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SkillSharpener: Training for the Frontline

Each volume of SkillSharpener: Training for the Frontline comes packed with 19 half-hour interactive training sessions guaranteed to interest your reps and improve their skills.

And, best of all, you don’t have to be a trainer to use these sessions, because each session includes: sample scripts, trainer tips, and training tools like role-play exercises, masters for handouts, quizzes, checklists, group exercises, and more.

Just look at the following sample training session to see how easy it is to use SkillSharpener: Training for the Frontline with your staff:

Handling the angry customer

Trainer Overview

Understanding anger, and the cycle of anger, is necessary in order for your customer service providers to understand how to work with angry customers. This SkillSharpener combines group discussion with role-play, which gives your customer service providers practice in defusing angry callers, and helps them identify techniques that will help them handle the situation better. During this session, participants will: learn about anger; identify methods for calming the angry customer; and practice using those methods through role-play.

Materials Needed

Flip chart easel and pad. Markers for facilitator. Enough 3X5 cards for two cards per role-playing team (to determine number, if your group has 10 or fewer participants, divide total number in group by 2; divide by 3 if your group has more than 10 people).

Trainer: Before the session, prepare two “angry statement” cards, one for role-play 1, one for role-play 2. Make one card for each team; all teams will perform role-play 1 first, then everyone will perform role-play 2. Select from the angry statements below, or write your own.

Angry statements:

“I’ve tried to call you 10 times and haven’t gotten through. Now I’ve been on hold for over five minutes! What’s the matter with you people?”

“You promised me this order would be shipped last week. Now you tell me it won’t be shipped until the end of the month. This is the third time you’ve lied to me!”

“You cut off my service for no reason! I’m talking to my lawyer!”

“Your products are no good! They’re shoddy; they break; they’re just no good!”

Introduction

Trainer: Use these words as is, or adapt them to fit your situation.

The customer may not always be right, but the customer is always the customer, right? And sometimes that customer gets angry.

Today, we’re going to identify what anger is, and learn techniques for managing the angry caller. We’ll also have the opportunity to practice some of these techniques later in the session.

First, let’s talk about anger. Anger is a physiological phenomenon. When a person gets angry, his or her brain receives a signal that something isn’t right. This results in a “flight or fight” reaction — that is, the angry person wants either to run away from or avoid the situation, or fight.

We need to know how to handle both of these reactions to diffuse the call.

When a person gets angry, extra blood is pumped through his/her body, the person becomes flushed, and adrenaline flows. The primitive portion of the brain takes charge, which can keep the angry person from acting rationally, thinking clearly or solving problems.

So our role is to take charge of the situation, to help the angry caller calm down and regain control. Your first impulse (and it’s a natural one) is to fight back, to defend yourself. What happens when we do that? We lose control of the call, and the caller simply becomes angrier.

Instead, we need to focus on letting the customer blow off steam, to listen to what they’re saying, be patient, and never, ever get defensive or angry in return.

Think about the times you’ve talked with an angry customer. What techniques have been successful for you in managing this customer? Think of the words you’ve said, your attitude, your tone of voice — let’s come up with five or 10 different things we can say or do to calm an angry customer down.

Group Excersize

Trainer: On the flip chart, write down the techniques the group identifies. If the group has difficulty getting started, here are some ideas you can use:

• Hear the customer out. Listen to what he or she has to say, indicating concern with an occasional “I see,” or “Mm-hmm,” so the caller knows you’re paying attention.
• Express sympathy: “I’m sorry you’re having problems.”
• Agree with their frustration: “I can see how frustrating this must be.”
• Share their concern: “I’d feel the same way if that happened to me.”
• Apologize for the inconvenience, but don’t take blame or blame someone else in the company.
• Speak in a calm and soothing voice, more quietly than you normally would.
• After the customer vents, ask closed-choice questions to get the call under control.
• Thank the customer for bringing the problem to your attention.
• Ask for more information, with specific questions, to help bring the customer back under control.
• Agree about something the customer is saying: For example, agree that the customer is angry, or that the customer has a problem.
• Stop the conversation, if necessary, explaining that you are there to help but that the language and tone are making it difficult for you to do so, and ask, “Could we start over again, please?”

After the list is compiled, divide the group into pairs or trios. Have them go to separate corners of the room, as each team will be working separately from the other teams.

Group Excersize

Give the first angry-statement card to one person in each group. Explain that this person will be the customer who is calling the CSR. Encourage the “customers” to be realistic — to act as if they are truly angry, to embellish the angry statements and to really act the role of the angry customer.

The other person in the pair will be the CSR, who is to respond to the customer, using one of the techniques outlined on the flip chart.

Trainer: If you’re using trios, select or have the team select one person from the trio to be the observer. It will be his or her job to observe the role-play and give constructive feedback to the person who plays the CSR role. The observer in the first role-play should not be the observer in the second role-play.

When all the groups are finished, pass out the second set of angry-statement cards. Individuals in each team should switch roles, so that the person who was the customer becomes either the CSR or the observer or vice versa. Allow about five minutes for each role-play.

Circulate around the room during the exercise, encouraging people to stay in their roles, and encouraging customers to act angry. Help out as necessary.

After the second role-play, ask the group which anger-reduction technique worked best. Ask for volunteers to demonstrate their techniques before the group. Ask for group feedback. Lead discussion on how techniques learned in today’s situation can be used during daily operations.

 

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