How listening well can resolve customer conflict
Have you ever tried to inform someone providing a service that there might be some way for them to make an improvement? You may have had to engage your conflict management skills to manage their response!
How not to react to customer comments
I had soup and a bread roll in a hotel restaurant recently. The bread roll was rock hard, practically unbreakable. The soup was nice, so I ate it. I wasn’t that hungry. I decided to call over the manager regarding my bread roll. I just wanted to let them know how they could improve in the future (they might not have known about the stale bread). Knowing the difficulty people can have in our culture with receiving feedback, I tried a gentle approach. Showing them the roll, I said in a friendly tone “Hello, I am not asking for money off, I just wanted to let you know that the bread roll was really hard”, to which they replied abruptly, “Well, you have eaten the soup”.
These few words from the manager and the manner in which they were delivered, embodied a common approach we can have to receiving information from customers. Instead of listening, we can become defensive; as if we are being criticised.
Many things may have been going on for the manager.
A defensive reaction normally comes from a feeling of being criticised or feeling vulnerable on an issue. Maybe the manager knows the service is not as it should be, or the food is not as fresh as it could be, for whatever reason.
So what could they do differently to manage their negative reaction?
Listening well can be simplicity itself. Absorb the comment from the customer, let it sink in before commenting back. Your ‘second’ reaction will almost always be better than your ‘first’ reaction. Take a fraction of a second to pause before responding.
Secondly, acknowledge any weak points in your service or the issues you may feel vulnerable about. Greater awareness of our frustrations and vulnerabilities puts us more in control of them and lessen the chances of being triggered by them.
Thirdly, although you may work in a busy environment, slow things down a bit when dealing with irate customers.
Particularly if the customer is upset or angry, take time to understand their situation. In conflict everything tends to speed up, particularly our speed of speech. Keeping to conversational speed and staying respectful, even if you are challenging their difficult behaviour, go a long way towards de-escalating a situation.
It works both ways. If you don’t listen to the customer, they are not going to listen to you. It’s usually pointless trying to explain anything to the customer until you have dealt with their upset and anger by listening well.
Once they feel you’ve understood them fully, you are well on the road to calming them down and resolving the situation.
Click here to discover the transformative power of active listening with our Conflict Management Training course.