Customer Service: Working with Difficult Callers

Callers are not always rational. Anyone working in customer service call centers will find that out on their very first day at work! The questions that callers ask, their complaints and their lack of patience to wait for an answer: all these qualities mark a typical call center customer service department. The going gets tougher for the customer service outsourcing units when the fault actually lies with the brand. That is when customers feel that they have been cheated, even if the matter can be solved immediately. The general assumption is that injustice has been done to the customer who has paid all the bills and yet did not receive satisfactory service. The agents handling these calls have more than one task on their hands. Before they answer the question at the root of it all, they have to deal with the irate customer.

Customers feel wronged when the customer service call center has not met with their expectations. Sometimes, resolving the issue is just a minute’s work, but it gets dragged because the customer would not comply. They raise questions and objections, demanding to know what happened and why, rather than look for a solution. Customer service call centers have to train their agents into getting customers on track. There is no point being confrontational and yet you cannot allow the customer to lead the conversation. That will take the customer into irrelevant details. The trick is to strike a balance. The call center customer service agents must allow the callers to speak about their problem without interrupting. Let them finish venting out their problem while you silently note the keywords that actually tell you what the problem is. When the customer has finished speaking, the outsourcing customer service agent can ask pertinent questions and settle the matter.

Active listening is the key to many solutions at the customer service call centers. You will be surprised by the amount of assumption that call center customer service agents make when they attend calls! As soon as the customer has mentioned the area of problem, the agents are likely to jump into conclusions. That infuriates the customer even further. They feel that the outsourcing customer service desk has not time to give them a patient hearing. Finally they decide to make things difficult. Such a situation must be avoided always. Allow the customer to share their problem. No two customers are the same and while one may feel much agitated about the problem they have on their hand, another with the same issue may be absolutely calm. The point is, call center customer service has to treat every single customer on its merit.

There are several tools that customer service call centers provide to the agents to deal with difficult customers. Sometimes callers use offensive and abusive language. Agents are allowed to disconnect the call if they have no other option to deal with it. Male agents are allowed to warn thrice before doing so while females can do it after a single warning.

Our customer service agents are trained to handle difficult customers. The customer service call centers we run look to retaining the customer as well as the agent’s sense of dignity.