Episode 36 - The Secret Behind Irate Customers

We're back with my sure-fire method of getting a ticked off customer to help you to help them! As is going to be the case with several upcoming episodes, I will be filming the podcast and putting the episodes up on youtube.com/couldhelp

You can watch the video version of this episode here: https://youtu.be/p0zkzmsPdHg?si=kQ4rm7J-7w-I-r9b

Email any advice requests to [e-mail]

Facebook: facebook.com/icouldhelp

Twitch: CouldHelp

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey guys, welcome back to Could Help.

(00:27):
It's been a minute and the Laughing Matters also kind of been a minute.
Thanks to T for going, Hey, you need to make another video.
It's like, I've been so focused on the podcast, man.
I haven't done a video.
How long has it been since I've done a video?

(00:49):
Oh no, wait a second.
I'm hoping for under a year.
I'm not even in my top searches anymore.
Oh no.
Seven months ago.
Apologies.
Anywho had a bunch of stuff I wanted to share with you guys and figured,

(01:11):
let's just get right into it.
And one of the things I think we're going to cover today is going to be customer
service.
Now, I don't know if you work a job like I do actually.
I don't know if you work a job, but if you work a job and you deal with customers,
this, Oh, this could help.
This is Will's guide to customer service.

(01:33):
Now, one of the, Oh, wow.
Okay.
Let's jump.
Sorry.
I had like six pieces of advice run through my head at the same time.
Let's start with the little story about something that happened at a photo lab
that I was working at.
I had this woman come in.
We were two or three minutes before closing and I'd already shut down the

(01:55):
printers.
I'd already shut like everything was shut down.
Like we were going through our closing checklist and she had an important event
tomorrow that she needed to get these wedding photos printed for.
And she was, I mean, she came in hot and huffy and just, just, just nasty to me

(02:17):
the entire time.
And I'm sitting, I'm sitting there going, I don't know, man, let me, let me just
do what I can.
Let's just, let's just do what we can.
And so I booted up the printers, which took about, I don't know, like 15, 20
minutes, cause it has to go through like the self-cleaning process and the idea

(02:37):
and I noticed that she, she was trying to get copyrighted photos and I was like,
do you have the copyright notice?
And she said she had it on her phone.
I was like, I have to have a printed copy of it.
So the compromise that I made was to have her email it to us.
We printed it off on photo paper.

(02:59):
That was a copyright notice and that was used for the copyright permission so
that she could print this legally.
Cause we couldn't print it legally if it didn't have it.
No, no.
So anyways, I went through the step-by-step with her.
I even showed her how to eat, how to order prints and everything so that we
could get it done for real quick.
And we got it all taken care of and she would, again, just nasty throughout

(03:22):
the entire experience.
And then once she had the photos in her hand, she, she just, she stopped and
she, she was just holding them in front of her like that.
And she goes, my husband just died and I'm having a really hard time with it.

(03:44):
The funeral's tomorrow.
These are for that.
I'm sorry.
I acted like that.
And I obviously, I had an emotional reaction to it.
But I was, I was so glad that I'd chosen that Avenue because most of them won't

(04:06):
tell you that most of them won't tell you when they're going through something.
Most of them.
Well, we're trying to bottle it.
We're trying to bottle it and let off a little pressure on some of the less
fortunate workers in the customer service industry or to let it out where we can.
But with all this bottling of it, we don't really explain ourselves to people

(04:28):
that we treat horribly as a result of how we're feeling.
So yes, it absolutely comes down to you never know what somebody else is going
through, you know, everybody else is fighting a battle that you have, you
know, nothing about today.
We're going to talk about irate people.
Now I did quite a long stent doing emergency dispense recently.

(04:50):
And I would deal with the customer right after they'd had their incident,
whatever it was, I had to deal with a lot of people that were in the middle
of it and were afraid and were angry.
And they, they like to put it out on you when dealing with an irate
caller or customer.
One of the most useful tricks that I've found seems to be almost counterproductive.

(05:15):
So frequently we're told that you're here to listen to them, you know, to let
them get it out, but not take it personally and to not show irritation with them.
These are great pieces of advice, except for the last one, maybe the last two.
You see, so often they aren't just looking for validation.
I mean, I suppose in some of what we're about to discuss, there is that

(05:40):
validation that we're going to be talking about.
Because anger spools them up and continues spooling.
And if given the proper circumstances will unleash the horde.
And when you're angry, you tend to do one of three things.
You damp it down until you can deal with it later.
You keep ramping it up until you explode or you manage to redirect

(06:04):
it at somebody else or something else.
And 99.9% of people are angry.
They're angry at something else and 99.9% of cases that I rate
caller or customer is not.
I rate with you coming in there.
I rate with their situation.
They're deflecting it onto you because you are tangible.

(06:27):
You can be yelled at and you can be made to feel for them.
If it bleeds, we can kill it.
To react to their situation, whereas their situation not so much.
It's actually kind of counterproductive.
So it can't validate their anger through their anger getting to

(06:50):
the situation and causing it discomfort.
So it falls upon you as the vessel for the situation.
And I say if you truly want to bring somebody back down from that,
it becomes so much easier.
If you give them a bit of what they want, you know, I'm not saying
that you should tell them to shut up or call them this or that.

(07:13):
I'm saying that let a little bit of that agitation creep into your
smile or into the edges of your voice and you know, take pauses
before speaking and allow them to see that they are putting you
in this unpleasant situation and that you are not having a good
time at all with it, but keep it there.

(07:36):
You know, don't escalate from there.
Do what you can to keep them at that point where they're speaking
down to you, but not where they're abusing you.
If they move to abusiveness, simply go silent and unresponsive.
We want them to be allowed to get a little victory for their
anger, but not in an extreme expense.

(07:59):
And please believe me, I get the concept the whole aversion to
this on the grounds of not wanting to reinforce this behavior
in them and teaching them further that they can get what they
want by acting like this.
But I have a slightly modified view of this because taking the
other direction on this that would be treating the symptoms

(08:22):
instead of the cause.
Why is it that they're behaving in this manner?
And most likely they are in some kind of emotional turmoil as
a result of whatever their current problem may be, or maybe
it's a lack of love in their life or having been betrayed
or treated poorly in their life.

(08:43):
There's something that isn't you that's causing them to turn
into this uglier version of themselves and you, well, you
have this opportunity to remind them that, oh, there's those
of us out there that aren't going to hurt or betray you and
that are receptive to their plight and one more reason in

(09:07):
their life and their experience that shapes their own future
decisions.
One more great example of how good it is when we, you know,
are there for each other when we are that for others. Let them
blow it all out.
It'll be up to your discretion whether or not that kind of

(09:29):
blow-up can be avoided and sometimes it's somebody who cannot
de-escalate until they've blown a good chunk of it out.
But once they have and you're remember you're remaining
silent.
They tend to say one or two things depending on you know,
if this is over the phone or if they're in person if they're
in person, they'll frequently be a pause a little bit before

(09:53):
they say, are you even listening or do you know something
that effect or if they're over the phone, it's typically a
longer pause and you'll hear them say, are you still there?
Now, admittedly this works a lot better over the phone because
you can mute out and they aren't totally certain that you

(10:15):
are still there.
I tend to give them a good two to three seconds before answering
which is just long enough for them to pontificate on the
situation if I had abandoned them or examine on why it is
that someone would hang up on them and maybe are they acting
just still anyways, so then I take a audible breath and say

(10:39):
these magic words in this order too.
I am still here, but I need you to understand that I am going
to do everything in my power to help you.
That is my entire purpose on this call, but I cannot do that

(11:01):
if it is you versus me.
It has to be you and me versus the problem.
Okay.
Now throughout that statement, my voice is deescalating but
still firm and confident at the end with the okay, you know,
okay, it's gentle.
Now, why I've never actually had this fail to work.

(11:24):
I do need to warn you that it is extremely unlikely that
you will get them to respond with okay.
The most common answer I get is, well, what do you need?
Oh, and you're going to hear some venom and they're going
to put some stank on it.
But from that point forward, every single customer I've

(11:47):
used this with has stopped being abusive and stop directing
their anger towards me and that makes all the difference.
You know, they are more of a reluctant ally, I guess, but
if you're kind to them and you genuinely do what you can
to help them from there by the end while they may still

(12:09):
have agitations with the situation, you can't always fix
that and you can't always fix their problem.
But you are now the person that tried to help them and
as a bonus, whichever company you represent in that interaction
gets points for being, you know, trying to help too.
Typically after I give this phrase, I do the absolute shortest

(12:32):
recap that I can, but I always find a way to work in the
standout worst parts of their plight.
You know, it's something like now you've been in an accident.
Your front wheel came off.
You can't move the vehicle under its own power.
You're relatively safe place out of traffic, but the vehicle
is not and you need this all done very quickly as soon

(12:55):
as possible because you have to pick up your dog from school.
Okay, so from here, I'm only going to ask you the absolute
essentials that I have to have in order to get this done
for you.
So let's try to keep the answers short form as well to
keep this moving as quick as we can get it going get you
out of the situation.
That's a win for both of us.
Yeah, that yeah at the end.
Almost universally you get a yeah, and then I move straight

(13:20):
to the next question that I need.
Oh, and here's another little bonus for you.
So I tend to close my calls with a very specific phrasing
that passed off to a few people that I really like.
I do the branding for whatever it is.
Thank you for calling so-and-so, but I kind of rushed through
that a slow down for the more important of the three statements.

(13:41):
Now, I'm going to ask you to listen very carefully to the
way that I space it out because there's this very deliberate
purpose to the way it's spaced out.
All right, here we go.
Well, hey, I just wanted to say thank you so much for giving
us a call at blank today and letting us know that was happening.

(14:02):
And let's just let's just hope the rest of your week goes a
bit smoother from here.
You know, it sounds like it's been rough.
I really love this closer because it pushes aside the corporate
perception of the call.

(14:23):
It speeds up through the almost annoying having to say the
branding at the end and has this human to human interaction
step out in front of it at the end of the conversation and
roughly, I don't know, 75 80% of how you feel about somebody
or a situation with someone is in the in the last interactions

(14:47):
with them and how that made you feel and speeds up through the
almost annoyance of having to say the branding at the end and
then has a human to human interaction that steps out in front
of it.
Not only that, but it's it seems to give them permission.
I think this is the best wording I can get for this, but it
gives them permission to laugh about their situation.

(15:08):
There's only a few times out of the thousands of times I've
used this closer that I didn't hear some kind of laugh or
obvious grin in their voice when they said their last words
on the line with me.
And one of the things that sells it so hard as a human
interaction is giving that pause before the word smoother.

(15:29):
It shows that you're not just reading from a script, but
searching for the right word, even though you and I both
know that you're not.
It also works to do that double take at the beginning of the
whole like and let's just let's just hope that you know, like
that that helps a lot, but putting that little bit of
emphasis on smoother and elongating it a bit and letting

(15:52):
it saturate them.
Same money feet also do not worry.
It's not disingenuous.
Sure.
You are saying something that you had already known you
are going to say that's already scripted out, but it's
not disingenuous.
If you mean it, that's the trick.

(16:14):
You allow yourself to be opened up to their plight.
Imagine how much it would suck to deal with this problem
that they're dealing with.
Imagine this was your problem and remove them from the
situation entirely.
One of the biggest issues people have with empathy and
this is true is how the person that you're supposed to have

(16:37):
empathy for is reacting and behaving in the situation.
It gets in the way.
You don't need that part.
You don't have to have that as a factor.
I'm giving you permission to get rid of that as a factor
because you can get around that whole issue by imagining
that you are having the problem yourself and I'm telling
you it works like gangbusters.
Oh, your your sense of empathy and added bonus to it all.

(17:03):
One more piece of evidence for them to be good to each
other to be good for each other.
And if it makes a strong enough impression, they're going
to be fantastic.
I'm will help.
You're the fantastic you.
Sweet.