Building a customer-centric company is a wise move financially, but what do you do — more importantly, what do you want your reps to do — when customers have tools online that they can use instantly to devalue and discredit your brand simply because they’re having a bad day? Or worse yet, a miserable life?
Sandi Krakowski, CEO of A Real Change (arealchange.com), an online marketing consultant, offers these tips for dealing with customers who are hot under the collar (right or wrong):
Keep communications stoic, sparse and smile. Write emails the size of a tweet. Psychotic doesn’t do well with 23 paragraphs back and forth. You’ll end up talking like them if you go down that road. Be polite. Be prompt. Be powerful.
Don’t react. These kinds of customers live for reactions. You can tell by the long emails that go back and forth through your client care department and then the hemorrhaging all over Facebook and Twitter. Take your time. Respond. If you need advice, ask an attorney.
Keep your focus on other customers. “I don’t believe in obsessing about my competi-tors and I refuse to obsess about a client who in a regular brick-and-mortar environment would be escorted out by security,” Krakowski says. Serve well. Don’t get distracted.
