Working With Challenging Customers
Half day | Online or in person
This session is aimed at staff that work in the front/first line of an organisation, communicating with customers regularly.
Anyone that works in customer services will know that customers can sometimes be challenging. They can be demanding, argumentative, rude and aggressive. It’s easy to get caught up in the emotion, leading to a strained and unsuccessful conversation that leaves everyone worse off.
But not all challenging customers are angry. Customers are people living their lives, and their circumstances can overflow into interactions with you too, be that sadness from a recent event or a disability that needs you to adjust your approach
This course looks at how to tackle challenging customers, offering a range of techniques for difficult interactions. We go further though, looking at the content with an empathetic lens to understand that customers and staff are people too, whatever the query. We explore how to not take things personally, while recognising that we don’t know what’s going on in anyone’s lives and we should avoid letting assumptions and emotion drive our customer conversations.
Anyone that works in customer services will know that customers can sometimes be challenging. They can be demanding, argumentative, rude and aggressive. It’s easy to get caught up in the emotion, leading to a strained and unsuccessful conversation that leaves everyone worse off.
But not all challenging customers are angry. Customers are people living their lives, and their circumstances can overflow into interactions with you too, be that sadness from a recent event or a disability that needs you to adjust your approach
This course looks at how to tackle challenging customers, offering a range of techniques for difficult interactions. We go further though, looking at the content with an empathetic lens to understand that customers and staff are people too, whatever the query. We explore how to not take things personally, while recognising that we don’t know what’s going on in anyone’s lives and we should avoid letting assumptions and emotion drive our customer conversations.
What's Covered
- What can go wrong? How do we feel about difficult situations?
- What makes customers challenging? Emotions and circumstances; avoiding assumptions and seeing people as people.
- Our behaviour: A look at assertiveness, confidence and not taking it personally; recognising that we are people too.
- Staying in control: The tone and words we use to influence, de-escalate and make progress to success in our interactions. How to say “no” without saying “no”.
- Tips, tricks and techniques: Knowing the outcome you’re aiming for, along with some techniques for getting there; recognising you’re not alone and knowing when to escalate.
- Aftermath: What happens after a difficult encounter: reflection, review and letting off steam.
All course content can be adjusted for you or your organisation. The course descriptions offer an overview
of topics and do not represent an exact format or structure. If you need us to focus on a particular area or
would like is to include something we don't mention, just let us know and we'll do our best to make it work
for you!