Staying Nice....
by Amy
(Pasco, WA)
How do you keep a happy face on even when customers can be really rude?
Answer
Date: December 20th, 2007
You don't.
If someone is really rude to you, why should you be happy about the abuse? Wouldn't it be remarkably unnatural to keep a smiling face, while someone else is rude and insulting?
First, I think that every company should have some sort of "protection clause" for their personnel against customers that "cross the line". What level of abuse is the company and it's employees willing to accept? That's something you need to discuss internally, if this is unclear.
Secondly, if the customer simply needs to vent (assuming there's no real abuse / personal insults like I'm talking about above) you can apply the LEARN principle as outlined in my article How to Handle Customer Complaints.
But when you have an angry customer, I really don't see a need to smile on the outside, if you don't smile on the inside!
At your service,
Erwin.
