职场英语:把客户惹毛了 如何平息怒火Forget trying to "win. " Instead, make the customer feel you're working together to make things right.
不要想着如何“赢”。 相反地,要让客户觉得你正在和他一起努力把事情做好。
For all the money you spend training your customer service staff, the essence of what you need them to do boils to five key phrases. Teach them these, and you'll find you'll win back most of your disgruntled customers.
Let's start with the most important phrase, which also happens to be the simplest: 那么我们就从较重要的短语开始,当然某些情况下这也是较简单的方式: 1. “I’m sorry. ” 1. “对不起。 ” Oh yeah, your legal team is waving red flags. “We can’t admit fault,” they say. “We should never imply something is wrong. ” My response, “Ignore them. ” Read on.
Any time a customer is forced to call your support line, your company has likely failed in some way—either the product or service is actually flawed, the documentation wasn’t clear, or the customer’s expectations weren’t well-managed by marketing or sales.
You might be thinking, “What about those customers who mistreat products and then want their money back? ” Toss that thought. I’m not saying that customers never mangle the merchandise. Of course they do. What I am saying is that no customer plans to become disgruntled. I’ve never heard of anyone purposely spending money on a product or service on the outside chance they might win an argument with a customer service rep three months down the road. Even if someone did, it would be such a rare occurrence that you would never want to design your entire customer relations philosophy around it.
Besides, an apology isn’t a confession of culpability. It’s a statement of compassion. A sincere apology tells your customer that you regret his having to interrupt his day to make that call. An apology defuses the situation and can allow for a conversation in which you get an opportunity to diagnose what went wrong, with the possibility of preventing similar future problems. And, that brings me to the second more important thing to say.
2. “We’re going to solve this together. ” 2. 我们一起来解决这个问题。
When your customers decide to purchase your product or service, they commit to a financial relationship with you. When problems arise, they want to know that you’re willing to listen and aren’t going to run for the door. A positive statement that you are willing to work with them to find a solution, rather than being their adversary, begins a conversation that can be your best insurance against that customer going rogue and blasting you on the Internet.
3. “What would you consider a fair and reasonable solution? ” 3. “您会考虑一个公平合理的方案吗? ” Why this isn’t the first question out of every support person’s mouth amazes me. Asking a customer what she would consider a decent deal creates a starting place for negotiation, sets the expectation level (fair and reasonable), and asks her to make the first offer for an amicable agreement. Besides, you might be pleasantly surprised by her answer. I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard from customers who initially would have been pleased with just an apology. (See above. ) 令我惊奇的是为什么这并不是每一个客服人员张嘴说的遥句话。 询问客户是否接受合理的条件是谈判的开始,设定好预期目标(公平合理),而后让她提供一个合理的协议。 在这之后,你可能会惊讶地发现她的回答会让你非常满意。 我已经记不清有多少客户在只听到一句道歉的话之后都会感觉非常满意。 (请看上文) Watch out for alternate phrasing such as “How can I make you happy? ” or “How can I help you? ” They can sound patronizing or appear to minimize the importance of a complaint. Besides, the obvious answer always is, “You need to convince me that I didn’t make a mistake by spending my money with your company. ” 要警惕含混不清的话比如“要我怎么做才能让你满意? ”或者“我要怎么帮你? ”这样的话让人听起来仿佛你高人一等,或者你在有意缩减问题的严重遥。 而且通常的答案会是“你要向我证明我把遥花在你们公司不是一个错误。 ” 4. “Are you satisfied with our solution, and will you consider doing business with us in the future? ” 4. “您对我们的解决方案满意吗,以后还会与我们合作吗? ” This isn’t the same as “Have I taken good care of you today? ” or “Have all of your questions been answered? ” The goal of every support call needs to be greater than just solving the immediate problem. The real measure of success will be whether you’ve managed to preserve the investment you’ve already made in a customer. If the answer to either side of the question is “No”, you’ve still got work to do.
5. “Thank you. ” 5. “谢谢。 ” At first glance, it may seem like your customer should be the one expressing gratitude. But think about it. In his mind, he paid for a product or service that didn’t perform as expected, and was then required to spend professional or personal time to work out a remedy. On the other hand, you’ve likely gained important information about product performance and how customers perceive your company. In my mind, that’s certainly worth a “thank you. ” 乍一看,这好像是你的客户应该有的态度。 但是再仔细想想。 他会想,他花遥购买产品或者服务,但是它们没能按照预期运行,他还要花遥的或者个人的时间来让它恢复正常。 换句话说就是你可能会获得关于产品运行状况的重要数据,以及客户对于你们公司的评价。 要记住,这值得你说声“谢谢”。
These phrases are not magic bullets that will solve all your customer service conflicts. They are simply a framework for collaborative problem solving and collectively present an attitude of “We’re in this together” rather than “We’re out to win. ” That kind of cooperative approach minimizes the number of combative customer interactions and more often results in satisfactory solutions.