6 Steps to Managing Unhappy Customers

Clarissa almost hated to hit the “send” button on her monthly statements. She knew from experience that by doing so she would trigger a cascade of unhappy phone calls to the office within 48 hours.

“I’ve already paid my balance! Why do you now say that I owe $45 more?”

“What kind of racket are you running over there! You told me how much my portion would be, and I paid it, and I’m not paying any more because you apparently made some kind of a mistake in your calculations!”

And on, and on, and on it went for days.

Clarissa had never received any training on how to handle difficult or upset patients, and so she did what many people do naturally—she mirrored what she received and responded defensively. She met their indignance, rudeness, and anger with equal measures of her own. She was fighting to win, and truthfully to survive, this monthly onslaught of high emotions.

If you’re in business, you will occasionally (if not frequently) deal with unhappy, disgruntled, or even rude clients. It’s just the nature of the beast when it comes to serving human beings. So, to not train your team for what it inevitable seems careless at best.

Below is a list of what we use to coach teams to effectively dance with disagreement and disgruntled clients:

1. Presence. The most crucial skill to teach your team is that of getting present and emotionally stable very quickly. I find simple physical tricks such as rubbing my forefinger and thumb together or feeling my big toe connect with the ground are unnoticeable to anyone else but ground me in the moment and remind me to breathe and become the stable guide in this conversation. This keeps me from meeting the high emotion with more high emotion and keeps me grounded and emotionally stable so I can respond responsibly instead of reacting emotionally.

2. Listen. Before we launch into our reasons, excuses, reclarification, or redirection, we must listen fully to the client. Hear them out. When they stop speaking, I imagine a balloon that has slightly deflated but likely still has some hot air inside. I “pause, pause, pause” for three beats (5-10 seconds) before saying anything and typically find that the person picks up and continues on, allowing for a fuller deflation of their emotional balloon. I will then have a much better chance of getting to a reasonable solution more quickly. 

3. Reflect. Once you’ve listened until the emotional balloon has deflated, your next step is to make sure they know you’ve heard them before you jump in with your advice or direction. The most compelling reason to do this is to make sure that you have actually heard them correctly. The second reason is to make sure the client feels heard correctly. Summarize and repeat back until (as Chris Voss says in his book, Never Split the Difference) they say, “That’s right.”An example of reflecting back is, “Am I understanding correctly that you feel you were given a complete and accurate payment amount at your appointment which you paid and that would be all that was owed, regardless of what your insurance paid, and now this bill seems like a shock to you?”  (“That’s right!”)

4. Empathy. Reflecting back what you have understood the client’s problem or frustration to be is not the same as expressing empathy. This is a non-negotiable, even (maybe especially) if we think the client is wrong. Expressing empathy is simply communicating that we completely understand their frustration or point of view. It does not mean we agree with it.An example of empathy is, “I can totally understand how frustrating it must be to receive a bill showing a remaining balance when you felt you had already paid what was due.”Both reflection and empathy are experienced as extremely soothing to an overly emotional client. It’s the feeling of being heard and understood, and it paves the way for your next step which is to find a solution and repair and redeem the relationship, if possible. 

5. Solve. Now, you can begin to explore and offer solutions to the problem, but it’s important to do so with extreme clarity. Remember, when people are triggered emotionally, fight or flight is engaged, and they are not always rational in the moment. This is why they frequently misunderstand the options and details. So, it’s important to slow down, be patient, and repeat as necessary.

6. Learn. In Clarissa’s case, because this was a reoccurring event month after month, I suggested that rather than become jaded and bitter about how unaware and unfair patients were every month about their balances, look at how to proactively circumvent the issue to halt it completely. Upon closer examination, there were several junctures where Clarissa could communicate differently with her patients up front to avoid the misunderstandings in the future. Instead of telling patients this was “just an estimate” of their co-pay which they later failed to remember hearing at all, she changed her verbiage to:“Mrs. Jones, I’ve estimated your co-pay to be $300. There is almost always an additional amount remaining after your insurance pays. What would you like me to do once I know what that additional amount is? We could send you a statement, and you could pay at that time, or, if it’s easier, we can keep a credit card on file, charge the amount (under $500) and send you a receipt. Which would you prefer?”When Clarissa and her team used these repeated unhappy patient encounters as a learning experience, they ultimately improved their systems and verbal skills resulting in better experiences and happier patients.

This week, decide to get your team well trained for turning the inevitable unhappy client situations into big business builders.

“Let’s take most of the money we would’ve spent on paid advertising and paid marketing and instead of spending it on that, invest it in the customer experience/customer service and then let our customers do the marketing for us through word of mouth.”

~ Tony Hsieh, Former CEO of Zappos