It’s the nightmare that every businessperson experiences: a shouting match with a customer or client. Although every small-business person needs a bucket of water to douse these sorts of fires, it’s hard to know where to reach amid the flames. Here are at-the-ready responses that may help tame even the most unpleasant situation:“Let’s go over what’s happened.” This simple phrase covers several powerful areas. For one thing, by asking your client to recount the wrong, you’re forcing him to think, not just vent. That unto itself can smooth things considerably. On top of that, you’re letting the other person know that you’re genuinely interested in his or her version of what happened. Lastly, it deals you some time to listen and, hopefully, devise a solution to the problem at hand.
“Let’s get together to talk about this.” If a client is screeching at you over the phone, suggest that you meet face to face to iron out what’s wrong. Again, that can inject some much-needed cooling down time into the situation. And, no matter if your customer is a quick-to-back-off bully or simply conscious of behaving more civilly face to face, chances are good that your conversation will be far more controlled and productive when you actually get together.
“Let’s see what we can do to resolve this.” Having heard every possible side of the story, this reaffirms your intent to hammer out a solution that’s satisfactory to everyone involved. Not only that, but your commitment to a fair resolution also moves past the accusation and moves toward identifying what went wrong and taking reasonable steps to correct it.
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