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3 High-Impact Fixes For Your Marketing Woes
Copyright 2005 Cutts Group, llc
How many times has your competitor gotten one over on you? The feeling of being left behind just eats away, until you do something about. The problem is that we often feel that we’ve got to come up with some grand...
Building an Email Marketing List
There's a marketing estimate that it takes something like seven contacts with a potential client before they purchase. Email is a wonderful way to handle these contacts for a variety of reasons: you can send one message to a large...
Creating Great Business Correspondence
Obtaining the skills for writing good business correpondence is important; a job seeker needs to send customised job application letters. A secretary needs to send out an official invitation letter. A purchasing assistant may need to prepare an...
Finding A Great Change Management Consultant
Change management consultants aren’t too hard to find; if they perform properly, they work themselves out of every job! But when you’re planning massive restructuring for your company, you want the best change management consultant you can locate. ...
Ignore PR at Your Peril!
Please feel free to publish this article and resource box in your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website. A copy would be appreciated at bobkelly@TNI.net. Net word count is 770 including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly ©...
Managers, Which PR Is Right For You?
An effort built around a string of print and broadcast exposures? Or, a public relations initiative that delivers results far beyond simple publicity tactics. Namely, real behavior change among your most important outside audiences leading...
Secure Method of Communication
Secure Method of Communication Introduction... In today's business world, your business competitors will often try and get an edge over you by any means possible.This includes attempts at intercepting your sensitive business...
The Worst PR Mistakes
For a business, non-profit or association manager, they could be fatal, coming as they do in four bitter flavors. Mistake #1 – You limit your PR activity pretty much to placing product and service plugs on radio and in newspapers. Mistake...
Want PR's Full Value?
Make sure somebody is worrying about those outside audience behaviors you need to help reach your objectives. And I mean the kind of behaviors you like: prospective buyers browsing your services or products; specifying sources or major...
Your Home Business: Turning Pennies into Dollars
Henry Ford taught us that to simplify the manufacture of automobiles, that the best way to do so was to install the assembly line. That one change revolutionized the auto manufacturing industry permitting the industry to build cars at a cost...
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Communication Tips for Dealing with the Angry Customer
1. Be clear about what you want to achieve. It is unlikely to be enough just to want to be rid of the angry customer (although this can be a natural response). It is usually more satisfactory (and satisfying) to set out to have the other person satisfied that their complaint has been dealt with in the best possible way.
2. Never, ever promise what you can't deliver. It may make them feel better now, but tomorrow...
3. DO take responsibility for what you can. There is nothing more irritating than someone who says "There is nothing I can do about that... it's company policy"
4. Validate the customer's feelings. In their world, they have every reason to be angry. It's OK to tell them that you can understand why they might be angry, as long as you are seen to be seeking a solution.
5. DO get as much specific information about the customer's perception of the problem as possible. Not only does this communicate interest, it will help you in resolving the problem in a manner satisfactory to the customer.
6. Stay calm and focussed on the desire to resolve the customers problem. When confronted with anger and aggression, the normal response is to prepare for fight or flight by producing adrenalin. If you have to, pause and take a slow breath. Do not allow the customer's anger to provoke you.
7. If you have time (e.g. between taking and returning a call), there is a valuable exercise that is useful in all sorts of
conflict situations.
a) Take stock of yourself. In your imagination, put yourself in the confrontational situation, and simply notice what it is that you are feeling, experiencing and thinking.
b) Put yourself in the other persons shoes. Imagine yourself seeing through their eyes, feeling their feelings, and if it is a face to face confrontation, see yourself as they would see you, hear yourself as they would hear you.
c) Step out and step back. See the whole interaction with the both of you present. Observe this as an impartial observer, with the scene at eye level in your mind's eye. If you feel emotional at this stage, simply imagine "switching" that emotion into the body of the person it would be most appropriate for.
d) And come back.
The valuable thing about this exercise is that it enriches your understanding of the communication between you, giving you greater choice and greater objectivity, while allowing you the opportunity to empathise with someone in a situation where empathy could otherwise be difficult.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Sargant is a freelance communications trainer with an interest in (among other things)dealing with angry and aggressive clients. His background is in NLP and nursing mentally disordered offenders, as well as running two succesful recruitment agencies.
Personnel Development
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