Dealing with Difficult Customers – 
The Most Fun You Can Have at Work
 
Leslie Barden, Chief, Training and Technical Information Section
Customer Services Branch
Center for Information Technology
National Institutes of Health
Building 12A, Room 1011 
Bethesda, MD 20892-5606
LeslieB@nih.gov
voice: (301) 594-3278
fax: (301) 402-7349
Abstract
Responding to angry, annoyed and frustrated users takes a toll on help desk consultants and can be a major contributor to staff burnout and turnover.  Most presentations on this issue have titles like, How to Manage Conflict, Anger & Emotion, and How to Handle Difficult Customers.  Typically they ask you to take control of the call or visit, follow a series of planned steps, and set aside time afterward to recover.  Some of the techniques are useful, and the presentation will take a look at them, but they seem to miss the real joy that dealing with a difficult user can bring.  Joy that can make you look forward to your next upset user and encourage you to seek out unhappy users, even when they aren't complaining.

It helps if you see being a help desk consultant as a "helping profession."  Is the doctor or dentist dismayed when a patient comes in frightened, upset, or crying?  Hopefully not.  Like theirs, ours is a technical field, but also like theirs, our best professionals have not just the right tests and prescriptions, but also the ability to reach through the wall of pain and frustration to convey vital information calmly and confidently so our solutions will be followed, to restore the victim's confidence and, ultimately, to heal.  The greatest surgeon takes the most challenging cases; the greatest lawyer seeks the toughest clients; the saint seeks out the worst slums.  As Mark Sanborn, a customer service motivational speaker says, "Mother Theresa had more fun in the hot stinking slums of Calcutta than we have in our air conditioned offices."

OK, so you're not a saint, and none have walked in asking for jobs on the help desk lately.  Why does the difficult customer make coming to work worthwhile?  Why do you feel re-energized after helping one?  They aren't boring!  They're the ones you remember.  Assisting the twentieth student of the week with a simple printing problem -- that's a source of burnout that will take an entirely different mindset to deal with.  Meanwhile, be grateful to that irate user who snaps you fully awake, presents an interesting psychological challenge, and is often most grateful in the end.

We'll look at techniques, share some war stories, and start looking forward to our next difficult customer.  
Introduction
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I was inspired to write a paper on this topic last September when I attended a session at the Help Desk Institute’s Support Services Conference in Washington.  I was sitting near the front, and the speaker asked, “How many of you enjoy dealing with a difficult customer?”  I raised my hand enthusiastically, expecting that a scattering of others behind me were doing the same.  Then the speaker said, “Oh, just one of you.”

In the lobby, just before this, I had encountered my boss, and we had exchanged the usual “what session are you going to next” pleasantries. When I told him I was going to take a break from the technical papers I had been hearing and go to one on “Dealing with Difficult Customers,” he said, “You could write that paper.”  It turns out he was right.

In January 1994 we opened a new consolidated help desk to serve the 28,000 members of the computing community at the National Institutes of Health.  At that time I made a standing offer to everyone on the help desk that if they had an angry or upset customer, particularly one who would “cost” them something to deal with, they could transfer the call to me.  I would be happy to take it.

Although this makes some of my fellow consultants think I’m a bit strange, they are glad to hand off the occasional call, and the customers benefit too.
  
I have a personal goal that no matter how angry, unreasonable, or aggressive the caller is to begin with, I will get them to calm down, they will know I understand their grievance or problem, and they will thank me before the call is over.  I will do this without giving them more than they could have gotten by being pleasant.
The Basics
Having a good procedure for handling all calls helps when you get to a tough one.

•	Smile as you answer the phone.

•	Identify yourself and your organization.

•	Note their name.

•	Give them your undivided attention.

•	Listen and take notes.

•	Echo important points.

•	Seek the question behind the question.

•	Provide a resolution.

•	Lead them through a solution.

•	Confirm that their problem is resolved.

•	Thank them for calling or respond to their thanks.

•	Complete the call report.

•	Follow up if necessary.
Proverbs for Help Desk Consultants
“Our students are crystal.”

“Our users: they’re why we’re here.  They turn on the lights; they buy the equipment; they pay our salaries.”

“Customers don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” Digital Equipment Company

“Be quick to listen and slow to speak.”

“Speak with words that are soft and sweet, you never know when you’ll have to eat them.”  Will Rogers

“Nobody ever won an argument with a customer.” L.L. Bean.
Putting Stress in Perspective
The literature is rich with advice on what to say to difficult users.  It puts the challenge of help desk work in perspective to contemplate this set of suggestions.
Key Phrases for Police Officers
Many Washington-area law enforcement officers are being trained in the art of “verbal judo” – a way of speaking designed to help reduce the chances of violent confrontation between police and the public.
Useful Phrases
•	What’s the matter?
•	Thank you for your cooperation
•	For your safety and mine…
•	Sir, could you help me please?
•	Be careful – your safety is important to us.
•	Sir, let me help you.
•	I’m sorry to hear that, sir.
•	How can I help you if you keep yelling at me?
•	Work with me, sir…
•	Is there anything I can say to get you to comply with my lawful, legal order?

What Not to Say
•	Come here!
•	Because those are the rules.
•	Calm down!
•	What’s your problem?
•	I’m not going to say this again.
•	I’m doing this for your own good.
•	Why don’t you be reasonable?

Sources: The Verbal Judo Institute, Inc.; “Verbal Judo, the Gentle Art of Persuasion” by George J. Thompson

Retain Emotional Balance
Even though our customers are unlikely to shoot us and many of them are at the other end of a phone line, help desk consultants do suffer from stress and burnout.  Sometimes this is because we have very high standards for ourselves and care a great deal what others think of us.  Karen Eberhardt, author of Managing Stress A Guide for Help Desk Professionals,, describes this as the “hero syndrome” and says it may apply to you if any of the following are true.   

•	You are an overachiever.  You sacrifice all else so you can achieve.

•	You have the need to be in total control at all times.

•	You become so involved in the customer’s problem that it becomes your problem.  You go beyond showing empathy to “owning” the customer’s problem.

•	You feel inadequate, and feel that everyone perceives you the same way.

•	You don’t face the reality of both your strengths and weaknesses.

•	You are overly dependent on the approval and appreciation of other people.

Those with these characteristics are more vulnerable to stress, but they do have the caring and commitment to provide excellent technical customer support.  

On the other hand, some help desk consultants care too little about helping the users and see working on the help desk to be less important than completing a technical project.  They see the customer’s request as an interruption of their work.  Then too, they may take this position to conceal their unease at having to deal with people.

A colleague, whose Myers-Briggs Type Indicator accurately portrays him as a strong introvert, put it this way; “Answering calls on the help desk is the most stressful position in the world.  Anyone can call in any time and ask a question I won’t know the answer to.  Sometimes several people walk in at the same time, and I can’t get to them all right away, and it’s awful.”

An extrovert responded:  “Working on the help desk is the best job in the world.  It’s never boring.  You never know who’s going to call or walk in, and their questions can be about anything.  Sometime several people come in at the same time, and it’s like a party.”

Often help desk staff members are hired for their technical knowledge from a pool heavily loaded with introverts.  Fortunately, the MBTI is not destiny.  In an atmosphere that respects people skills, introverts can learn them; just as people-oriented extroverts can sharpen their technical skills.

In order to deal with a frustrated user without stress, you need to have confidence in both your people skills and technical skills. 

What if there is someone you just can’t work with?  Excessive familiarity, a manner that angers you, someone you can’t respect.  Pass them off to someone else, instantly or refuse to take the handoff.  Everyone is allowed one of these.
How to Help 
When You Aren’t an Expert
•	Listen to the problem before being sure you can’t answer; some users answer their own questions as they explain them.  Others bury a simple problem in an elaborate technical context.

•	Provide help toward the answer.  “Do you have the manual, let’s look that up together.”  For a web or sign-on question, “Let’s do this together.”

•	Hand off in real time.  “I’ll get you someone who can help with that problem.”

•	Refer for a return call.  “I’ve left the message and they should call back this afternoon.  If there’s a problem, I’m Leslie, and you can call me back.”
Special Techniques for 
Talking with Angry Callers
Nancy Friedman, the Telephone “Doctor,”® recommends the following steps:

•	Listen and remember their anger is not personal; they are angry at the problem.

•	Apologize and acknowledge both the message and their feelings in a sincere manner.

•	Sympathize and draw out what happened.

•	Accept responsibility for the problem.

•	Prepare to help, ask questions and convey personal caring.

Apologizing to express sympathy may be harder for men than for women.  Deborah Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand – Women and Men in Conversation, explains her research shows that men generally have an automatic alarm that causes them to instinctively balk at risking a one-down position.  Phrases like the following  from Customer Service for Dummies, when said in a caring manner, can convey the same message:

I can see why you feel that way.
I see what you mean.
That must be very upsetting.
I understand how frustrating this must be.

The upset user wants two things:  first to express their feelings and then to have their problem solved.   Ultimately letting them vent their anger and taking the time to empathize in the beginning saves time since any interruption is likely to start the whole tirade over again.  Taking notes will help you focus on the facts among the emotions and will help you remain cool.  

People who are angry tend to speak faster and to raise both the volume and pitch of their voices.  You can help the caller calm down by keeping the volume of your voice normal, slowing your speech down just a bit, and bringing down its pitch.  This also marks you as being in control of the discussion as well as yourself, and the combative speaker will tend to respond in kind to regain authority.

Some customers use anger as a tool to bully others in to giving them more than they could otherwise get.  Often they are most vociferous when they have an unstated personal reason for making the demand. (They are about to lose their account, go on vacation, apply for a new position, etc.)  If you hold your ground, you will feel better when you discover their motivation.  If you choose to bend the rules for a user, be sure he recognizes a special exception is being made and you get credit for granting a favor.  

Throughout the process, seek to solve the customer’s problem and give him what he needs.  Most of the time, they will thank you, even if what you did was very different from their first request.
Benefit From 
Second Person Syndrome
If you are getting angry yourself or if the call is not going well, perhaps because of a mistake you made earlier, the best thing to do is to ask them to hold for just a moment and hand the call off to a colleague or manager.  Handing off to a peer (after politely getting the caller’s permission) works surprisingly well.   Having the second person call back works nearly as well.  The second consultant has the following advantages:

•	The caller tends to assume that they have been given to someone with more authority.

•	Because of the rehearsal, the caller will give a shorter, more coherent description of the problem.  (Sometimes the caller describes a completely different problem, having seen he was off base initially.)

•	Any personal antagonism the caller has felt toward you will cause him to be much more pleasant to your colleague in order to show how unreasonable you were.

•	Hearing something from a second person often convinces the caller it’s true.

If the call cannot be handed off, sometimes requesting permission urgently and putting the caller on hold for a minute or two gives you both a chance to regroup.  When you return, it lets you begin with a non-compromising apology (I’m soooo sorry, you know, maybe we could  . . .) that may let you progress to a resolution.
Unacceptable Behavior
No help desk should tolerate behavior that goes beyond certain limits. 

Abusive language can be dealt with initially by a firm interjection such as:  “Dr. Important, excuse me, I want to help you, but I cannot permit you to use unprofessional language."  Nearly always, this will result in an apology.  Using the caller’s name and, if appropriate, formal title improves its chances of working.  If not, the call must be handed off, put on hold, or terminated with a statement such as, “I’m sorry, this call cannot continue.”  Any incident that goes this far should be reported immediately to management.

Obviously harassment, threats of violence, etc. should be brought to management’s attention and referred immediately to appropriate authorities.

Conclusion
Well, by now you know why I’m glad to take those transferred calls from difficult customers.  I benefit from second person syndrome.  Most of them are all sweet reasonableness when they get to me.  Also, I do really care about getting them the help they need.  They do nearly always thank me, and the person who handed off the call is always grateful.  It’s a great feeling.  Give it a try.