Communicating with Angry Clients
Middle managers spend much of their time discussing work issues with their teams and their supervisors, but perhaps the most difficult communication tasks are those that involve people from outside the organization. I learned during my years working for newspapers and other companies that talking to angry customers is never fun. It was usually the part of the job I dreaded the most. Fortunately, interactions with perturbed clients often weren’t as bad as I expected them to be, and I’ve developed a few tactics over the years to help me work through problems while still having my team members’ backs. I don’t have formal training in customer service, but here are some ideas that have worked well for me when dealing with a client “escalation.” Respond quickly, but take time to prepare . It may seem that these two statements are contradictory, but they aren’t. When you receive a client’s complaint, you should try to get back to them as soon as possible. However, if you’re not rea...