Imagine your next phone call is from an angry, irate customer, and you’ve only got a few seconds to gain control. Are you 100% confident you can handle it? If not, I’ve got the perfect […]
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Tag: De-escalation Strategies
Take Challenging Customers From a Boil to a Simmer Using the Reframe Method (Step 2 of My De-escalation Strategy)
When you need to pre-empt an escalation in aggression with a customer, reframe the conversation using the three steps politicians and CEOs use for damage control and to control the message.
Explain:
The One Word That Makes Customers Accept Your Word As Final
If you say “because” when you’re telling a customer something, you’ll significantly increase the chance that they’ll accept your word as final.
Here’s Why Saying “Because” Works
Research by psychologist Ellen Langer found that saying “because” and then tossing out a reason as insignificant as a discarded rubber band got people to agree. In her research, Ellen created a scenario where a person wanted to cut in line to use a copier in a library, and the request was made in three different ways:
1. “Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?”
60% of the time this question worked, and the person was able to cut in line.
2. “Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”
This absurd reason worked 93% of the time.
3. “Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”
Pleading with urgency, even with a ludicrous need, upped the success rate to 94%.
Using the “because” tactic can increase the chances of a customer accepting your word as final. I teach and role-play this strategy in my de-escalation workshops.
Here’s all you have to do to use the “because” tactic for de-escalation.
Three Proactive Things You Can Do to Pre-empt an Escalation with a Customer
Tomorrow morning I’m headed to Phoenix to deliver a workshop at the Salesforce Trailblazers for the Future Conference. I booked an extra night at the Arizona Biltmore because I wanted some “me time” for relaxation and reading. I do this often, adding a day or two to a business trip to chill, explore, and enjoy local restaurants. Do you take time just for yourself?
Before I wrap things up in my office today and prepare for tomorrow’s early flight, I’m sharing with you three things you can do to pre-empt an escalation with a customer. These tips will help you handle interactions to significantly minimize the chance of a customer becoming so incensed that they feel they have to talk to a supervisor.
1. Reflect Your Brand Promise
One of my clients is a furniture protection plan company. A point of upset for many of their customers is when they discover that the damage to their furniture is not covered under warranty. Customers get intensely agitated because they feel what they purchased is not the same as the service they receive. I encouraged agents in this company to reflect the brand promise in every interaction. I had them focus on explaining first what the protection plan covered and then quickly going over a few of its many benefits.
Instead of merely telling the customer that their damage was not covered, I instructed agents to say something like,
“You have an excellent plan here. It covers such things as scratches and broken pieces. In this case, we do not cover discoloration of the leather, as fading is a natural occurrence that comes from body oils and usage. If anything else should come up, though, please give us a call, and we’ll be happy to look into things for you.”
Reflecting the brand promise, in this situation, is reminding the customer of the many benefits the protection plan does offer and by serving customers with a friendly demeanor.
2. Don’t Push
De-escalate Your Most Demanding and Challenging Customers In 3 Steps
In a few weeks, I’ll be delivering my popular 3-Step De-escalation Workshop at Customer Contact Week in Las Vegas. Attendees in my session will learn precisely how to de-escalate with extremely challenging customers. If you’re in the Las Vegas area on June 21, check out my course and please say hello to me before or after the workshop.
Today I’m giving you a preview of the three steps I’ll be sharing in-depth at the Customer Contact Week Conference. My de-escalation steps are Respond, Reframe, and Resolve.
Step 1: Respond
Do These Three Things to De-escalate Immediately with Customers
I overheard one of my employees saying to an upset customer, “Sir, I work in our corporate office. I had nothing to do with the problem you’re talking about.”
She attempted to get the customer to calm down. But you know what? That didn’t calm the customer. Her words made the customer even more intense.
I pulled my employee aside, and I explained to her that she was escalating the situation with the very words she hoped would get the customer to back down.
The thing is, with de-escalation you have to take action in the present to move toward a calmer state, and toward a solution. You can’t fight fire with fire like my employee was trying to do, you have to be the water that puts the fire out.
De-escalation requires you do three things. You have to create calm with a customer who is agitated; you need to assertively take charge of the situation to pre-empt more intense emotion, and, you must move the interaction forward.
1. Create Calm
3 Expert Tips to Pre-empt an Escalation with a Customer
I remember being a new manager preparing to deliver bad news to a group of executives. I was nervous, fearing I would get questions I couldn’t answer and thinking I’d get slammed in the meeting. My boss, the executive vice president of the company, helped me prepare for the meeting.
“Here’s the strategy you use. You go in there and answer their every question before they even have a chance to ask you anything. This is what politicians, CEOs, and law enforcement officers do in every high-pressure press conference.” And then he walked me through the 3 steps that politicians and CEOs use. We even sat there and role-played in his office.
Three weeks later, I delivered the dim news to a group of 68 executives, all men. And it went well. To my shock and relief, there were no flaring tempers and no questions I couldn’t easily handle. There were very few questions. Using the 3 steps my boss had shared with me, I was able to pre-empt an escalation. Thank God!
Thrilled with the results I got in that meeting, I shared the 3 steps with my employees who worked in customer care. I thought the steps could help them pre-empt escalations with our demanding customers, and they did!
In this article, I’m going to share with you the 3 steps politicians and CEOs use to pre-empt an escalation—the same 3 steps my employees used to successfully pre-empt escalations to supervisors and to pre-empt escalations in aggression. Using these steps, you’ll be able to create calm, prevent an escalation, and be in complete control with demanding customers.
Here are the 3 steps:
Make Sure Your Language Doesn’t Invite Escalation
I blocked off yesterday afternoon to listen to a random sample of recorded phone calls between customer service representatives and customers (patients and providers) for my client. I’m preparing to deliver a full-day De-escalation workshop to this group in a couple of weeks.
One of the things I noticed is that some of the employees have a tendency to use language that opens the door for escalations. It’s unintentional. I’m sure of that. The workers are overwhelmed, if not stressed. Their customers can be difficult. To try to control conversations, provoking language is sometimes used. I hear things like:
3 De-escalation Strategies for Angry Customers
My daughter and I were driving home from church Sunday afternoon. We were in the left hand turn lane behind another car. We had the green arrow, yet the car in front of me hadn’t started to accelerate. The driver behind me laid on the horn something terrible. I actually turned around to look at her. She let up for a second and then honked again. “Ridiculous,” I said to my daughter. In the rearview mirror I saw the lady was giving me the middle finger, all because she assumed I was the holdup at the light.
About the time I got flipped off, the driver in front of me turned left and I followed. The honking profane driver quickly accelerated and then drove side -by-side me. What? Then she literally drove into my lane, nearly hitting me!
I found myself getting heated and frankly, I wanted to cuss. But my daughter was in the car and I had to ensure her safety, as well as my own. So, I had to de-escalate the situation. In my peripheral I could see the lady gesturing at me still. I avoided eye contact, didn’t return the bird gesture and I didn’t even utter words that the driver wouldn’t hear anyway. I slowed down just a bit so that she had to pass me. And then, it was over.
My mistake in this situation was physically turning around and looking at the driver. That enticed the driver to continue and become more aggressive. Fortunately, I’m skilled in de-escalation because I teach de-escalation in my Verbal Aikido training sessions. The moment I realized my error, I moved into de-escalation. My de-escalation tactic in this situation was to avoid eye contact, so not to appear threatening or aggressive, and to choose silence as opposed to profanity. I let it go and the out of control driver was defused, or at least, the situation for me and my daughter was calm.
De-escalation is a strategic tool that your employees can use when they find themselves in a ridiculous situation with an agitated, angry or out of control customer. Not unlike what I experienced in traffic 2 days ago.
De-escalation Training for Customer Service & Soft Skills Training 