, given a scenario.

    • Communication Essentials for Dealing with Customers

  • explore the value of critical communications concepts necessary for handling customer difficulties.
  • identify techniques to listen with detachment.
  • use techniques to backtrack and clarify during a given confrontational exchange, given a scenario.
  • identify self-development methods to help build rapport with angry customers.
  • use methods to transition from customer issues to solutions, given a scenario.

    • Face to Face with Customer Conflict

  • recognize the critical importance of the key elements of handling customers problems in person.
  • recognize the value of being well-prepared physically and mentally for face-to-face service challenges.
  • use techniques to make a customer feel understood, given a scenario.
  • identify questions needed to gather complete information with the first contact.
  • apply principles to resolve customer issues and repair customer relationships, given a scenario.

    • Handling Customer Conflicts Over the Phone

  • perceive the value of specialized techniques to cope with challenging customer service issues over the phone.
  • use the proper techniques to avoid triggering angry reactions from a customer in a given scenario.
  • provide effective telephone assistance to four types of customers in a given scenario.
  • recognize techniques to maintain a high performance attitude at all times.

    • Course Number: CUST0105