1. Don’t make threats. Have you ever said this, “If you don’t calm down, I’m not going to help you.” Or, “If you continue to yell at me, I’m going to have no choice but to terminate this phone call.” If you’ve ever made these, or similar, statements, I’d bet that your sole intent was to regain control of the conversation. But the problem is, your customer perceives this type of language as threatening and it does not make them back down and it does not create calm. Try a phrase like this instead: “I really want to help you, but your tone/language is making it really hard for me to do that.” And then pause for 2-3 seconds to let your words resonate with the customer.
2. Don’t argue. Trust me on this one – you can never win an argument with a customer. Certainly, you can prove your point and even have the last word, In a discussion on the futility of arguing with people, Dale Carnegie once said “you may be right, but as far as changing your customer’s mind is concerned, you will probably be just as futile as if you were wrong.” Your goal in complaint situations is to...