Dealing with Abusive Customers
Dealing with abusive customers was a recent topic on Ryan Carson's blog, and it was one that got a lot of attention from readers. In this post, he chronicled an abusive email exchange with a customer. (Language alert!) The customer in question was apparently unsatisfied with the service and asked, however rudely, for a refund.
As seen in the conversation, Carson kept his cool and in the end routed the fuming ex-customer to the SPAM box:
Hi XXXXXX,As I said, our policy states very clearly that the charges would be made and you agreed to our terms and conditions by checking the box.
If you weren’t so abrasive and rude, I would’ve refunded your money - even though we are under *no* legal obligation to do so.
I am now marking your email address as spam and your communication will no longer get through. If you don’t want to use our service any more, please cancel your account. [...]
Sincerely,
Ryan
I think insurance professionals—especially those running a small agency who may handle their own customer service—can resonate with this post.
- It's difficult to turn away a paying customer
- You don't want to receive any bad word of mouth (which may keep potential clients at bay)
- Your mother taught you well and you err on the side of politeness, even in dire customer service straits.
But the truth is, crabby customers end up costing you more than they're paying for your service. Both in time and stress. And if you're a small business owner, you know these things can affect your bottom line. So when do you cut the cord and say sianara?
As I scrolled through the comments to Carson's post (44 total, last I checked), I took to Luke's strategy: The baseball rule.
"In my own business—we also answer grumpy client mails ourselves—we are only two partners, afterall—and we use (what we call) “the baseball rule” for mails like this. 3 mails and you’re out! If the client can’t understand a situation, or if there is no solution after 3 mails—it’s best to drop it."
Would three strikes work with unruly policyholders? How have you dealt with abusive clients in the past?
[UPDATE 02.20.07]: Did we set a trend? 'Dealing with jerks' blog postings are cropping up all over. Here's a good post today from MarketingProfs.
Comments
I had one of these fellas a while back. He was a disabled gentleman who liked to call for the sake of arguing. The conversations would always turn loud and was often filled with four letter words. Finally when he told me he'd be better off with another agent I agreed and told him his policy would be set to cancel. He called back a couple days later and wanted to say he would be reporting us to the better business bureau then hung up. Using my Dale Carnegie lessons I sent him a short letter outlining our conversation and prefaced it with "thank you for your past business and have a great hunting season" as I knew he was an avid hunter. Nothing was ever submitted to a consumer organization and he got out with his pride intact. Theres no sense in dealing with these people when there are so many other people that value your service.
Posted by: Aaron Wallrich | February 19, 2007 02:58 PM
Great anecdote, Aaron. Thanks for showing us how to remain civilized when you want to be anything but. :)
It's hard to say why some people feel the need to be so aggressive, but the sales community seems to be learning that:
(a) The customer isn't always right
(b) You can say no to people you don't want to work with
It's a pretty validating feeling for the agent, I think. And really, accepting bad behavior from clients just perpetuates it.
This all brings to mind a past post of Seth Godin's, which I touched on here.
Posted by: Megan Mahan | February 19, 2007 04:37 PM
We have a policy that goes like this:
1. Figure out whose fault it is.
2. Find out what the customer expects us to do about it (sometimes they want a refund, but some just want to vent; don't offer money before they ask for it).
3. Sit on it for 24 hours (gives everyone time to calm down).
If it is our fault, we offer to fix the problem in a reasonable manner.
If it wasn't our fault, we point out the customer's options (according to our written policies). You know how children are, you have to give them options: "Would you like to brush your teeth or take a bath first?" We treat our unruly customers like unruly children -- give them two options and let them choose.
We've only had a couple of harassing customers. The key is to waste as little time as possible with them. Don't engage them. Don't try to calm them down. Listen and say, "I will review your issue and respond within 24 hours."
If the customer is being difficul or downright abusive, we offer a 10% refund. This is not too much to bankrupt us but is usually enough to appease them. And we don't have time to waste arguing with customers about our policies. It is cheaper to refund the 10% and move on.
Posted by: Guest | June 5, 2008 02:51 PM