University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Dealing with the Customer from Hell
Book

Dealing with the Customer from Hell

A Survival Guide

Shaun Belding
Kogan Page, 2005
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Editorial Rating

7

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Recommendation

Everyone who works in customer service has had a run in with a customer who is dissatisfied or irate. Frustrated consumers are a fact of life. People become angry about the way someone treated them or about malfunctioning products. These encounters make everyone involved feel agitated and upset. So how do you handle these tough customers? In this light, informative book, Shaun Belding offers practical tips for defusing emotional situations, resolving conflicts with customers and improving your service. getAbstract recommends this book to managers and staff members who provide products or services and deal with the public.

Summary

Bad Memories

"Customers from hell" may not be numerically significant, but they are disruptive enough to send shudders through salespeople who remember the torment of confronting them. Bad experiences with a few customers have lasting effects, which can hamper your relationships with all customers. Unhappy customers come in two varieties:

  1. Dissatisfied - Anyone can become a customer from hell in the right circumstances. Satisfied customers become dissatisfied ones when companies fail to live up to their good opinions or high expectations. They may be generally reasonable people who are temporarily acting inappropriately out of disappointment.
  2. Unreasonable - Customers with unrealistic expectations may become belligerent and verbally abusive. They misjudge salespeople and have inaccurate perceptions of their personal behavior.

Abusive customers are part of the overall sales environment. A full-time sales or service worker sees between 20,000 and 50,000 customers annually. If you work in an office you may see up to 100 people a day. Because negative experiences are usually the exception rather than the rule, they stick in ...

About the Author

Shaun Belding is the president of an international training and development consultancy specializing in customer service, team building, management and leadership. He is the author of Dealing with the Boss from Hell.

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