Expert Guide: Handling Difficult Customers (14 Proven Strategies)

If you think you can keep all your customers happy with your delivery service, you might need to rethink your approach to running a service business. 

“Humans are bags of emotions,” and it’s difficult for you to make everyone feel happy and satisfied with your service. 

But you can handle the issues of angry or unhappy customers and achieve your desired business results.

Because if you don’t, 86% of your consumers will leave your brand following poor experiences. And you cannot afford to lose a single customer in today’s competitive industries; because your loss is your competitor’s gain.  

So, how to deal with difficult customers? Here are the top tips to ensure a quality customer experience and solutions to tackle difficult customer situations.

14 Tips to Handle Difficult Customers 

As an owner, you should approach each uniquely because everybody has different goals, expectations, and requirements from your brand.

You should train your employee to channel their mindset and look at every interaction to boost your brand rapport. It has been proved that how dealing with difficult customers actually turns out to be a good factor to build customer loyalty. 

So, here are the tips and tactics that can be useful in handling difficult and angry customers. 

1. Follow up with customers

Follow up with your customers is essential to know if the clients are happy with your delivery services. Your customer service team can reach out to your clients after a few days of solving their problems. 

It can work to your advantage as customers will feel you have considered their issue seriously. Your most difficult customers will appreciate this gesture, which helps you rebuild trust among upset customers. 

Also, you can follow up when the solving matter takes longer than a day or hours to solve. In such situations, you can also take help from your product team to ease customer complaints. After all, you don’t want to end up creating bad customer situations in front of customers.

2. Keep your commitments

One of the core reasons for angry customers is that you don’t keep up with your promises. Once you deliver what you promised, you can ensure no irate customers, and it can help you with effective customer interactions. 

For example, if you have a delivery business and promise a same-day ETA to your customers, your customer will be happy with the services. 

Also, you can have loyal customers if you fulfill your promises at a scheduled time. However, if you do not complete it on time, be honest about the situation- they will appreciate the transparency. Still, if they do not understand, give them a reason why it is taking to resolve.

3. Seek customer feedback

Customer feedback can say a lot about your company and its services. So, ask your customer to give feedback and ensure them you will work on their insights.

If an angry customer gives negative feedback, do not ignore them and start working on it. Do not let negative referrals affect your brand or business reputation.  

If you deliver excellent customer service based on customer feedback, they will feel valued and vital to be your customers. It will also increase brand value and shows you are performing customer service roles thoughtfully.    

Ensure you don’t let your potential customers become your dissatisfied customers. Train your delivery employees to apologize if they have done something wrong which has triggered your angry customer. There is great power in apologizing, as it can convert unruly customers into happy customers.

4. Take action quickly

Acknowledging customers is a crucial aspect of great customer service. Customers reach out to your brand with their problems. They expect a quick response. 

When customers get quick responses, they feel happy and satisfied. It makes them feel they are listened to and respected. However, there are demanding customers who want solutions too quickly.

In such an event, ask your team of customer service reps to contact them and acknowledge them of the situation. But do not leave a customer in question about the complaint; resolve it immediately.

5. Identify the root cause 

Customers may be angry for specific reasons, but it is critical to identify the root cause to come up with quick and effective problem-solving.

You can use Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to understand customer conflicts. It helps you think from the lens of your customers and align your service solutions with their desires to determine the discrepancies. 

​​Also, if you face challenges identify the root cause, take small steps, and understand the main issue. Maybe then you will know what’s going on in their mind and why they are frustrated about the services.

6. Never take things personally

Focus on the customer’s concern and avoid being personal with your clients. Remember that customers do not know you in person and are just venting their frustration because of issues they encountered in your service. 

Sometimes, because of the high level of frustration, customers become verbally abusive, but you should take a deep breath and continue handling difficult customers as if you didn’t hear them.

7. Be empathetic

As the saying goes, “Put yourself in your customer’s shoes.”

Once you do so, you can associate yourself with the customer’s problem and the situation they are going through. 

You can understand their frustration and be empathetic about the customer’s difficult situations. It can help you build a good rapport and ensure you stand out in customer satisfaction.

8. Real-time support

77% of U.S. adults say that valuing their time is an important thing a brand could do to provide quality service.

The slightest delay in addressing your customers is the main reason why customers leave you getting frustrated. You should focus on delivering real-time customer service for a better customer experience.

9. Follow active listening

You should listen patiently to your customers when they are angry or dissatisfied with your service. Allow frustrated customers to speak and listen to their issues with full attention to understand what went wrong and resulted in their angry behavior.

Active listening enables you to understand the reason behind customer complain and look for the best alternatives to provide feasible solutions. 

With active listening skills in your team, you can handle the situation better and calm the customer.

10. Remain mindful of your non-verbal and verbal cues

The things you say and don’t say during the conversation with your clients can significantly affect the outcome of any customer interaction. Signs of boredom, aggression, or impatience can escalate the undesirable situation and can already-angry customers more frustrated. 

So, be mindful of your words and the body language you showcase in front of an angry client.

11. Be discreet

You don’t want a brawl among your delivery representatives and challenging customers to hit social media. For example, let’s take an incident where a couple in the UK took social media to complain about the restaurant service. 

The couple was waiting for someone to come and take the order, but even after waiting for 15 minutes, no one arrived. The man asked the wife to set a timer of 10 minutes to see if someone comes. But when no one arrived, they left and bashed the restaurant on social media.

The restaurant management apologizes for their services. But the damage has already been done by becoming viral and part of the debt on Twitter.

Therefore, always take action and offer superior customer service before any situation takes place.

12. Make a judgment call

Sometimes, a customer can cross a line with your delivery professionals. So at that moment, your team needs to decide if they will tolerate clients who are downright obnoxious or unfair.

Dealing with difficult customers and the customer’s concerns is one thing, but if the difficult customers cross the line with your employees, they should make the right decisions.

Trying hard to solve difficult customer issues is great, but your team should be trained to avoid them and take precautions if they cross the line during the heat of the moment.

13. Practice diffusing anger

Ensure your team stays calm and empathizes with frustrated and emotional customers during the delivery process. Routinely conduct training sessions on diffusing anger and creating a healthy and effective ecosystem to build a strong customer base for your future success.

14. Be transparent 

Keep transparency with your customers and provide real-time updates of your delivery drivers to avoid issues.

If your deliveries are delayed according to the planned departure time, you must update customers about the delay. Nobody likes delays, so you should not take too long in passing information. 

By following tips in your business, you can retain your customers. However, let’s make it even simpler by understanding what types of angry customers you need to handle. 

Types of Difficult Customers 

You can’t deliver a quality customer experience to your clients if you don’t know their type and customer demands. Understanding the customer type can help you successfully handle the situation and streamline a result-oriented path for your difficult customers. 

There are different categories of difficult customers that you and your team should be aware of. Let us have a look at them:

1. I-know-all customers

Managing customers who claim to know all can be challenging for your business. They do not want to listen to you or your suggestions.

We advise you to be patient and attentive, not take their critical approach personally. You can calmly clarify statements, weaving in new ideas and information about your service.

You must have strong expertise in your field of operations to tackle critical customers and address their situations. Also, keep your tone and attitude polite while explaining difficult people.

2. Aggressive customer

The aggressive customers are angry and want to feel their needs should be prioritized. You must remain calm and don’t try to argue with them. Also, try to avoid escalating their arguments while they are agitated or thinking emotionally. 

It can fuel the heat, and you increase your chances of losing the customer or blocking your payments once you deliver your services. Instead, show you understand their issues and actively look for alternatives to offer them tailored solutions.

When customers experience multiple bad experiences, they can become aggressive, and your on-ground delivery team should be trained to handle the situation professionally.

3. Indecisive customer

Customers who don’t have enough clarity to make a decision can be troublesome to handle. As a business, you should avoid being pushy with your pitch or explanation and acknowledge their indecision.

Instead, help them to simplify their decision-making process by offering facts and possible best solutions tailored to their needs.

Besides, there are other types of difficult customers you may encounter during your delivery business operations as well.

Why Does Customer Satisfaction Matter?

Establishing and maintaining a healthy customer relationship is the core of your business’s success. 

If you manage your difficult customers, you’ll gain the confidence to build a strong and happy clientele. 

In a recent customer satisfaction survey of over 700 customers, 80% said they would switch to a competitor due to bad customer service. 

So, if your customers encounter a poor experience, would you let everyone slip to your competitors?

It will shrink your clientele, and you’ll run out of business.

Instead, you must tackle the situation and train your on-ground employees to handle difficult customers with finesse. Irrespective of their issues, you must try to solve their pains. You can also use customer relationship management to alleviate their difficulties.

However, we suggest using professional route planner & customer notifications software can help you deliver personalized notifications to your clients.

Enhance Customer Experience by Switching to Upper Route Planner

Upper Route Planner can ensure you strengthen your in-house delivery operations and minimize the chances of poor delivery experience for your clients.

Using optimized delivery routes, you can increase business efficiency, which can help you deliver on your promise. The accuracy and precision of the route planning results help you deliver more clients and handle peak seasons easily.

Upper Route Planner ensures real-time order tracking to maintain transparency and help you update the right delivery information to your customers.

Also, with on-time deliveries, your delivery drivers can get the confidence to interact with your clients because they handled their part of the job with zero errors and inefficiencies.

So, what are you waiting for? Avail of the 7 days trial period to deliver a better user experience.

Conclusion

Handling difficult customers are part of any delivery business. Being a delivery business owner, you must ensure you deliver according to your promised time and best service experience to avoid issues in customer satisfaction.

For that, make sure your team is trained to deal with difficult customers. Also, you can integrate Upper Route Planner with your system to transfer data within seconds and generate a multi-stop route plan.

Minimize operational costs, share real-time location, and help your customers get the best experience using Upper. Book a demo with us now.