subject: Inbound Call Center: The Angry Customer! [print this page] Inbound Call Center: The Angry Customer! Inbound Call Center: The Angry Customer!
In a career as an answering service agent, one must have come across angry customers. Such customers leave zero ground for conversation or negotiation. There's nothing much that the inbound call center agent can do when the customer is in blind fury. The cause of the anger may be legitimate or otherwise.
Human psychology will tell you that an angry person always feels that he/she is right and the others are wrong. That is the point that BPO agents have to make use of. You cannot pacify an angry caller with reason or logic. The only way to calm the caller down is to allow him to vent it out. Call center services is a lot about empathizing with the caller. The human bonding must work for the product/service to work.
Empathizing with the caller doesn't mean supporting the views of the caller. As an answering service agent, you cannot speak ill of the company you are representing. Make the caller feel that his/her anger is justified. It may not be so. But to drive this hate call into something positive from the aspect of telemarketing, you have to do this. Inbound call center agents should talk slowly and deliberately when attending angry callers.
A calm voice de-escalates the tension like nothing else. Meeting fire with fire does not solve your problem. Remember that this call is a business proposition for you. A customer leaving the fold is loss to the call center services and the client firm. Deal with the situation with composure.
Open the channels of communication. Answering service agents should always look for a positive dialogue. Ask the customer what exactly made him/her angry. If the caller is blasting the outbound call center team for providing wrong information, go over the details of the deal. Talk it out with the customer to find out where his expectations didn't meet the telemarketing claims.
Once you have heard the person out, repeat what he/she said in your own words. This makes them believe that you have actually heard them out. The primary complaint that callers have against inbound call center agents is that they never hear them out and jump to conclusions. Get that out of the equation when you are handling irate customers.
Ask them for their opinion. Find out what they are expecting. Answering service agents do not have the authority to assure customers about services that they want, if those are not listed on the menu. In such a case, it's the job of the inbound call center agent to make a provision for the angry customer. It's wise to transfer the call to someone who can handle the situation, generally someone in authority.
The most important part here is, you must be prepared to lose the customer. It could be that despite your best efforts, the customer decides to leave and move on. Make the exit points easy for the customer. You can never say if this angry customer has access to your existing customers. Negative publicity takes no time to channel out, like a ripple effect.
