We had a Customer Service Tip of the Week recently that addressed gaining control of the conversation.  One of the key points was that the focus should be on gaining control of conversations in various circumstances, but trying to avoid making it your goal to gain control of the customer.

I’ve witnessed many employees try to control the customer – both in simple service situations and when the customer is emotional or upset.  It often does not end well for either party.

So, what is the employee doing when they are trying to control the customer?  Here are a few quick examples of poor approaches or techniques:

• Interrupting or speaking over the customer – especially while raising the voice.
• Aggressively moving toward the customer.
• Maintaining eye contact…with the computer – never visually acknowledging the customer.
• Talking continuously, and sometimes rapidly, leaving little air in the conversation for the customer to speak.
• Never asking the customer a question.
• Swearing at the customer (yes, I’ve seen some horrible customer service!).
• Trying to shut them down by intellectually using dismissive phrases like “your idea won’t work” or “you don’t understand how this…” or “this is too technical to describe to you.”

 
Addressing customers in this manner often heightens their emotions, results in them asking to talk with your manager, leads to bad word-of-mouth, and can be the cause of a lost customer.

In these customer service tips, we usually try to focus on positive examples of what to do rather than negative examples of what not to do.  However, it’s helpful to illustrate how we can come across as trying to control the customer.  And no customer wants to feel like they’re being controlled.  They want to feel like they’re being helped and supported.

Avoid These Techniques.

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