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Tell me about a time you had to deal with an angry customer or guest, either on the phone or in person. How did you handle the situation?

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Question added by Yasir Ali , Admin and Teacher , Revenue Department Govt.of Sindh
Date Posted: 2013/09/25
C Vijay
by C Vijay , IT Infrastructure Manager / IT Manager & IT Infrastructure Presales , TATA Consultancy Services

We may have to have a quick understanding about the situation and why the customer is upset / annoyed. It may be from the subordinate from our team who handled the customer earlier. The next step would be to make the customer understand that we feel sorry about the situation and it has come to the next level to bring things in control. The best way to do this is to, call the customer, express politely that you feel sorry and explain about our workaround, if any. Sometimes, when you start speaking, customer may shout at start shouting at us. The reason for this in most of the cases would be, either subordinates wouldn't have heard him at all or would have heard, but nothing would have moved as expected. Hence, if the customers shout at us as soon as he/she picks up the call, let them speak and then apologize politely. 

Then state in points on what you is your workaround, what is your solution, who is holding the ownership. A timeline commitment has to be given firmly from our side ( have about% buffer time than the expected time). Then advise that the customer can call you directly for any concerns about the particular case and provide your contact details, be it email or phone number. Our voice should be firm emphasizing two points -1) We aren't hiding away from the customer &2) We do what we commit

Ensure that the team works. Meanwhile, keep updating the customer periodically, say, once in mins or1 hour. Once when the solution is done, call the customer again, advise him that the solution is ready and we await him to check and confirm. We should make it clear to the customer that we do not consider the issue closed till he confirms.

Once when the customer confirms, apologize again for what happened if there was a mistake by our subordinate. If its a communication gap between our team and the customer, explain politely what happened actually. The customer should definitely calm down as there was someone ( we) to listen to his issue and resolve it.

 

All the above facts are for daily operational issues. In case of Presales activities, all these times will get extended from2 mins to mins, mins to3 days. I recommend that you have to meet the customer in person rather than phone calls as far as Presales activities are concerned.

 

I am happy to discuss if in case more details are needed for these situations

 

Regards,

C Vijay

IT Infrastructure Operations Management & Presales Expert

Karthik Karthik Mohankumar
by Karthik Karthik Mohankumar , Senior Administrative Assistant , Nakilat Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd

We need to understand the guests issues then we have to accept our mistakes and apologize. Change the mindset for the guests and give a permanent solutions to the guests and finally we have to score%  good feedback from the angry customer. 

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