Angry Customers
Training Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) to handle angry and abusive customers is a tough challenge. Effective communication with an angry customer requires a combination of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. As a part of our training session, we use this rapid roleplay activity.
Objectives
Conduct an effective conversation with an angry customer.
Time
40 minutes.
Flow
Brief the participants. Explain that all participants will alternate between team discussions and one-on-one roleplays to increase their ability to conduct an effective conversation with an angry customer.
Form groups. Divide participants into two equal groups and identify them as Group A and Group B. If one group has an extra person, make her an observer or you join the other group so both groups have equal number of participants. Place different colored dots on the nametags (or foreheads) of members of each group to make it easy to identify the group to which each participant belongs.
Get ready. Ask members of the two groups to move to opposite sides of the room. Ask members of Group A to take on the role of a frustrated customer and brainstorm a set of provocative statements, questions, and demands. Give examples such as these:
This is the fifth time I am trying to get someone to fix my problem.
Your salesman cheated me. He did not tell me that I have to buy a monitor separately.
I don't like your attitude. Can I talk to your supervisor? I am not leaving until I talk to someone who cares.
At the same time, ask members of Group B to take on the role of CSRs and brainstorm effective statements for defusing an angry customer and empathic reactions to provocative statements.
It's clear that you are frustrated. Let's try to reduce your frustration by solving your problem.
You are right. It's our fault and let's get it straightened up.
Sir, I am sorry you feel that way. If you insist, I am can set up an appointment for you to talk to my supervisor tomorrow. We can save your time by fixing your problem right now.
Announce a 3-minute time limit.
Conduct the first rapid roleplay. After 3 minutes, blow the whistle. Explain that you are going to conduct a series of one-on-one conversations between an angry customer and a CSR. Ask each participant to pair up with a member of the other group. Explain that the person from Group A will initiate an angry conversation by asking a question, making a provocative comment, or demanding an outrageous concession. The person from Group B will respond to it in a calm and empathic fashion to defuse the hostility. The two people will continue their conversation.
Also explain that once every minute you will blow the whistle. Participants must stop the conversation immediately (even if it is in the middle of something) and pair up with a different member of the other group. Instruct them to begin another angry conversation with this new person.
Blow the whistle to start the first conversation. Blow the whistle once every minute or so. Conclude the activity at the end of about 5 minutes.
Getting ready for role changes. Explain that participants are going to switch their roles and conduct more rapid roleplays. Before doing that, invite everyone to get ready for their changed roles by reflecting on what they experienced during the first round.
Ask members of Group A to think back on what happened during the earlier one-on-one conversations. What did the CSR do to listen empathically, focus on solving the problem, and reduce the level of hostility? What best practices can you borrow from your interactions when you are playing the role of the CSR?
Ask members of Group B to think back on the provocative statements and sarcastic questions used by the angry customers. When you play the role of an angry customer during the next round, what kinds of hostile statements and questions can you come up with?
Invite participants to work with members of their group to get ready for the next round of rapid roleplay. Announce a 3-minute time limit for this preparation activity.
Conduct the second rapid roleplay. Explain that you are going to conduct another series of rapid roleplays as before with the same rules but with different roles: Members of the Group B will pair up with members of Group A. Group B members will initiate the angry conversation. Group A members will respond to it in a calm, reassuring, and business-like fashion. Whenever you blow the whistle, participants will stop the conversation and pair up with a different member of the other team.
Blow the whistle to start the first conversation. Blow the whistle once every minute or so to change partners. Conclude the activity at the end of 5 minutes.
Conduct a debriefing discussion. Thank everyone for their enthusiastic participation. Invite the participants to discuss what they learned from the two rapid roleplay sessions. Ask them to forget all about making provocative, angry, and sarcastic comments. Instead, focus on the techniques for disarming angry customers.
Get the discussion rolling with these types of open-ended questions:
What are some of the techniques and statements that worked effectively for defusing and calming down an angry customer?
Let's focus on different types of statements used with angry customers. Empathic statements demonstrate your understanding and sympathy. Can you give some examples of empathic statements?
How do empathic statements help you in dealing with an angry customer? When will you use this type of statement?
Apologetic statements involve regretting personal inconvenience—without accepting unrealistic responsibility for the situation. Can you give some examples of apologetic statements?
How do apologetic statements help you in dealing with an angry customer? When will you use this type of statement?
Reassuring statements promise specific action on your part. Can you give some examples of reassuring statements?
How do reassuring statements help you in dealing with an angry customer? When will you use this type of statement?
Limit-setting statements prevent the angry customer from abusing you and making unreasonable demands. Can you give some examples of limit-setting statements?
How do limit-setting statements help you in dealing with an angry customer? When will you use this type of statement?
What are some common elements among different types of statements?
When you listened to angry statements from the customer, how did you react to them? How would you have reacted if this were a real-world situation?
Did you observe the behaviors of the angry customer—or did you absorb them? Did you take the customer's rude behavior personally? How would you have felt about these types of customer behaviors in a real-world situation?
What one piece of advice would you give to an inexperienced CSR who is worried about her ability to handle an angry customer?
Reaction Envelopes
Stephanie Ruder, one of our readers who is a coach and a trainer living in Switzerland, recently sent me an email about the importance of people taking personal responsibility. Here's an adaptation of the Envelopes framegame that Stephanie may find useful in helping her participants explore this important concept.
Purpose
To explore alternative reactions to everyday hassles.
30-90 minutes
Supplies
· Hassle Envelopes. Write a common hassle on the front side of an envelope. (Example: Stuck in a traffic jam.) Prepare as many different envelopes as there are teams.
· Response cards. Four index cards for each team.
· Pens or pencils
· Timer
· Whistle
Organize participants. Divide participants into 4 to 6 teams of 3 to 7 members. Teams should be approximately the same size.
Brief participants. Explain the concept of taking personal responsibility. Although we cannot control what is happening in the real world, we can change our reactions to the event. For example, when we are stuck in a traffic jam with cars crawling at a very slow speed because of a highway accident, we can use the slowed-down pace to make telephone calls to our friends. The secret is to stop feeling like a victim and change our beliefs and assumptions and find some meaningful opportunity in the situation that confronts us.
Create some examples. Ask participants to brainstorm alternative reactions to getting stuck in traffic. Follow up by asking participants to give other examples of everyday hassles. Take one of them and challenge participants to generate positive reactions to these negative events.
Distribute the supplies. Give one hassle envelope and four index cards to each team.
Conduct the first round. Ask team members to discuss the hassle on the envelope they received and to identify how they could respond to it in several different positive ways. Tell team members to write short sentences describing these reactions on an index card. Announce a time limit of 3 minutes and encourage the teams to work rapidly. Explain that the teams' reaction cards will eventually be evaluated in terms of both the number and the quality of the positive alternatives.
Conclude the first round. After 3 minutes, blow the whistle and announce the end of the first round. Ask each team to place its reaction card (the index card with its positive alternatives) inside the envelope and pass the envelope, unsealed, to the next team. Warn the teams not to open the envelope they receive.
Conduct the second round. Ask teams to read the hassle on the envelope they received, but not to look at the alternatives listed on the reaction card inside. Tell the teams to list positive alternatives related to the hassle on a new reaction card. After 3 minutes, blow the whistle and ask teams to place the response card inside the envelope and pass it to the next team.
Conduct more rounds. Conduct two more rounds of the game using the same procedure.
Conduct the evaluation round. Start the fifth round just as you did the previous rounds. However, tell teams that they do not have to write any more positive alternatives to the hassle specified on the front of the card. Instead, teams must evaluate and synthesize the four reaction cards inside the envelope. They do this by reviewing the different cards, selecting the top five positive alternatives, and writing them on a flip chart paper.
Debrief the participants. Assemble participants back in their seats. Invite them to briefly comment on the patterns among the positive alternatives. Also ask them to discuss the similarities that can be found among positive alternatives related to different hassles. Ask the participants to identify the hassle for which it was the most difficult to come up with suitable alternatives.
Carry out follow-up activities. Collect all the envelopes and cards for use as examples during future sessions.
Adjustments
Not enough time? Announce tight time limits. For example, allow only two minutes for each round. Play only two rounds of the game before conducting the evaluation round. Eliminate the evaluation round. After evaluation, proceed directly to debriefing.
Too few players? Conduct the game among individual players. All you need is a group of three participants. If necessary, play the game twice, using two different sets of hassle envelopes.
Too many players? Divide the large group of participants into three or more subgroups. Have each subgroup divide itself into teams and play the game in a parallel fashion.
Buying Happiness
If you can spare me 10 minutes, I'd like to conduct a thought experiment with you. If you like the activity, you can conduct it with your own participants. Because it is a thought experiment, you can use it with groups of any size since each participant in the group will be working independently.
Experiment 1
Imagine this situation: I give you $50 (or 40 Euros, or 2500 Indian Rupees, 500 South African Rands, 60 Swiss Francs, 35 British Pounds, or an equivalent amount in your local currency) to spend it any way you like. The only stipulation is that you have to spend the entire amount on yourself.
Think what you would do with the money.
After you have decided what to do with the money, answer these two questions:
1. How happy would you feel as a result of spending the money according to your decision? Use a 10-point rating system in which 1 is not happy and 10 is intensely happy.
2. How long will your happiness last? A few minutes, few hours, few days, …?
Experiment 2
Same scenario, but with a minor twist: I give you $50 (or its local equivalent) with the stipulation that you have to spend the entire amount on someone else.
Think how you would spend the money.
After you have decided, answer the same questions:
Debrief
Compare the intensity and duration of happiness in the two cases. Is there a difference? If so, in which direction? Why?
Some people claim that money cannot buy happiness. Is this true in your case?
Some people claim that money can buy happiness as long as you spend it on others. Is this true in your case?
Learning involves asking questions and giving answers. So does training.
Traditionally, instructional designers, teachers, trainers, facilitators, and subject-matter experts are the ones that ask the questions. Learners and participants answer questions in order to reinforce their learning. After they answer the questions, they usually get feedback and remedial instruction.
When you think about it, the ability to ask deep, penetrating, and provocative questions is an essential component of all problem-solving and communication skills. So we need to train our participants to ask questions as much as we train them to answer questions.
In our approach to training, we blend questioning and answering. We require and reward participants to ask questions. We train them to ask different types of questions. We show our admiration for participants' questions by immediately incorporating them in a variety of learning activities.
To help participants in their question asking task, we supply them with templates for different types of questions. For example, we give them a checklist for constructing valid multiple-choice questions. We give them examples of multiple-choice items that emphasize the use of plausible alternatives. We also give them examples of questions that are based on authentic scenarios. At the end of a training session, we ask teams of participants to come up with a couple of scenario-based multiple-choice questions. These teams exchange the questions they created and critique them by using the checklist. We find that this activity strengthens the participants' mastery of the training topic. It also provides us with a pool of valid test items for the assessment of future students.
Here's another technique that we frequently use: At the beginning of a training session, we ask participants to come up with a set of questions based on their limited knowledge and unlimited curiosity. We use these questions as a rapid needs analysis for structuring presentations by subject-matter experts.
One more technique for using participant-generated questions: At the end of a training session, we ask participants to come up with left-over questions for subject-matter experts. We use these questions (and answers from experts) to create online FAQs and to incorporate them in various follow-up activities.
During a training session, we frequently ask participants to generate different types of review and application questions. We incorporate them in a variety of quiz games and activities.
Of course, all our training involves preparing participants to answer a variety of questions related to the recall and application of the principle and procedures related to the training topic.
In addition, we help participants improve their answers in several different ways:
We encourage participants to improve the quality of their responses. We give them a checklist of quality standards that require the answers to be accurate, complete, unique, up-to-date, succinct, credible, clear, and memorable. We encourage participants to review their own responses (and the responses of each other) and revise them.
We ask participants to give answers in a variety of formats: orally, in writing, and in a graphic mode. We force participants to give their answers in a variety of lengths, from a single word to a lengthy essay. We also challenge participants to slant their answers to appeal to different audiences (Examples: How would you explain the Grand Unified Theory to a six year old? How would you explain human performance technology to your grandparents?)
Whenever appropriate, we encourage participants to provide more than one acceptable answer rather than the single correct answer.
Here's a question for you to answer: How else could we blend and use participants' questions and answers to make our training more interesting and effective?
Strength Envelopes
Recently, I completed a Reflected Best Self (RBS) activity that involved a dozen people sending me emails with their perceptions of my strengths. This is an effective activity that helps participants to identify—and leverage—their strengths.
You can learn more about this activity by reading “How to Play to Your Strengths” by Laura Morgan Roberts, Gretchen Spreitzer, Jane Dutton, Robert Quinn, Emily Heaphy, and Brianna Barker (Harvard Business Review, January 2005).
Here's a faster face-to-face activity that I created by combining RBS, the Envelopes framegame, and the Psychic Massage closer. I recently conducted this activity with several intact work teams to help them discover and share individual strengths and to increase their engagement by structuring their jobs around these strengths.
To create a verbal self-portrait that incorporates your strengths (as perceived by your colleagues).
Participants
Any number of people who work together (for example, members of an intact work team) organized into playgroups of 5 to 9 members.
Allow 5 minutes per each member of the playgroup for the group activity and 15 minutes for the individual activity.
Example: If the playgroup has 7 members, the group activity will require 35 minutes. The individual activity will require 15 minutes.
Handout
· Player's Instructions (including the list of strengths)
Supplies and Equipment
· Envelopes
· Writing paper
· Countdown timer
Brief the players. Organize participants into playgroups and ask each group to sit around a table. Explain that the object of this activity is to identify the strengths of each individual member of the group as perceived by his or her colleagues. Also explain that the activity has two phases: The first one takes place in groups and the second one is completed by individuals.
Distribute supplies. Give a copy of Player's Instructions to each participant. Also distribute a blank envelope and several sheets of blank paper to each participant.
Clarify the steps of the activity. Explain that all instructions for the participating in the activity are included in the handout. Ask participants to skim through the handout to understand the flow of the activity. After a suitable pause, invite participants to ask questions about the activity and provide brief answers. Reassure the participants by announcing that you will be circulating around to help with any problems during the activity.
Begin the group activity. Tell participants to begin by writing their names on the envelope and passing it to the person on the left. Set the timer for 3 minutes and ask participants to write the strength statements. Assist any participant who requires additional clarification. At the end of 3 minutes, blow the whistle and ask participants to fold the statement and place it in the envelope (without sealing the envelope).
Conclude the group activity. Ask participants to repeat the procedure outlined in the handout. Continue timing each round. When the envelopes make their way to the participants whose names are on the envelopes, announce the end of the activity.
Assign individual activity. Ask participants to pick up their envelope, retire to a convenient location, read the strength statements, and process the information by following the instructions given under “Individual Activity” in their handouts. Ask them to spend at least 15 minutes on this activity. Thank the participants and send them on their way.
CIA
Here's what the three letters of the acronym stand for: constructive, immediate, and active. Whenever someone shares some news about positive things that happened to her, react constructively, immediately, and actively. This strengthens your relationship and makes both of you happy. To learn more about this approach, read the handout at the end of the game instructions.
Strengthen your relationships by capitalizing on the good things that happen to your friends.
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