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Dealing With Difficult Customers
Sue Baughman, Organizational Development
Learning Curriculum Team
Difficult (dif-ĭ-kult) adj . 1. troublesome, perplexing.
2. not easy to please or satisfy. (Oxford American Dictionary)
Customer (kus-tŏ-měr) n “the people who receive your work.”
(The Team Handbook)
If you consider the above definitions you will probably begin thinking about a recent
situation where you had an unpleasant experience or seem to be working a cross
purposes with a “difficult customer.” This experience might have been with an external
customer you helped at one of the Libraries' service desks. Or it might have been an
exchange with a colleague that did not go well. What is a difficult customer to you may
not be a difficult customer to someone else but we often describe this type of person as
someone who is angry, passive-aggressive, a complainer, unresponsive,
confrontational, a know-it-all and so forth. No matter how you characterize a difficult
customer, the interaction generally causes discomfort, unease, frustration or stress.
Have you experienced one of these situations?
You are a supervisor and one of the staff you supervise is having difficulty completing
assignments by deadline. You tried to give this staff member feedback and time
management strategies during a recent discussion. The staff member became
defensive and would not speak to you for a week.
You and one of your colleagues have a good working relationship but lately the
colleague has begun to complain about what seems to you to be everything at work -
the job, the organization, the boss, etc. You have tried to help and offer advice.
Nothing is working and you no longer enjoy being around this colleague.
A faculty member complains about not receiving the materials he requested saying
that the staff person "assured me that the materials would be here in a week."
There is a student that frequents the library and it seems as though each time you
help this student you have to repeat the same information over again. Your feeling is
that this student does not want to learn the steps you suggest for doing research. The
questions this student asks are not unlike others you hear but this particular customer
tends to “push your button.”
How do we cope with these situations? At one time or another you may have handled
the interaction is one of these ways:
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Ignore it and hope it goes away.
Stress about it, not sure what to do or say and then possibly make yourself ill
over it. You might even take the chance of losing a friend or colleague
because you don’t do something.
Confront it such a way that the situation becomes worse and escalates into
something else.
A better action is managing any of the situations described above or one that you have
experienced by using a set of steps that will resolve an interaction successfully. This
four-step process can help with those difficult customers. While the steps are described
in linear fashion it may be important to spend more time on one step or move back and
forth between steps. The key is to create a way for you to have a dialogue with that
difficult customer.
1. Inquire . Use active listening skills to solicit information and build an understanding
of what the situation is about. Pay attention to your verbal communication behaviors
such as tone of voice, clarify and paraphrase the customer’s statements, and use
phrases such as “I see” or “Go on” to encourage dialogue. [See the July 18, 2003
Library Matters article, Can You Hear Me Now? ] The nonverbal communication
behaviors are just as important so focus on positive body language that demonstrates
interest in the customer. Behaviors such as crossed arms, pointing, frowning or
scowling are not helpful.
2. Empathize . To show empathy is especially helpful in an emotionally charged
situation. Empathy also helps you demonstrate understanding of the customer’s
feelings. A key strategy in this step is to communicate that you can relate to how this
person is feeling and you do this by using “I” statements such as:
“I appreciate your frustration….”
“I understand you doubt….”
“I share your concern…”
This can also be an opportunity to let the customer know that perhaps you felt the same
way at one time. In the course of your discussion it may be important to express how
this customer’s actions have affected you, again using “I” statements. This will be
particularly true in dealing with the internal customer relationships.
3. Ask Permission . This step focuses on asking the customer if he/she would like to
hear information. This gives the customer some control over the situation in order to
decrease his/her tension. Asking permission questions shows that you are doing your
best to reach a common ground of understanding. Several examples include:
“What information can I provide you?”
“What would be helpful?”
4. Explain or Offer Choices . This is the opportunity to resolve a problem if
appropriate or to offer several actions from which the customer can choose a solution.
It can also be the time for you to explain a policy or procedure in a different way by
adding new information. The key to this step is to move towards a mutually agreed
upon course of action.
“Would it be helpful to you if we….?”
Each of us can identify a “difficult customer.” Human nature wouldn’t have it any other
way. In fact, we may be the cause of the difficulty but find ourselves blaming someone
else. How we handle these situations is critical because they can cause other difficult
situations. We do have control over our own behaviors and using effective
communication skills fall within that realm.
Sources used:
Scholtes, Peter R., Brian L. Joiner, and Barbara J. Streibel. The Team Handbook. Oriel
Incorporated, 1996.
Skinner, Merna L., “Confrontational Communication.” The 2001 Annual: Volume 2,
Consulting. Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2001. [The four-step model is described in this
article.]
Smith, Kitty. Serving the Difficult Customer: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Library Staff .
Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc., 1994.
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