August 9, 2024 • 24 mins
In this episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek," we dive into the challenging world of dealing with angry customers.
Discover five powerful, actionable techniques that can transform heated interactions into opportunities for building customer loyalty. Perfect for contact center managers and agents alike, this episode covers:
- The Empathy + Action Combo
- The Interruption Buster
- The Ownership Approach
- The Reframing Technique
- The Calm Questioning Method
Learn how to diffuse tension, regain control of the conversation, and turn frustrated customers into satisfied ones. Packed with real-world examples and practical tips, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to elevate their customer service game. Tune in to transform the way you handle difficult customer interactions!
Tom Laird’s 100% USA-based, AI-powered contact center. As the only outsourcing partner on the NICE CXone Customer Executive Council, Expivia is redefining what it means to be a CX tech partner. Learn more at expiviausa.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back everybody to another episode of
Advice from a Call Center Geekthe call center and contact
center podcast where we try togive you some actionable items.
Take back in your contactcenter, improve the overall
quality, improve the agentexperience.
Hopefully we can improve yourcustomer experience as well.
My name is Tom Laird.
I am the CEO of XpeviaInteraction Marketing.
We're about a 500, 600-seatcontact center outsourcer
(00:22):
located here in the U S of a.
Also the CEO and founder ofauto QA, where we're fully
automating contact centerquality assurance scoring using
AI.
I think this is episode 226,which is pretty awesome.
Started way back in 2018.
Quick ask for anybody again,love for you to follow the
(00:44):
podcast, but if there's anyreviews, especially if you're
listening on Spotify, on Googleor especially on iTunes.
We haven't had any reviews fora little bit, so I'd love to if
you guys have positive, negative, anything you want to say.
Love to have you guys.
You know, just kind of give mesome of your thoughts.
What do you like, what do younot like?
Love to get some feedback fromsome of you guys, but we've been
(01:06):
so focused on technology, on AI, that again I want to get away
from it a little bit and kind of, I think in a weird way, talk
about what we need to do to kindof survive the kind of the
context that needs to survivekind of this AI world right, and
what is AI not great at right?
It's not great at dealing withirate customers, it's not great
(01:28):
at empathy.
You know there's a lot of kindof you can tell the kind of
fakeness of it.
So I think one of the things,especially for us being a USA
contact center we are a littlebit more expensive than anything
near shore offshore we have tohave really good techniques to
deal with different customerscenarios right, dealing with
that irate customer that callsin and happens, you know, not as
(01:50):
much as you would think.
Most of it if somebody goesirate, it's probably happening
actually on the call and it wasan agent mistake.
That's something that we've,you know, seen throughout all of
our consulting and working witha lot of contact centers.
So I want to give you kind offive techniques to utilize in
your contact center to trainwith your agents.
(02:12):
These are my five favorite.
We always talk to kind of ourfrontline supervisors on kind of
getting some of their ideas.
So these five have kind of Ithink three of them have come
from supervisors actually in ourteam.
I think two of them are minethat I've kind of always kind of
.
I think three of them have comefrom supervisors actually in
our team.
I think two of them are minethat I've kind of always kind of
brought up with the first oneand kind of the last one.
But I think, you know, theseare things that we talk with our
(02:33):
agents through.
These are kind of some of thetools that we're giving our
agents right so that they candeal with, you know, somebody
who's maybe not being a jerkright, but just is not happy and
is maybe taking it out on theagent right.
The first thing and I thinkeverybody kind of knows this and
we kind of talked this throughis you know the customer is not
(02:53):
mad at you, right.
If you're the agent right, youhave to have kind of this kind
of Teflon shield thatunderstands they're mad about
the situation that they're in,right, and so your job is to try
to help them through that.
And I think the cool thingabout I don't go say the cool
thing about an IRA customer, oneof the unique things about
having dealing with an IRA orreally angry customers that
(03:14):
there's a huge opportunity thereto gain loyalty right.
If you handle that well and weall know the best customer
support agents right, they canturn these really difficult
customers into almost ravingfans at the end, like I see it
all the time here at Expedia, wehave just some people that have
been here so long, they do sucha good job with it and that's
(03:35):
almost worth more than kind ofthe customer.
That's just kind of calling inand you handle their situation.
But when you have that, youknow that really irate customer
and you totally turn them around.
You know there's a little bitof loyalty that I think kicks in
with the company because, wow,they have somebody here that is
really willing to help me andobviously from a support
standpoint that's going to help.
(03:55):
So let's get into some of these.
There are no particular orders,so it's not like one is better
than five.
They're all kind of differentscenarios depending on what is
happening with the customer,what is happening with the car,
and let me say this, to live onFacebook, live on TikTok, live
on LinkedIn.
So if you have any questions,if you disagree with me, if you
have something you want to add,I will.
Anybody who comments that hassomething worthwhile.
(04:17):
You know we'd love to talk withyou.
And again, any questions, anycomments, please shoot them out
and I promise you I will get tothem.
If there's anything, that'scool, all right.
So the first one I kind of callit the empathy bridge, right,
I'm a huge realistic empathy guy, but I think empathy is the
(04:38):
most overused and way to tickoff customers with fake empathy,
right, that's the tool that canbe the best or the worst, right
?
We call it false hustle, rightthe whole.
I'm really sorry to hear that,mrs Smith.
That kind of thing where you'rejust kind of going through the
motions, you know that canalmost make a customer a little
(04:59):
bit more right, that scriptedempathy, right.
So you know we want to dothings of not just show empathy
but then bridge it right to anaction, right, how are we going
to look to fix this customer?
And I have a bunch of I wrotedown a bunch of examples here
too.
So if you see me kind ofreading or looking off, that's
kind of what I'm doing because Iwant to make this kind of as
(05:22):
actionable as possible.
So again, taking that empathythat you are, oh my gosh, I
can't believe this happened toyou, right.
But then, hey, this is whatwe're going to do now.
Right, that does a really goodjob of kind of de-escalating,
because you're not just kind ofsaying you're sorry, but you're
giving kind of an option to thecustomer to say, hey, listen, if
(05:44):
you kind of roll with me here,we're going to get through this
and I'm going to be able to helpyou.
So, again, expressing empathyfor the customer situation,
immediately following up with anaction.
So, again, like if the customersays, you know, hey, you know
I've been overcharged for thelast three months.
Nobody seems to care.
And then, you know, the agentcan be like you know, mrs Smith,
I can hear the frustration inyour voice.
(06:06):
I'm sure that these overchargesare something that I can look
at.
First, let me pull up youraccount.
Second, you know, we'll take alook at those charges and if
there's anything that I can do,it'll be three to five business
days and we'll be able to getthem taken off.
(06:29):
Right, but again, let's startwith the process.
You know, can I have your name?
Blah, blah, blah, right, andkind of going through that.
That's pretty obvious.
Right, that's not, like, youknow, rocket science, but we
still don't do that.
Right, we've scripted ouragents to do so many dumb things
, right, that we've kind oftaken away some of the humanness
of this and trying to get thehumanness back to the customer
experience Again.
So that bridge empathy, I loveit.
It's one of the best ways right, making sure you're going right
(06:51):
into how you're going to helpthe customer after you kind of
give a legitimate and a humanempathetic statement that
actually correlates.
And if you're using the sameempathetic statement for every
single one, that's not human,that's a robot, right.
So let's make sure that we'renot just saying I'm really sorry
to hear that, oh my gosh, Ifeel so bad for you, like all of
those things.
Like actually talk, like you'retalking to one of your friends,
(07:14):
right, and then boom, you canthen roll into how do you help?
All right.
The next one Now, this is adifferent technique and some
people may disagree with this.
The next one Now, this is adifferent technique and some
(07:36):
people may disagree with this.
But if you've been in thecustomer support industry and if
you've taken calls, you knowthat customer that just is
hammering you, right, but theykeep saying the same thing over
and over and over again, right,they're kind of not really
progressing.
They're just venting Right,just venting right.
So you know, we have atechnique called the
interruption buster, right, andwhat we'll do is we'll let the
customer who's kind of going offon a tangent, we'll let them
vent for, you know, 60 to 90seconds, right, let them get it
all out, right, and most of thetime that's kind of how we start
(07:57):
all this, right, we're activelylistening and the customer's
going on.
But once we see this goes onfor a minute, 45 seconds, they
keep repeating themselves.
Right, we're going to gentlyinterrupt them, which normally
you would never talk over acustomer, right?
And I'm not saying you're like,hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a
minute, right, we're not sayingthat, but just like, kind of, as
(08:19):
we go to this 45 seconds, youknow, and just think about, like
the customer that she's justyou know, or he's just you know,
hammering you and just sayingthe same thing over and over and
same thing over and over, andjust be like hey, mr Johnson, mr
Johnson, mr Johnson, hey, Idon't mean to interrupt you,
right, but but I, I totally hearwhat you're saying, I
understand exactly what you'resaying.
So here's the problem that youdo to make sure I can help you
(08:41):
as efficiently as possible.
Can I just ask you a couplequick questions and let's start
the process of getting thisfixed right?
So, again, that interruptionkind of it almost shakes them.
If you're doing itappropriately, they then think
you're going to say somethinglike dumb, right.
They think that you're going tobe like you'll come at them or
(09:01):
be mad.
But you're not right.
What you're doing then isyou're saying you're kind of
shocked them into listening toyou and then you're going to go
down and be like I totallyunderstand You're kind of using
that empathetic statement.
I hear you kind of reiteratingwhat they've said and then get
them on the process where you'reback in control of the call
right, and getting them to aresolution that is, you know,
(09:24):
good for you, good for them.
However, that's going to goright.
I really like that right.
It's not for every single callright.
It's for specific types ofcalls that you know, when a
customer just again, like we'vesaid, they're going off, let
them go off, but they're notmoving the conversation right.
So you need to take control ofthat situation.
Take control of the call again,right, gently interrupt them
(09:49):
but then reiterate that theirfeelings right and then get them
on a path where they can kindof move on, really like that,
but it's for a specific kind ofsituation or kind of role.
I mean, all of these I reallylike, like I think all these are
really great techniques to use.
You know the third one wereally like, like I think all of
these are are are really greattechniques to to use.
You know the third one we callit kind of the ownership
(10:09):
approach, right, and.
But with most situations thathappen when you have a, this is
another kind of situation.
When you have a customer thatcalls in that says I've called
in, this is the fifth time, thisis the fourth time, you know,
you have not been able to helpme.
This company's terrible blah,blah, blah.
When I hear that, that's when Ikind of want to use the
(10:32):
ownership approach, right,because their big hesitation now
is that I'm not going to beable to help them, that I'm
going to pass them off tosomebody else, right, and you
start to use I statements andagain, I think I have a really
good script for this, so let mejust hear me out on this.
So again, customers like this isthe fifth time I've called,
nobody's helping me, right?
(10:54):
So, mr Johnson, I want you toknow that I'm going to
personally called.
Nobody's helping me, right?
So, mr Johnson, I want you toknow that I'm going to
personally personally takecharge in reviewing this
situation.
I'm going to personally takethis and try to get us to the
end.
You know, first, what I'm goingto do is I'm going to ask you a
couple of questions, right, andthen I'm going to pull up your
account, right, and then you andI together are going to kind of
work this through.
(11:14):
But I promise you you know, oneway or another I'm going to get
to that.
We'll get to the bottom of this, right.
That's a huge relief becausetheir main you actively listen
to their main issue, right, andagain, their main issue used to
be this problem with, maybe, theproduct or the service, but
it's now.
That's not their main issue.
(11:34):
Their main issue is they needto be heard.
They don't think they're beingheard.
They think they're being leftout in the rain, right, and they
don't know who's going to helpthem, because they've tried
multiple times and they havefailed.
So again, there's other issueswith that If that's happening in
your call center for adifferent podcast.
But if you're that agent, Ithink that's when you can kind
of go into these, you know, gomore into the I statements and
(11:58):
make that customer feel like youare there, you are the one
person right out of all of themthat's going to come in and
they're going to help.
So, again, different situationsfor all of these, but I think
that's a really cool kind of onefor that Number four, number
(12:20):
five, kind of the same, but Ithink they have a little bit of
nuance, right?
So again, we kind of call itthe reframing technique, right?
So you know, when a customer islike you know your company is
terrible, you know I've beenusing the software for weeks, it
absolutely stinks.
And then you kind of reframe,right?
So you heard they've been usingthis for weeks, right?
So, hey, you know, mr Johnson,I understand you've been using
(12:43):
our software for a couple ofweeks.
I guess it looks like there'ssome real issues here.
So let's break this down.
Right, you said it's thesoftware.
So you know what specificallyare you having trouble with,
right?
So you kind of listen, listen.
Again, most of this stuff isactively listening.
We have trained not to go.
I'm going to go off on a littlebit of a Drew.
(13:03):
Opinions on enterprise phonesystem, cisco versus Genesis.
I promise you I will get tothat.
Let me get to these four andfive.
And that's a great question.
Let me, I'll throw that at theend.
So most of the number one skillin the contact center space that
we don't really talk about isactively listening, right, did
you actually listen to what thecustomer said?
(13:24):
Right, most we have trainedactive listening out of um, out
of the agent.
We've given them and, and, and,even if you're not using a
scripted response, you'rebasically telling them how to
respond with empatheticstatements.
And then they pick these fourout of a hat.
We've trained the actualtalking to a human being out.
(13:44):
And when you actively listen in, here there's a software issue
it's been for the last couple ofweeks and you can then take
just that little basic part andjust reframe it.
One.
It shows that you're activelylistening to the customer.
They feel like, okay, they'rebeing heard.
And second of all, now you'reback in the driver's seat, a lot
of this is call control, right.
When you let the customer justkind of go and go and go and go,
(14:06):
you lose control of the calland then the customer who's
angry and kind of probably nottotally in their I don't want to
say right mind, but they'reagitated, right, they could say
things that maybe they don'talways mean.
Or if you kind of take thatcall control back right, there's
a lot of things again that youcan then calm that customer down
.
The last one I really like toothis was mine too, and it's
(14:31):
almost like you're Jedi mindtricking, right, jedi mind
tricking a customer with I kindof call it the calm questioning
method, where you just kind ofcome at them with a really soft
voice and you start asking thema ton of questions, right, so
you want to take them off, butagain obviously relevant, like
relevant to their problem.
So you know, hey, to help meunderstand your situation, mr
(14:54):
Johnson, I hear that you'reirritated.
Let me see how I can help you.
I just got a couple quickquestions, right, and if you can
help me with this, I guaranteeyou I can help you with the
problem that you're having right, and they'll say fine, go ahead
.
Right, you're like okay, whendid you first notice this
problem?
Okay, three weeks ago.
That was the problem.
Okay, have you been receivingany error messages?
(15:18):
Is there anything that we canlook at with that?
Okay, no, all, right, now, Inoticed.
You said that you already triedthis to fix the problem.
You turned it off and turned itback on, so I'm not gonna ask
you that question.
That was one of the things, butwe can skip from there, right.
And again, what are you doing?
You're controlling theconversation, right.
You're asking questions thatyou need to have answered, right
(15:39):
, but maybe even asking somethings that you don't need
answered, just to kind of calmthem down.
I think that's a pretty cooltechnique.
Again, calm questions.
So you're using calm, measuredquestions that are relevant to
the problem, getting them tokind of get off that they were
mad, getting them on the trackthan that, all right, if I give
this information, I'm going toget actually some help, and I
(16:01):
think you know that's when youget at the end, like hey, I
wasn't mad at you, right, I wasmad at this and you've been
amazing and you really helped me, right.
That's kind of the end resultthat we're looking for.
I think that's important.
Let's just talk quickly aboutthings that you learned you
shouldn't do, right.
So agents should never say theyor we, right, we's okay, I'm
(16:21):
sorry, like they, right, liketalking about that, the company
is separate from them, right?
That instantly causes a lot ofissues that kind of come up.
We always want to be hey, wewill.
Mr Smith, we will really tryand then use a lot of I
statements.
I'm going to really help youwith this.
You know, we want you to behappy.
We don't want to be like youdon't want to be like, well,
yeah, that's what they've beendoing, that's, that's their
(16:41):
policy, right?
Things like that are not good,right?
So you don't want to do that.
You know the whole interruptionof a customer.
I know we've kind of talkedabout that one use case.
But it's OK if you let them gofor a little bit.
Right, it's OK if you, if youlet them rant, but don't start
to get irritated and talk overthe customer.
That will never end well andmaybe it makes you feel good for
(17:05):
that one half a split second,but it's never going to end
where the customer is happy andthen you're just going to get
irritated, you're going to sayprobably something stupid.
So it's kind of just keepingyour demeanor understanding that
there's Teflon around you.
They're not mad at you, theyactually need you to help them.
And again, the really goodcustomer service agents can kind
(17:28):
of stay out of that kind ofnegative frame of reference.
The other thing that I like isto try to kind of mirror how
they're talking, right.
So, again, if you have somebodywho's a little bit slower I
don't want to say slower, butI'll say older right, and they
speak a little bit slower, right, you have to kind of mirror
their issues and how they'retalking with how you're talking,
(17:50):
right.
So if they're super, super slowand you're kind of going crazy
fast, you know things don'talways go well.
So I think you know thingsdon't always go well.
So I think you know that themirroring aspect is cool.
And then the other thing is youknow, if I had technique six,
you know we would be talkingabout, kind of, you know,
starting like whoa, mr Smith, Ihear you, right?
(18:10):
And then slowly lowering yourvoice, right, mr Smith?
Nope, you know what I'm goingto.
We're going to take care ofthis right now.
Let me just ask you somequestions.
I think we can get to thebottom of this.
I can help you here.
Right?
So, starting your voice alittle bit higher and then kind
of just lowering it, you'remeeting their energy and then
(18:30):
you're lowering it, which thenmakes them lower their energy a
lot of times.
I think that's kind of numberfive and a half or six as a
technique.
The last thing that I will sayis no customer service agent has
to be berated.
No customer service agent hasto be sworn at If it gets to the
point where a customer is justbelligerent, right.
(18:54):
There's a difference betweenbeing mad at a situation and
then becoming personal, right,and saying things that are
inappropriate, right.
So for us and I tell all of ourclients here in our outsource
and it happens, I don't knowonce in two months, right, it
almost never happens, right, andif it does, we'll make sure we
have it all written up.
(19:14):
But if somebody is sobelligerent, so berating they're
just swearing, right, then wewill have our agent say Mr Smith
, or Mrs Smith, listen, no onecan be talked to that way.
I'm here to help you.
If you do continue that, I'mgoing to have to disconnect the
call and then no one's going tobe able to help you.
So let's calm that down.
If they're like, still go Fyourself, you dumb, blah, blah,
(19:35):
blah, then we actually willdisconnect the call, right?
No one deserves to be berated.
No customer is worth, you know,having that done to you.
So you know, I think it'sextreme situations, right, and
then again, that needs to bedocumented.
People need to know, remember,everything that you do as a
customer service agent is beingrecorded right.
So you might as well just kindof use some of these techniques,
(19:58):
try to make sure that you'reyou're putting your best foot
forward with all these customersand I think you know a lot of
good things can happen to you.
And and again, most customersare pretty cool, like literally
most of them.
They, they, they really don'twant to be calling in, right, so
(20:24):
you know they want to getthrough this as quickly as
possible.
They understand where you guysare going.
So, yeah, I think that you knowthere there's some things with
that.
So, again, if you guys have anyquestions on that, I really like
this topic.
I think, when we talk aboutactionable items to bring back
into your contact center, thisis a huge.
This is a huge topic that not alot of people are good at.
They don't really know what todo with it.
It's not educated and trainedproperly in the contact centers
of what to do with irate people,depending on the different
situations, and so, again, Ithink this is what makes us
(20:46):
pretty cool here at Xpevia aswell, right, we will, you know,
go through a lot of this stuffwith agents and ongoing training
, to make sure that you knoweverything that we're doing is
is good thanks.
So again, if there's no morequestions I'll ask.
I'll answer some of thesethings that you guys had here.
(21:07):
Um, so, opinions this is aquestion from drew opinions on
enterprise phone systems, ciscoversus genesis.
Well, the first thing withcisco is they really don't have
a cloud offering, right, mostthing that Cisco has is on-prem.
It's a little bit moredifficult.
It's a great platform, but Ithink, you know, they have been
(21:29):
kind of moved ahead of with thenice, with the Genesis, with the
five nine, just from the cloudaspect.
Right, they're not really knownfor their cloud product.
I think Genesis for mepersonally it goes Genesis or,
I'm sorry, it goes nice CX one,and then I think it's Genesis
and maybe just a hair back isfive nine, right.
(21:49):
And then we kind of talk aboutthe dial pads, the talk desks,
the U jets, kind of the Amazonconnect, all of those.
So if, if I was a customer, orif I was, if I was consulting
for you, drew, and you saidhere's my two choices, we would
talk about on-prem versus cloud.
If you're going on-prem, Ithink that's crazy.
I would tell you that Genesysis the better platform.
(22:11):
Now they have more options whenit comes to not just the ACD,
but looking at workforcemanagement analytics, getting
into the AI space easier to dointegrations with, and just the
ACD but looking at workforcemanagement analytics, getting
into the AI space right, easierto do integrations with, and
just the overall platform iseasier to use when you know.
Sometimes with Cisco you almostneed to be a freaking genius
right Programmer to kind of doit.
(22:32):
Edwin, thanks, I know it's thebig clock.
I get comments on it all thetime, so appreciate that.
Yeah, and it doesn't work rightnow either.
So it's just such a pain in therear to change the battery and
the battery goes pretty quickly.
So, all right, guys, any otherquestions?
Tiktok guys, linkedin Iappreciate everybody kind of
joining Again.
(22:52):
I think I want to do more ofthese kind of things.
I'm getting really kind ofbored with the AI.
Bored is not the right word,but overwhelmed with just
completely talking about AI.
There's only so much.
You know where we are right nowuntil we see another kind of
huge breakthrough.
You know I've done so manytechnology deals.
Oh, sorry, drew, he's a Ciscoguy, but again, I don't think
(23:17):
there's any bad platforms outthere.
Right, it's just what is theuse case for you?
What do you need it for?
But I would just say, everybody, you got to go to the cloud.
I would never, ever, ever, getan on-prem solution, especially
as you're moving kind of to thisAI space.
But again, thanks guys.
(23:38):
I guess that's it.
No more questions.
I appreciate everybody.
Hopefully this was helpful.
We'll be on next week again.
Any topics, anything that youguys want to hear, we have a.
You know I've got a couple ofthings I want to speak about,
but if there's anything that Ican help you or add value to you
, please, you know, hook me up,dm me, let me know.
And again, if you need to justeven have a one-on-one talk, we
(24:00):
can talk.
Or if you want me to do anepisode on some larger topic,
love to help you guys as well.
Thank you everybody.
Have a good one.
Welcome back everybody to another episode of
Advice from a Call Center Geekthe call center and contact
center podcast where we try togive you some actionable items.
Take back in your contactcenter, improve the overall
quality, improve the agentexperience.
Hopefully we can improve yourcustomer experience as well.
My name is Tom Laird.
I am the CEO of XpeviaInteraction Marketing.
We're about a 500, 600-seatcontact center outsourcer
(00:22):
located here in the U S of a.
Also the CEO and founder ofauto QA, where we're fully
automating contact centerquality assurance scoring using
AI.
I think this is episode 226,which is pretty awesome.
Started way back in 2018.
Quick ask for anybody again,love for you to follow the
(00:44):
podcast, but if there's anyreviews, especially if you're
listening on Spotify, on Googleor especially on iTunes.
We haven't had any reviews fora little bit, so I'd love to if
you guys have positive, negative, anything you want to say.
Love to have you guys.
You know, just kind of give mesome of your thoughts.
What do you like, what do younot like?
Love to get some feedback fromsome of you guys, but we've been
(01:06):
so focused on technology, on AI, that again I want to get away
from it a little bit and kind of, I think in a weird way, talk
about what we need to do to kindof survive the kind of the
context that needs to survivekind of this AI world right, and
what is AI not great at right?
It's not great at dealing withirate customers, it's not great
(01:28):
at empathy.
You know there's a lot of kindof you can tell the kind of
fakeness of it.
So I think one of the things,especially for us being a USA
contact center we are a littlebit more expensive than anything
near shore offshore we have tohave really good techniques to
deal with different customerscenarios right, dealing with
that irate customer that callsin and happens, you know, not as
(01:50):
much as you would think.
Most of it if somebody goesirate, it's probably happening
actually on the call and it wasan agent mistake.
That's something that we've,you know, seen throughout all of
our consulting and working witha lot of contact centers.
So I want to give you kind offive techniques to utilize in
your contact center to trainwith your agents.
(02:12):
These are my five favorite.
We always talk to kind of ourfrontline supervisors on kind of
getting some of their ideas.
So these five have kind of Ithink three of them have come
from supervisors actually in ourteam.
I think two of them are minethat I've kind of always kind of
.
I think three of them have comefrom supervisors actually in
our team.
I think two of them are minethat I've kind of always kind of
brought up with the first oneand kind of the last one.
But I think, you know, theseare things that we talk with our
(02:33):
agents through.
These are kind of some of thetools that we're giving our
agents right so that they candeal with, you know, somebody
who's maybe not being a jerkright, but just is not happy and
is maybe taking it out on theagent right.
The first thing and I thinkeverybody kind of knows this and
we kind of talked this throughis you know the customer is not
(02:53):
mad at you, right.
If you're the agent right, youhave to have kind of this kind
of Teflon shield thatunderstands they're mad about
the situation that they're in,right, and so your job is to try
to help them through that.
And I think the cool thingabout I don't go say the cool
thing about an IRA customer, oneof the unique things about
having dealing with an IRA orreally angry customers that
(03:14):
there's a huge opportunity thereto gain loyalty right.
If you handle that well and weall know the best customer
support agents right, they canturn these really difficult
customers into almost ravingfans at the end, like I see it
all the time here at Expedia, wehave just some people that have
been here so long, they do sucha good job with it and that's
(03:35):
almost worth more than kind ofthe customer.
That's just kind of calling inand you handle their situation.
But when you have that, youknow that really irate customer
and you totally turn them around.
You know there's a little bitof loyalty that I think kicks in
with the company because, wow,they have somebody here that is
really willing to help me andobviously from a support
standpoint that's going to help.
(03:55):
So let's get into some of these.
There are no particular orders,so it's not like one is better
than five.
They're all kind of differentscenarios depending on what is
happening with the customer,what is happening with the car,
and let me say this, to live onFacebook, live on TikTok, live
on LinkedIn.
So if you have any questions,if you disagree with me, if you
have something you want to add,I will.
Anybody who comments that hassomething worthwhile.
(04:17):
You know we'd love to talk withyou.
And again, any questions, anycomments, please shoot them out
and I promise you I will get tothem.
If there's anything, that'scool, all right.
So the first one I kind of callit the empathy bridge, right,
I'm a huge realistic empathy guy, but I think empathy is the
(04:38):
most overused and way to tickoff customers with fake empathy,
right, that's the tool that canbe the best or the worst, right
?
We call it false hustle, rightthe whole.
I'm really sorry to hear that,mrs Smith.
That kind of thing where you'rejust kind of going through the
motions, you know that canalmost make a customer a little
(04:59):
bit more right, that scriptedempathy, right.
So you know we want to dothings of not just show empathy
but then bridge it right to anaction, right, how are we going
to look to fix this customer?
And I have a bunch of I wrotedown a bunch of examples here
too.
So if you see me kind ofreading or looking off, that's
kind of what I'm doing because Iwant to make this kind of as
(05:22):
actionable as possible.
So again, taking that empathythat you are, oh my gosh, I
can't believe this happened toyou, right.
But then, hey, this is whatwe're going to do now.
Right, that does a really goodjob of kind of de-escalating,
because you're not just kind ofsaying you're sorry, but you're
giving kind of an option to thecustomer to say, hey, listen, if
(05:44):
you kind of roll with me here,we're going to get through this
and I'm going to be able to helpyou.
So, again, expressing empathyfor the customer situation,
immediately following up with anaction.
So, again, like if the customersays, you know, hey, you know
I've been overcharged for thelast three months.
Nobody seems to care.
And then, you know, the agentcan be like you know, mrs Smith,
I can hear the frustration inyour voice.
(06:06):
I'm sure that these overchargesare something that I can look
at.
First, let me pull up youraccount.
Second, you know, we'll take alook at those charges and if
there's anything that I can do,it'll be three to five business
days and we'll be able to getthem taken off.
(06:29):
Right, but again, let's startwith the process.
You know, can I have your name?
Blah, blah, blah, right, andkind of going through that.
That's pretty obvious.
Right, that's not, like, youknow, rocket science, but we
still don't do that.
Right, we've scripted ouragents to do so many dumb things
, right, that we've kind oftaken away some of the humanness
of this and trying to get thehumanness back to the customer
experience Again.
So that bridge empathy, I loveit.
It's one of the best ways right, making sure you're going right
(06:51):
into how you're going to helpthe customer after you kind of
give a legitimate and a humanempathetic statement that
actually correlates.
And if you're using the sameempathetic statement for every
single one, that's not human,that's a robot, right.
So let's make sure that we'renot just saying I'm really sorry
to hear that, oh my gosh, Ifeel so bad for you, like all of
those things.
Like actually talk, like you'retalking to one of your friends,
(07:14):
right, and then boom, you canthen roll into how do you help?
All right.
The next one Now, this is adifferent technique and some
people may disagree with this.
The next one Now, this is adifferent technique and some
(07:36):
people may disagree with this.
But if you've been in thecustomer support industry and if
you've taken calls, you knowthat customer that just is
hammering you, right, but theykeep saying the same thing over
and over and over again, right,they're kind of not really
progressing.
They're just venting Right,just venting right.
So you know, we have atechnique called the
interruption buster, right, andwhat we'll do is we'll let the
customer who's kind of going offon a tangent, we'll let them
vent for, you know, 60 to 90seconds, right, let them get it
all out, right, and most of thetime that's kind of how we start
(07:57):
all this, right, we're activelylistening and the customer's
going on.
But once we see this goes onfor a minute, 45 seconds, they
keep repeating themselves.
Right, we're going to gentlyinterrupt them, which normally
you would never talk over acustomer, right?
And I'm not saying you're like,hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a
minute, right, we're not sayingthat, but just like, kind of, as
(08:19):
we go to this 45 seconds, youknow, and just think about, like
the customer that she's justyou know, or he's just you know,
hammering you and just sayingthe same thing over and over and
same thing over and over, andjust be like hey, mr Johnson, mr
Johnson, mr Johnson, hey, Idon't mean to interrupt you,
right, but but I, I totally hearwhat you're saying, I
understand exactly what you'resaying.
So here's the problem that youdo to make sure I can help you
(08:41):
as efficiently as possible.
Can I just ask you a couplequick questions and let's start
the process of getting thisfixed right?
So, again, that interruptionkind of it almost shakes them.
If you're doing itappropriately, they then think
you're going to say somethinglike dumb, right.
They think that you're going tobe like you'll come at them or
(09:01):
be mad.
But you're not right.
What you're doing then isyou're saying you're kind of
shocked them into listening toyou and then you're going to go
down and be like I totallyunderstand You're kind of using
that empathetic statement.
I hear you kind of reiteratingwhat they've said and then get
them on the process where you'reback in control of the call
right, and getting them to aresolution that is, you know,
(09:24):
good for you, good for them.
However, that's going to goright.
I really like that right.
It's not for every single callright.
It's for specific types ofcalls that you know, when a
customer just again, like we'vesaid, they're going off, let
them go off, but they're notmoving the conversation right.
So you need to take control ofthat situation.
Take control of the call again,right, gently interrupt them
(09:49):
but then reiterate that theirfeelings right and then get them
on a path where they can kindof move on, really like that,
but it's for a specific kind ofsituation or kind of role.
I mean, all of these I reallylike, like I think all these are
really great techniques to use.
You know the third one wereally like, like I think all of
these are are are really greattechniques to to use.
You know the third one we callit kind of the ownership
(10:09):
approach, right, and.
But with most situations thathappen when you have a, this is
another kind of situation.
When you have a customer thatcalls in that says I've called
in, this is the fifth time, thisis the fourth time, you know,
you have not been able to helpme.
This company's terrible blah,blah, blah.
When I hear that, that's when Ikind of want to use the
(10:32):
ownership approach, right,because their big hesitation now
is that I'm not going to beable to help them, that I'm
going to pass them off tosomebody else, right, and you
start to use I statements andagain, I think I have a really
good script for this, so let mejust hear me out on this.
So again, customers like this isthe fifth time I've called,
nobody's helping me, right?
(10:54):
So, mr Johnson, I want you toknow that I'm going to
personally called.
Nobody's helping me, right?
So, mr Johnson, I want you toknow that I'm going to
personally personally takecharge in reviewing this
situation.
I'm going to personally takethis and try to get us to the
end.
You know, first, what I'm goingto do is I'm going to ask you a
couple of questions, right, andthen I'm going to pull up your
account, right, and then you andI together are going to kind of
work this through.
(11:14):
But I promise you you know, oneway or another I'm going to get
to that.
We'll get to the bottom of this, right.
That's a huge relief becausetheir main you actively listen
to their main issue, right, andagain, their main issue used to
be this problem with, maybe, theproduct or the service, but
it's now.
That's not their main issue.
(11:34):
Their main issue is they needto be heard.
They don't think they're beingheard.
They think they're being leftout in the rain, right, and they
don't know who's going to helpthem, because they've tried
multiple times and they havefailed.
So again, there's other issueswith that If that's happening in
your call center for adifferent podcast.
But if you're that agent, Ithink that's when you can kind
of go into these, you know, gomore into the I statements and
(11:58):
make that customer feel like youare there, you are the one
person right out of all of themthat's going to come in and
they're going to help.
So, again, different situationsfor all of these, but I think
that's a really cool kind of onefor that Number four, number
(12:20):
five, kind of the same, but Ithink they have a little bit of
nuance, right?
So again, we kind of call itthe reframing technique, right?
So you know, when a customer islike you know your company is
terrible, you know I've beenusing the software for weeks, it
absolutely stinks.
And then you kind of reframe,right?
So you heard they've been usingthis for weeks, right?
So, hey, you know, mr Johnson,I understand you've been using
(12:43):
our software for a couple ofweeks.
I guess it looks like there'ssome real issues here.
So let's break this down.
Right, you said it's thesoftware.
So you know what specificallyare you having trouble with,
right?
So you kind of listen, listen.
Again, most of this stuff isactively listening.
We have trained not to go.
I'm going to go off on a littlebit of a Drew.
(13:03):
Opinions on enterprise phonesystem, cisco versus Genesis.
I promise you I will get tothat.
Let me get to these four andfive.
And that's a great question.
Let me, I'll throw that at theend.
So most of the number one skillin the contact center space that
we don't really talk about isactively listening, right, did
you actually listen to what thecustomer said?
(13:24):
Right, most we have trainedactive listening out of um, out
of the agent.
We've given them and, and, and,even if you're not using a
scripted response, you'rebasically telling them how to
respond with empatheticstatements.
And then they pick these fourout of a hat.
We've trained the actualtalking to a human being out.
(13:44):
And when you actively listen in, here there's a software issue
it's been for the last couple ofweeks and you can then take
just that little basic part andjust reframe it.
One.
It shows that you're activelylistening to the customer.
They feel like, okay, they'rebeing heard.
And second of all, now you'reback in the driver's seat, a lot
of this is call control, right.
When you let the customer justkind of go and go and go and go,
(14:06):
you lose control of the calland then the customer who's
angry and kind of probably nottotally in their I don't want to
say right mind, but they'reagitated, right, they could say
things that maybe they don'talways mean.
Or if you kind of take thatcall control back right, there's
a lot of things again that youcan then calm that customer down
.
The last one I really like toothis was mine too, and it's
(14:31):
almost like you're Jedi mindtricking, right, jedi mind
tricking a customer with I kindof call it the calm questioning
method, where you just kind ofcome at them with a really soft
voice and you start asking thema ton of questions, right, so
you want to take them off, butagain obviously relevant, like
relevant to their problem.
So you know, hey, to help meunderstand your situation, mr
(14:54):
Johnson, I hear that you'reirritated.
Let me see how I can help you.
I just got a couple quickquestions, right, and if you can
help me with this, I guaranteeyou I can help you with the
problem that you're having right, and they'll say fine, go ahead
.
Right, you're like okay, whendid you first notice this
problem?
Okay, three weeks ago.
That was the problem.
Okay, have you been receivingany error messages?
(15:18):
Is there anything that we canlook at with that?
Okay, no, all, right, now, Inoticed.
You said that you already triedthis to fix the problem.
You turned it off and turned itback on, so I'm not gonna ask
you that question.
That was one of the things, butwe can skip from there, right.
And again, what are you doing?
You're controlling theconversation, right.
You're asking questions thatyou need to have answered, right
(15:39):
, but maybe even asking somethings that you don't need
answered, just to kind of calmthem down.
I think that's a pretty cooltechnique.
Again, calm questions.
So you're using calm, measuredquestions that are relevant to
the problem, getting them tokind of get off that they were
mad, getting them on the trackthan that, all right, if I give
this information, I'm going toget actually some help, and I
(16:01):
think you know that's when youget at the end, like hey, I
wasn't mad at you, right, I wasmad at this and you've been
amazing and you really helped me, right.
That's kind of the end resultthat we're looking for.
I think that's important.
Let's just talk quickly aboutthings that you learned you
shouldn't do, right.
So agents should never say theyor we, right, we's okay, I'm
(16:21):
sorry, like they, right, liketalking about that, the company
is separate from them, right?
That instantly causes a lot ofissues that kind of come up.
We always want to be hey, wewill.
Mr Smith, we will really tryand then use a lot of I
statements.
I'm going to really help youwith this.
You know, we want you to behappy.
We don't want to be like youdon't want to be like, well,
yeah, that's what they've beendoing, that's, that's their
(16:41):
policy, right?
Things like that are not good,right?
So you don't want to do that.
You know the whole interruptionof a customer.
I know we've kind of talkedabout that one use case.
But it's OK if you let them gofor a little bit.
Right, it's OK if you, if youlet them rant, but don't start
to get irritated and talk overthe customer.
That will never end well andmaybe it makes you feel good for
(17:05):
that one half a split second,but it's never going to end
where the customer is happy andthen you're just going to get
irritated, you're going to sayprobably something stupid.
So it's kind of just keepingyour demeanor understanding that
there's Teflon around you.
They're not mad at you, theyactually need you to help them.
And again, the really goodcustomer service agents can kind
(17:28):
of stay out of that kind ofnegative frame of reference.
The other thing that I like isto try to kind of mirror how
they're talking, right.
So, again, if you have somebodywho's a little bit slower I
don't want to say slower, butI'll say older right, and they
speak a little bit slower, right, you have to kind of mirror
their issues and how they'retalking with how you're talking,
(17:50):
right.
So if they're super, super slowand you're kind of going crazy
fast, you know things don'talways go well.
So I think you know thingsdon't always go well.
So I think you know that themirroring aspect is cool.
And then the other thing is youknow, if I had technique six,
you know we would be talkingabout, kind of, you know,
starting like whoa, mr Smith, Ihear you, right?
(18:10):
And then slowly lowering yourvoice, right, mr Smith?
Nope, you know what I'm goingto.
We're going to take care ofthis right now.
Let me just ask you somequestions.
I think we can get to thebottom of this.
I can help you here.
Right?
So, starting your voice alittle bit higher and then kind
of just lowering it, you'remeeting their energy and then
(18:30):
you're lowering it, which thenmakes them lower their energy a
lot of times.
I think that's kind of numberfive and a half or six as a
technique.
The last thing that I will sayis no customer service agent has
to be berated.
No customer service agent hasto be sworn at If it gets to the
point where a customer is justbelligerent, right.
(18:54):
There's a difference betweenbeing mad at a situation and
then becoming personal, right,and saying things that are
inappropriate, right.
So for us and I tell all of ourclients here in our outsource
and it happens, I don't knowonce in two months, right, it
almost never happens, right, andif it does, we'll make sure we
have it all written up.
(19:14):
But if somebody is sobelligerent, so berating they're
just swearing, right, then wewill have our agent say Mr Smith
, or Mrs Smith, listen, no onecan be talked to that way.
I'm here to help you.
If you do continue that, I'mgoing to have to disconnect the
call and then no one's going tobe able to help you.
So let's calm that down.
If they're like, still go Fyourself, you dumb, blah, blah,
(19:35):
blah, then we actually willdisconnect the call, right?
No one deserves to be berated.
No customer is worth, you know,having that done to you.
So you know, I think it'sextreme situations, right, and
then again, that needs to bedocumented.
People need to know, remember,everything that you do as a
customer service agent is beingrecorded right.
So you might as well just kindof use some of these techniques,
(19:58):
try to make sure that you'reyou're putting your best foot
forward with all these customersand I think you know a lot of
good things can happen to you.
And and again, most customersare pretty cool, like literally
most of them.
They, they, they really don'twant to be calling in, right, so
(20:24):
you know they want to getthrough this as quickly as
possible.
They understand where you guysare going.
So, yeah, I think that you knowthere there's some things with
that.
So, again, if you guys have anyquestions on that, I really like
this topic.
I think, when we talk aboutactionable items to bring back
into your contact center, thisis a huge.
This is a huge topic that not alot of people are good at.
They don't really know what todo with it.
It's not educated and trainedproperly in the contact centers
of what to do with irate people,depending on the different
situations, and so, again, Ithink this is what makes us
(20:46):
pretty cool here at Xpevia aswell, right, we will, you know,
go through a lot of this stuffwith agents and ongoing training
, to make sure that you knoweverything that we're doing is
is good thanks.
So again, if there's no morequestions I'll ask.
I'll answer some of thesethings that you guys had here.
(21:07):
Um, so, opinions this is aquestion from drew opinions on
enterprise phone systems, ciscoversus genesis.
Well, the first thing withcisco is they really don't have
a cloud offering, right, mostthing that Cisco has is on-prem.
It's a little bit moredifficult.
It's a great platform, but Ithink, you know, they have been
(21:29):
kind of moved ahead of with thenice, with the Genesis, with the
five nine, just from the cloudaspect.
Right, they're not really knownfor their cloud product.
I think Genesis for mepersonally it goes Genesis or,
I'm sorry, it goes nice CX one,and then I think it's Genesis
and maybe just a hair back isfive nine, right.
(21:49):
And then we kind of talk aboutthe dial pads, the talk desks,
the U jets, kind of the Amazonconnect, all of those.
So if, if I was a customer, orif I was, if I was consulting
for you, drew, and you saidhere's my two choices, we would
talk about on-prem versus cloud.
If you're going on-prem, Ithink that's crazy.
I would tell you that Genesysis the better platform.
(22:11):
Now they have more options whenit comes to not just the ACD,
but looking at workforcemanagement analytics, getting
into the AI space easier to dointegrations with, and just the
ACD but looking at workforcemanagement analytics, getting
into the AI space right, easierto do integrations with, and
just the overall platform iseasier to use when you know.
Sometimes with Cisco you almostneed to be a freaking genius
right Programmer to kind of doit.
(22:32):
Edwin, thanks, I know it's thebig clock.
I get comments on it all thetime, so appreciate that.
Yeah, and it doesn't work rightnow either.
So it's just such a pain in therear to change the battery and
the battery goes pretty quickly.
So, all right, guys, any otherquestions?
Tiktok guys, linkedin Iappreciate everybody kind of
joining Again.
(22:52):
I think I want to do more ofthese kind of things.
I'm getting really kind ofbored with the AI.
Bored is not the right word,but overwhelmed with just
completely talking about AI.
There's only so much.
You know where we are right nowuntil we see another kind of
huge breakthrough.
You know I've done so manytechnology deals.
Oh, sorry, drew, he's a Ciscoguy, but again, I don't think
(23:17):
there's any bad platforms outthere.
Right, it's just what is theuse case for you?
What do you need it for?
But I would just say, everybody, you got to go to the cloud.
I would never, ever, ever, getan on-prem solution, especially
as you're moving kind of to thisAI space.
But again, thanks guys.
(23:38):
I guess that's it.
No more questions.
I appreciate everybody.
Hopefully this was helpful.
We'll be on next week again.
Any topics, anything that youguys want to hear, we have a.
You know I've got a couple ofthings I want to speak about,
but if there's anything that Ican help you or add value to you
, please, you know, hook me up,dm me, let me know.
And again, if you need to justeven have a one-on-one talk, we
(24:00):
can talk.
Or if you want me to do anepisode on some larger topic,
love to help you guys as well.
Thank you everybody.
Have a good one.
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