Charlotte Ward: 0:13
Hello and welcome to episode two hundred and eighty-two of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I’m Charlotte Ward. Today, welcome Marc Haine to talk about having difficult conversations with customers. I’d like to welcome to the podcast today. Now, Marc, it’s very lovely to have you on my show so soon, actually, after I came on your show. Um, and I was just uh chewing over with you before I hit record. What a delight that conversation was. So thank you again so much for having me. I will include the link to that particular episode and to uh your whole YouTube platform uh on on the show notes for this. So I encourage people to go and look that up. But uh for those who haven’t found it yet, um, and who haven’t found you yet, would you please do me the honor of introducing yourself for our listeners?
Marc Haine: 1:11
Absolutely. Uh so my name is Mark Hain. I am a customer and employee experience strategist. And what does that mean? Well, you know, we talk about customer service all the time. And one of the things as a customer and a hospitality specialist, I realized was whenever we talked about our customers and our guests and our stakeholders, we always omitted the whole employee side of the equation. And I truly believe that, you know, our very first client, our very first customer that we must be serving in our organizations is our employees, especially if we expect them to provide their very best to our customers, our paying customers.
Charlotte Ward: 1:48
That is so, so, so true. Um, and you know, that um providing the very best to our customers can be um difficult sometimes, can’t it? Uh, you know, some of those customers can get a little bit, little bit difficult. And uh to your point, um, you know, they can make the experience for the employee perhaps not great on any given day. Um, but I I guess, you know, what part of what you’re saying really is that the experience has to begin with the employee. Um, but let’s let’s let’s assume that we’ve hit 10 out of 10 on every aspect of the of the employee experience. We’re doing great, everything’s running really well, but those difficult conversations from customers still come along, don’t they? And that’s kind of what we’re here to talk about today, right?
Marc Haine: 2:38
Oh, come on, it almost never happens. Oh, typical customer uh customer interactions.
Charlotte Ward: 2:44
Is it just me? Is it just me after all these years?
Marc Haine: 2:50
It’s our reality is no, no, no, uh, I used to joke about hospitality. I’ve been 25 years in hospitality doing hotels, casinos, restaurants, and so on. And I I used to always fall into this whole thing of like, boy, if it wasn’t for all the people, hospitality would be a cinch.
Charlotte Ward: 3:07
Oh man. I mean, I don’t know. You’re not all Yeah, I don’t know what a support person hasn’t said that, or hospitality or retail. My job will be so much easier if it wasn’t for the customers.
Marc Haine: 3:20
And and when you think about it, of course, if you don’t have the customers, you don’t have a business. But having said that, you know, it’s it’s interesting because when we talk about dealing with difficult customers, um, the same can be true about dealing with a difficult coworker or dealing with a difficult boss. Uh, what you’re basically saying is you have stakeholders with a need, and your role and your job is to kind of figure out what that need is. Uh, I should say want and need, because I think the two are different. What customers come to us and say that they want is not necessarily what they need. And so we have to be very careful in in when we’re responding to clients that we truly understand what their needs are, uh, because once we can deliver on their needs, their wants will go hand in hand with it.
Charlotte Ward: 4:03
Oh, that is so true. That is so true. And I actually think that um the most masterful service professionals out there, whether in they’re in my line of work, which is that deeply technical support, or whether on the front line in hospitality or retail or whatever, the the the masters in those professions really are the people who can, let’s face it, is effectively anticipate your needs, right, as a customer.
Marc Haine: 4:32
Yeah, and I think the core to it is asking really good questions. I think all too often we jump into assumption mode. Um, and and because of we jump into the assumption mode, we jump into solution mode before we thoroughly understand what the challenge is. Um, so you know, I was talking to a uh an entrepreneur just recently, and he was talking to me about the fact that he’s got really high employee turnover, and he kept turn saying that his employees don’t want to work. And because of that, they keep quitting. And so the fact that you don’t have retention and you don’t have engagement is not a them problem. We have to take a look internally to say that is a symptom of a bigger problem. It’s it’s it’s like saying, you know, oh, I cut my finger and I’m bleeding. Um, and then you go to the hospital and say, well, you need 12 stitches. The band-aid you put on just won’t hold it.
Charlotte Ward: 5:25
Right.
Marc Haine: 5:25
And so we have to understand what what the problem is. We have to be able to look at what the symptoms are, and then ask ourselves if there’s a deeper problem uh kind of contributing to that, to that, uh, to that to those symptoms.
Charlotte Ward: 5:39
Yeah, yeah. Um, so when we’re thinking about you know, employees having a bad day, frankly. Uh customers are turning up and just making their lives a misery. Yeah. Um how I mean, I guess, I guess I’m gonna step this out, as it were, as a question. Um, because it kind of comes in two or maybe even three parts, like so many of my questions. Um the first part is, you know, what what armory can we give? What tools, perhaps it’s a better word than armory, um, can we give our employees to get through the day or the conversation when those customers turn up? And then and then the I guess the extension of that is how do we um reduce the likelihood of that happening? That reduce the difficult conversations in the business. And that’s a that’s a more difficult one. That’s what kind of what you’re alluding to, right?
Marc Haine: 6:41
Yeah, so so keep in mind that no customer walks in saying, I am gonna give this person the hardest time of their lives. Um, a lot of times we feel the way we feel because we choose to feel that way. A lot of times when we’ve had bad customers, like angry customers one after the other, and specifically, you know, I just did a presentation to some government workers. Um, they are they are responsible for corporate registries and and licensing and all those sort of things. And it turns out every time the phone rings, it’s somebody who’s angry about something.
Charlotte Ward: 7:11
I can’t believe that. That that does not sound like that kind of environment. That’s crazy talk.
Marc Haine: 7:18
I mean, the cult, no, uh, it is crazy talk. But but here’s the thing is part of the challenge is how do we distance them distance ours ourselves away from the crisis so that we realize number one, this is not about us. Somebody getting on the phone and being really angry is has nothing to do with us at all. And then how do we then distance ourselves from that, be able to listen and be able to respond in a way that’s going to help kind of de-escalate the issue in a way that is going to um get to the core of what the problem is? So, you know, when somebody’s yelling and screaming at you, you can’t get to the core of the problem. And and so keeping in mind that, you know, this poor person maybe has dialed the number four times. Maybe once they did get hold of somebody, they’ve been putting people on hold and transferring them three or four times to different departments. And again, it probably never has ever happened to anybody who’s tuning in right now. But did you ever get transferred to a department that can’t help you? And they go, Oh, they transferred you to the wrong department. Just hold on a second and I’ll transfer you to the right one, only to realize that they just transferred you back to the same person or whatever.
Charlotte Ward: 8:31
And and even worse, to the back of the queue, or even worse, to ask you to dial the number again, right?
Marc Haine: 8:39
Yeah, well, there’s nothing, nothing more pleasant than getting on the call initially and saying, You are number 23. Your call is important to us, please hang on. And then you get to call number one, they go, Oh, I’m terribly sorry, you reached the wrong here. Let me switch you back to number. And then you get switched to welcome to this department. You are in queue, caller number 63. And then your head explodes. And so, you know, part with the with the government workers, we recognize that that in itself is an inflammatory kind of condition. This is the this is a snow snowball rolling down a hill, picking up momentum and speed and everything else. And so by the time people can get on, it’s like, you know, they’re ready to treat you treat you very, very badly. And and part of the challenge, I think, when we’re dealing with human beings, especially in environments where it’s always negative all the time, it’s how do you mentally prepare for being going face to face with conflict. And so one of the stories, one of the stories that I tell is I tell a story as a hotel operator. Uh, one of the stories that I fall back on is this one condition where I get a call at two o’clock in the morning that there was a child, um, looks like under two years old, a little girl, walking around the hotel barefoot. And we didn’t know where the child came from.
Charlotte Ward: 9:55
Oh wow.
Marc Haine: 9:56
We didn’t know if it came from a room. We didn’t know if somebody dumped the child in the hotel, like they literally came in one of the side doors and pushed the kid in and abandoned the child. We don’t know any of this. What we are concerned about is that in the in the back hallways where we found her, it’s all concrete stairs. We have an indoor pool. Our job, number one, was to make sure the child was safe. And so when the duty manager called me at home at two o’clock in the morning and said, We found this child, okay. This is what you need to be doing. You need to call all the rooms and so on. We put steps in pro in progress to make things happen. When I started driving in at seven o’clock, the parents had just woken up and realized that their child wasn’t in the room, called down to the front desk and was having a conniption fit. But what we had done prior to that was after I was assured that they had called all the rooms, we made the decision to call the police and call social services, make sure that the child was secure. Well, what we didn’t realize is that the front desk agent didn’t call all the rooms. He only called two or three of the rooms. He didn’t like being cursed at, so he didn’t call the rest.
Charlotte Ward: 11:01
Oh my goodness.
Marc Haine: 11:03
So did we drop the ball? Absolutely, we dropped the ball. But again, our first number one focus, more than anything else, was to make sure the child was secure. Did we drop the ball there? No, we didn’t. We made absolutely sure that was our first primary focus. So when the parents woke up at seven o’clock in the morning, they were just having an absolute conniption. And so the duty manager called. I’m already driving the one-hour commute in, and she said, the parents are here and they’re they’re just really freaked out. And and so as I’m driving in, I’m thinking to myself, this is gonna be probably one of the most difficult situations I’ve ever had to endure. And so the very first step when you know you’re gonna be picking up the phone to difficult conflicts is to mentally prepare yourself. This is not gonna be a cakewalk. This, in fact, make it a challenge to yourself. This will challenge me. This will test my philosophies, this will test my value system on how I deal with these people who have a really big problem. And by the time I was able to go in and get myself all psyched up, ready to face them, the very first thing I did, as soon as I dropped off my briefcase, I went up to them and I say, I am so glad we were able to take care of your daughter. Because I bet, you know, and then I just framed it from their perspective as a parent. You know, I can imagine how freaked out you were that your child’s not there. I understand the angst, I understand the fear and everything else. But at the same token, here are my fears concrete stairs, pools, not knowing where the child came from. And and so being able to paint that picture where we’re I was able to de-escalate the situation quite quickly so that we can then say, okay, what is our next step? Our next step is let’s get in contact with social services, let’s get your daughter back to you. We focused on solutions rather than all the finger pointing, because the finger pointing is so easy to do.
Charlotte Ward: 12:52
Oh, and it’s such a waste of time, isn’t it, as well, the finger pointing. And it does, it just it just makes it just adds uh angst, frankly, to an already stressful experience.
Marc Haine: 13:06
Yes, the finger pointing. So the finger pointing is really challenging. The the problem is that we can control uh the finger pointing that we do, we can’t control the finger pointing other people do. And so knowing full well that somebody who’s upset with something will finger point, and knowing that it again, it’s not personal, as much as they’re gonna be saying, you didn’t do this and you’re bad, and you it’s not about you, it’s about the problem that we have. And so using some key phrases to kind of de-escalate is really, really helpful.
Charlotte Ward: 13:39
What are what are those key phrases then? Let’s give some some of our uh frontline folk out there some really actionable takeaways from this particular bit of the conversation. What are what are the top two or three things that you tell employees to just like have in their toolkit ready to say? Number one, you want to show empathy.
Marc Haine: 14:05
So one of the very first things you want to say to a client is, I realize how frustrating this is for you. I can imagine. In your place, I would feel exactly the same way. By creating this empathy component to it, you’re you’re gonna walk the walk a mile in their moccasins, as the saying goes. And you know, if somebody is insists on being really kind of dramatic and really aggressive with it, I would strongly recommend that you point figure out where you want to go and then bring that to their attention. So a perfect uh condition in like in my circumstance, uh, as soon as the mother started pointing the fingers at the one thing that I said is our one condition, the one thing that were most important to us and to you is to make absolutely sure your daughter is fine and safe. We know your daughter’s fine and safe. Is it okay if we work on what our next steps are? So it doesn’t matter if somebody’s returning a TV set and it’s like it broke down in the middle of our hockey game or it broke down in the middle of our football game, and because of that, I wasn’t able to enjoy the game. I can understand how frustrating that is for you, but instead of harping on what happened, is it okay if we focus on our next steps, which is to get you a proper television so you won’t miss the next game? Would that be okay?
Charlotte Ward: 15:27
Mm-hmm.
Marc Haine: 15:28
And that changes the whole dynamic of the conversation.
Charlotte Ward: 15:31
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Looking forward, it really does actually. It really does. Setting the scene on how we’re all gonna move forward together, right?
Marc Haine: 15:41
Yes. Now, I do realize that in some circumstances, especially for government workers that I was talking to, that no matter how patient you want to be with people, people will become abusive on the telephone. Um, is it okay to hang up the phone or or to end the conversation with a person? It absolutely is, but it is within the confines of being able to tell them the game plan, which is, you know, my job is I would really love to help solve your problem. However, if you keep if we keep communicating like this, we’re not going to accomplish anything. So if we keep talking to one another like this, we’re gonna have to end this conversation. Is it okay that from this point on we deal with each other with respect? And the minute they turn around, well, okay, fine. Now you can move forward because now they’ve agreed. And so if you notice that in both circumstances, the ball is lobbed back to the other person’s court to do something with. And so we’re always asking a question would this be a good strategy? Is this a good way to move forward? Are you in agreement that we should we could help you solve this? And so the minute, I mean, who’s gonna turn around and say no? Who’s gonna turn around? No, I don’t want you to solve my problem. I just want to stand here and vet. It’s not gonna happen, right? So the minute, the minute you start again, empathy first, and then focus on what the end result is. And it might be, um, you know, when I train, when I train people on de-escalation and and customer service, I always say, give them three options. Try to give three options to something. So here’s our options. Number one, we can do nothing, and we can stand here and argue back and forth, and you we can point fingers all we like. That that is first option. Number two is we can give you a full refund for the television that broke. Number three is we can find you based on how much you spent on this TV, we can find you a comparable TV, probably going to be a little bit bigger because since you bought your TV six months ago, new technologies come out, and we got some pretty fabulous TVs. What would you like to do? And then you give them the choice. And so what we’re doing is we’re empathizing, we’re setting the standard by what the end result of what we want to do, and then we give the customer or the other the upset person, we give them a choice. So they make a decision as to the final outcome. And so now they feel like they’re in control. So they go from an aspect of I have absolutely no control over this, I’m frustrated, I’m hurt, I’m I’m scared to now I’m being given a choice and I get to choose what I want the outcome to be. It’s much difficult. It’s so much harder for somebody to leave a relationship without having made the choice and then speak off about it later.
Charlotte Ward: 18:31
Yeah. Right? I it’s like I I love that. I mean, I love that uh in in giving them the choice and putting them in control, it becomes a positively charged cycle instead of a negatively charged cycle, doesn’t it? Because you go from somebody who is out of control and angry and who doesn’t have a way forward to somebody who you have reset, you’ve given the control to, and all of those paths, the three options that you’ve given them, are effectively a choice, which means a way forward. Now, I will grant that one of your choices was that we stand here and continue to argue, but who’s gonna pick that, right? The other two are perfectly reasonable choices. Yeah, that’s great.
Marc Haine: 19:21
Right. And you know, if somebody does feel that they need to stand and go, no, no, I’m uh you have to listen to me. Well, then you pause because that is his need at that moment. And sometimes people need to vent. Sometimes people need to get the stuff off their chest. Now, I don’t know about you know where where you hail from, but I have a sneaking suspicion, time and distance play an awful big role in how angry people get over things. So, for instance, you know, in my TV thing, he’s at home, he now has to drive 45 minutes to the store to return the television after he’s taken it off. Wall and each step of doing that, he’s just getting angrier, angrier, and angrier. And he is, by the time he gets to the store, he’s a full-fledged victim. And so on the 45-minute drive back to the store, he’s already scripted everything he wants to tell you. And so sometimes we just need to give people space to be able to vent, to get it off their chest. And again, realizing this is not a me problem, this is a you problem. Right? Okay, sir, you want to vent. If you think it’s gonna help you, go ahead and vent. Right? And then once he’s said his piece, I can understand how frustrating it is. It was a big game, I understand that. But can we now move forward? Because what I’d love to do is I’d love to get you so that into a situation where you can enjoy the very next game with something that’s gonna be brand new, better, whatever. But here are the choices.
Charlotte Ward: 20:54
I uh I I actually think if you I I can’t imagine somebody being angry enough that when faced with a personal a perfectly reasonable person saying, Sir, it’s okay. Um if you need to van, I’m here, I’ll listen, and then then we’ll have another conversation. Who is actually going to stand there and continue to rage? You’ve got to be pretty angry by that point to say, to not say, no, it’s fine. Okay, it’s fine.
Marc Haine: 21:24
Well, can so I have to ask you a question. Have you ever been in a conflict where it was heated and you walked away and like 20, 30 minutes later, you think to yourself, I should have said this, I could have thinks next time I’m gonna say this. Has that ever happened to you?
Charlotte Ward: 21:40
All the time, in every situation.
Marc Haine: 21:43
And and so I’m I’m hoping that your audience feels exactly the same way. Because that’s happen it happens to all of us because we’re human beings. What we fail to realize is when we face with really difficult high emotion conflict situations, our lizard brain takes over. Lizard brain is a metaphor for our Neanderthal, uh fight, fright, or freeze, right? Where we and and so once that part of the lizard brain kicks in, the logic brain shuts down. And so when you have people who are living in their lizard brain, they cannot think logically. And so somehow we have to move people from that high-intensity lizard brain thinking, which is that you know, if they’re coming in all angry, that that is their fight response, and we need to be able to de-escalate them, get them back into the logic brain where they can start to think.
Charlotte Ward: 22:40
Um, I I completely get that. And I think we can all, as hospitality, retail service support professionals recognize those moments in our career when we’ve been faced with someone in that state of mind. I think I I want to um I want to talk to you about um sort of, I guess, a different state of mind in a similar circumstance, though. And I I suspect that this is more common in B2B scenarios where people get kind of angry, kind of pissed off, but but they’re not living in their lizard brain. You know, they appreciate this is a work environment, they haven’t lugged a TV across town, this is kind of, you know, some something has gone wrong with some system that they happen to work with, and it’s meant that they’ve been moderately embarrassed in front of their boss and they’re pissed off. They’re pissed off with the system, they’re pissed off with the vendor, they’re pissed off with you as the support person because you happen to be there on the phone or on the Zoom or on the end of a support ticket or whatever, on the end of a chat, whatever. Um it’s the kind of and I suspect, and my accent will give away that I’m British, but I suspect this is more I know, sorry, shock, horror. Um, but but the um I suspect this is also a little bit of like the more restrained British approach to things. So I’m probab possibly conflating a little bit the B2B my service mindset with a being British, so you’ll have to forgive me that. But there’s this kind of very understated fury that some customers can bring. They’re not shouting at you, but it’s exceedingly uncomfortable in those kind of conversations, and those conversations, unlike the person who’s lugged TV across town who’s probably gonna blast his, you know, his lizard brain in your face for for three or four minutes and then be done. Some of these ongoing, kind of uncomfortable conversations that nobody likes to be involved with because the problems are really gnarly and there’s lots of stakeholders involved potentially. And he’s not really taking it personally because it’s not his TV, it’s just something that’s embarrassed him in front of the boss or whatever. Do you manage those kind of difficult in in inverted air quotes? Um, do you manage those difficult conversations in any different way?
Marc Haine: 25:08
Again, I think number one step is empathy. Realize that as adults, one of the one of the things that we fail to talk about these days is something we used to talk about when we were very young. If you remember little Bobby picking on you while you were in school and you went home, mommy, mommy, Bobby’s picking on you. Well, you tell Bobby he’s hurting your feelings.
Charlotte Ward: 25:27
Mm-hmm.
Marc Haine: 25:29
A lot of our anger, a lot of our frustration is because our feelings get hurt. Whether that’s because we got disrespected, whether that’s because somebody promised something and didn’t deliver, and because of it now, we are we have this level of shame or embarrassment or understand that these are emotions. And so, again, being able to empathize with the person who’s having a tough time with something. And again, business to business is it can be really challenging because what you do could affect the earning and the revenue component of your other business, of the business doing business with you. And so, you know, there there could be really substantial kind of um outfall of a lack of performance on your part. Being able to empathize, being able to look at what the person is complaining about, what do you need for me? I’m I’m really sorry we embarrassed you in front of your boss. Is there anything you’d like me to do to help you along that route? What how can we be a partner in the solution? And and in both circumstances, that that’s kind of the hat I’m putting on is I want to be a partner in making this right with you. I want to understand what your needs are. You can tell me what you need from me, and let’s see if we can work on something that will make things right. I realize you were embarrassed in front of your boss, you had to do the you had to do the presentation, and all of a sudden something fell through, and because of that, now you’re eating crow. Let’s let’s figure out. Let’s figure out if there’s something we can do to move forward. You know, and I really truly believe that great service isn’t when things go a hundred percent. Great service is not when you got on your your delivery on time or your the the contract got fulfilled adequately or the project got finished. I don’t think that that’s great service. I think great service is when things fall horribly, horribly wrong and you step up as the service provider to make things right and whatever that might look like for you.
Charlotte Ward: 27:23
Yeah, yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And you know, I think that the the word you use there, I think is is something that is true of both scenarios. The guy who’s lugging his TV across town, but also particularly true in the B2B scenario, you know, that that you’re there as a partner. I think you’re slightly more in control as a vendor when you’re B2C or in that kind of you know direct-to-consumer environment. You’re the one setting the landscape of how things move forward. And yes, you’re putting those options in the, you know, in the hands of the customer to choose from. Um, but but the partnership is much more emphasized, I think, in B2B. And I think that’s a really, a really important point to make. It’s the principle is the same, but the way you talk about it is slightly different.
Marc Haine: 28:08
Um because you have a relationship and you have a partnership in making things happen. And so I truly believe that when I do business with a company, whether that’s uh to go in and do staff training or speaking at a conference or whatever, I want to make sure that I am a direct partner with them. And I really want to take on the owners that I am successful if they’re successful.
Charlotte Ward: 28:31
Yeah.
Marc Haine: 28:31
And so when I put on that mindset now, when I move forward and there’s conflict, I’m approaching it from the perspective of I am a partner in this. And I as long as when I know that you’re you’re satisfied, and when I know that you’re successful, then I know this partnership has has been successful.
Charlotte Ward: 28:53
Yeah, yeah. I I think that is such a really strong point to finish this conversation on because I think that the the partnership for me is is really speaking to everything that we’ve covered in this in the last what 30 minutes or so. Um, just you know, when I think about partnership, I think about working together on things, I think about finding a way forward, I think about that empathic relationship, which is where we started this conversation. And I think that um however you articulate it in front of your customers, whatever the environment that you’re providing a service in, I think if you can approach every conversation with that partnership point of view in mind, um, I think you you’re not gonna go far wrong, right? I think that feels like a good ground on which to stand and move forward from.
Marc Haine: 29:44
When all else fails, collaborate, collaborate, collaborate.
Charlotte Ward: 29:49
I couldn’t agree more. I couldn’t agree more. Well, listen, Mark, it’s been so lovely collaborating with you on this conversation and in our uh our conversation a few weeks ago. So um it’s lovely to see you again. Um you come back for another conversation on this podcast. And um, obviously, if if I performed satisfactorily, I would love to have a conversation on yours at some point in the future too. But but um please come and have another conversation with me, won’t you?
Marc Haine: 30:16
I’d love to. And thank you for the invitation to do this. This has been great.
Charlotte Ward: 30:20
So much, so much fun and uh and and such an important takeaway to just kind of work with rather than work against. It’s been great. Thank you so much, Mark. That’s it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash two eight two for the show notes, and I’ll see you next time.
