Abusive customers can be a nightmare for business owners and customer-facing staff. They can be loud, disruptive, threatening, and risk harming your professional reputation.

This feature story will discuss strategic ways to handle abusive customers. We'll cover helpful tips and practical ways to deal with these situations.

Verbal abuse is an action that harms a person emotionally or mentally. Cursing, name-calling, inappropriate comments, making threats, and shouting are all examples of verbal abuse.

So, how can you effectively manage the situation when verbal abuse is being directed at you or your support agents?
 
Here are some helpful tips:

If a customer becomes verbally abusive, you should speak firmly but respectfully with them. Maintaining a calm tone of voice and choosing your words carefully will help you get the situation under control. This will communicate that you're trying to help them and de-escalate the situation.

If you are dealing with an abusive customer, it's important not to let the situation get out of hand. Tell them their behavior is unacceptable and you would like them to stop. It's essential to be clear, concise, and firm.

Remind yourself that you are doing your best and don't deserve to be treated this way. It can be easy to get wrapped up in an abusive situation and start to feel you are the one who is at fault. Recognize it's not about you. It's about how the customer chooses to behave.

It's important to stay calm and composed during an abusive encounter. It can only worsen the situation if you start to reflect the customers' anger or other toxic emotions.

If you feel unsafe or uncomfortable, it's essential to get help. You can contact your supervisor, a teammate, or other support resources. Please don't hesitate to ask for assistance if you need it.

There may come a time when it's best to move away from the situation. If things get too heated and the customer remains verbally abusive, it's not worth risking your own safety to continue the conversation.

It's a good idea to document any encounters you have with abusive customers. This can help if things escalate or there is a later dispute about what happened. Write down the date, time, and details of the incident. If there are witnesses, include their contact information as well.

It’s important not to get into an argument with the customer. This will only fuel their anger and make the situation worse.

Knowing how to respond when dealing with an abusive customer is crucial. Here are some phrases you can use in such situations:

    •    I'm sorry that you're feeling upset. Let's talk about how we can resolve the situation.
    •    Please don't speak to me like that. I want to help fix the issue, but first, I need you to stop sending abusive comments.
    •    I'm happy to help, but I need you to remain calm before we continue the conversation.
    •    I understand how frustrating this must be for you. However, texting me this way isn't acceptable and won't get us anywhere. Let's focus on how we can solve the problem together instead.

There's more to come, so please watch this space for more IM feature stories.
 
Until next time,


Kavya Rao
The Zoho Desk team