Handling Emotional Customers



Let’s face it. Life can be stressful. And when you are dealing with finances, even more so. Thus, we should expect customer to be emotional when it comes to discussing their finances, what they owe, when they are going to pay, and even what caused them to get into the current situation. Customers may be experiencing various types of emotion from embarrassment to anger to frustration to apathy to just plain overwhelmed. The more prepared we are for the emotion, the better we can handle the situation.

Establish trust that you can handle the situation or emotions presented. This does not mean you have experienced the same situation. It only means you are skilled in dealing with tough or difficult situations, which is what you do on a daily basis. The customer needs to trust your experience. No one wants to go to a specialist who says, “Wow! I have never seen that before!” That just makes the person feel hopeless. It also means they can’t trust that specialist for a solution. Why trust? If the customer trusts that you can handle the situation or emotion, then they are often more willing to tell you more or listen to you when you present possible solutions or options.
Work to create a partnership to find solutions. This means you need the customer to help in the solution finding. This may be through answering some tough questions or you may need the customer to do some leg work on their own. You can’t problem solve on your own and you want the customer to actively participate in the solution as ultimately, they own it and have to execute