People are different from each other, from their personalities and expectations, from the environment they’ve grown up from and living in, etc. So, there is no surprise that sometimes, in the same situation, people react so differently. Yes, I’m talking about the situation of live chat customer support when you are helping your website’s customers.

Lucky me, most of the time I meet beautiful people who are also thoughtful customers. However, there are also times I have to deal with demanding customers with really dramatic situations.

I agree that it’s hard to actually listen to each other when you’re not talking face to face but totally strangers sitting in front of the computer and chatting with each other. But it’s your job to satisfy and attract more customers for your company, then you must learn how to read their minds and please them.

Customer support, especially via live chat, isn’t necessary to be a pain in the butt. I’ll show you how you can easily dodge the bullet from different types of ‘dramatic’ customers and win them over.
Ready? Go!

1, The “erupting volcano” customer

Angry customers are really hard to please. And the worst thing you can do to them is to fight fire with fire. Don’t. Ever. Do. That.

What do you expect from a person who is losing their mind? You go out of your mind too? No, you’d better keep calm 10x times better than them. I used to be in a situation when I had to deal with 5 live chat requests at once and one of the customer got angry after 15 seconds of waiting for my response.

This customer was having a problem with our product while himself was in a rush, so he got so pissed off from waiting that he typed everything in CAPLOCKS (like this). It felt like he was yelling at me through his computer screen. Have you been in the same situation?

From my experience, keep your head cool is the first thing you have to do. It’s not totally your fault when someone is acting like a hotpot towards you – your company’s service or product might be a part of the reason. Next, apologize for causing problem for your customer. Yes, maybe it’s not your fault, but if you want to make them stay, then apologize and express your sympathy.

Lastly, try to look through the root of the problem to see how you can help them escape the bad situation as soon as possible. Give them a reason why they are in trouble and provide an exact amount of time when and how the problem can be solved.
Trust me, you’ll see them smiling with that.

2, The “I’m 100% right” customer

Customers aren’t always 100% right. No human on Earth can be 100% right. And don’t believe those people telling you that “customer is always right” (psst, but don’t tell your customers that).

So, how do these “I’m always right” people look like? Well, for example, your company provides a real good service which is loved and trusted by thousands or even millions of users. But one beautiful day, a customer pops up and tells you that your service sucks because it doesn’t work well for them. However, actually, they’re the type who rants and raves and loves throwing harassing comments whatsoever to bring others down.

You need to learn how to stay cool with negative comments first. With this, you’ll see which complaint is really a complaint due to a problem from your service/product, which complaint is just a rant from a dramatic customer. Stay customer centric but at the same time, you need to focus on all customers as a whole.

Don’t blame customers for their horrible reaction on your website’s service or product, but don’t get caught in the drama of people who always try to prove they’re right.

3,The “greedy” customer

Actually, this kind of customer does exist. They are looking for a perfect solution for their endless demands and get carried away by it. In the end, they end up asking from you more and more. If you don’t have the magic service/product that please their black hole of “I want this and I want that”, they’ll rate you as bad, or even ask for a refund.

Usually, these people don’t really know between what they want and what they need. Sometimes you just have to help them with that. Ask for more information like why they would want extra features, and help them analyze if they really need those features for their website, or help them find an easier solution. Tell them that all the bells and whistles they want now are not necessary and plus, it may be money wasting too.

If customers ask for a feature that your service/products doesn’t cover, don’t just tell them “We don’t support this feature. Please come back later”. Help them figure it out and if their request is relevant, save it in a feature wish list so your development team can add the feature later.

Don’t forget to inform them when you have the feature ready in your product too.

4,The “I want my money back” customer

When a customer knocks at your live chat door and asks for a refund, it says that they’re unhappy with the product or service you provide.

Neither the customer nor you want this to happen but don’t hopelessly persuade them to continue using your service or worse, argue with them why you won’t pay them back.

Rather than that, try to handle things quickly. Don’t hang them on the waiting line for too long to have their money back. The longer it takes, the higher chance it will be for them to think of you as second rated and desperate for their money. Provide them an exact date and time when they’ll have their refund and don’t forget to ask the reason why they drop using your service/product. Take that as a lesson to improve your product and service quality.

5,The “I don’t have time to read that” customer

Sometimes you’ll have to deal with lazy people who don’t want to read anything but fly directly to live chat to ask about something clearly written on your website.

Are they lazy or impatient, you shouldn’t care too much about that. They are customers and you have to get your job done right with providing them an awesome support. So, if it’s a simple question about your company or service/product, answer right away.

If it’s something need more time to explain but at the same time you think it’s better for them to read the guide somewhere else, give them the link where the answer is. For example, there are many customers who forget that they have a user guide for how to set up your product. They’ll ask you, and instead of showing them the steps in the guideline, you can offer the whole document and they need to read that.
Spend your support time wisely!

Any customer support lessons learnt yet?

See? You don’t need to be a psychologist to be a mind reader and defuse your precious customers with customer support. All you need is the passion for your job, a calm head, a devoted heart to be willing to help your website’s visitors whenever they need you, and some tips to help you go smoother.

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I hope that with the above tips, you will gain higher credit for your brand and business, just by providing a can’t-be-better customer support service alone.
Have you ever found yourself in a negative customer support situation? How did you nail it? Share your experience with us and feel free to share this article or bookmark it for later use.