When customers yell at you

In leadership training for a retail banking client, I touched on “customer service.” In every training or seminar I present, I always make it a point to share the philosophy behind why we do what we do. And regularly provide an opportunity for my participants to share with each other their personal customer service horror experiences and the pleasant ones they have encountered. Through this exercise, I get my participants to see themselves as customers, and through this exercise, I get to learn from them their first-hand experiences better than I could ever learn from books. As they work on this exercise, I can see the vivid and disturbing emotions begin to play every time they remember a terrible customer experience they have had. I also see them lighting up, the smiles forming on their faces every time they remember an encounter with someone who rendered excellent customer service.

Here is one testimony from a participant I will never forget. Visibly shaken with emotions, she stood up and said, “One day, a customer came into our branch. He had a problem with another company but needed our help to fix it. He was irate, he was annoyed, and he was angry. The customer went ballistic when I told him we could not work on his problem right away. No matter how hard I explained, telling him patiently that the security procedure needed to secure clearance from the other company before we could help him, this customer wouldn’t listen. He screamed at me; he cursed and cussed and yelled at me. And if this was not enough, he raised his arm, pointed me to his golden bracelet, and said, “do you see this gold bracelet? This costs more than you and your entire personhood and existence. You are worth NOTHING!” With that, he stormed out of the establishment.”

And so, I asked her how she dealt with it. The participant said she stayed calm. She did not fight back. She kept saying, “I’m sorry I cannot help you, but we are doing the best we can.” But when the customer left, she went to the pantry and cried.

As far as I am concerned, this lady is a hero in the drama that took place because of the following reasons:

1.            She kept her cool.

2.            She kept her dignity.

3.            She did not compromise company policy.

4.            She did not blame anyone.

5.            SHE SHOULD BE REWARDED.

And she was. The case reached upper management in HQ, and a special award and recognition was given to her for courageously and professionally handling the situation.

Everyone in the room applauded her. I did too. This is one excellent customer service in action.

Here is the century’s revelation: The customer is NOT always right. (Duh!?)

People involved with tech work like mechanics, engineers, or IT know this very well. The customer is not always right, but it is not our job to prove them wrong. Our job is to serve them well. The more honest among them would realize that they were wrong. The classier among them would apologize. Most would not, but then it’s okay. We have the business, don’t we? In my experience, the same mistaken customers would make it up in other ways.

I am 100 percent sure this verbally abusive customer with the gold bracelet would have later discovered that he was in the wrong, and, losing his temper, he just made a fool of himself.

Whether in a store selling stuff, an insurance company selling policies, or even a bank transacting business, you need to remember that you are not in the retail, insurance or banking business. You are in the people business, and you deal with different kinds of people all the time.

Most people you meet at work are courteous, decent, and pleasant. Consider them your rewards for your work. Unreasonable and ugly monsters like this customer in our story are rare exceptions. Consider them as challenges and tests to hone your people skills. Be calm and be patient. Do not fail the test.

Famous pastor and book author Charles Swindoll says, “Patience is a bitter plant that produces sweet fruit.”

For all of us in business, we need to be patient too. This is because once in a while, we could become ugly monsters too. But now that we know, we should not be.

(Level Up Leadership 2.0 online last run for this year will happen this Oct. 25-27. For inquiries and reservations, contact April at +63928-559-1798 or and for more information, visit www.levelupleadership.ph)