Live chat undoubtedly helps businesses of all sizes to provide better customer service and increase sales. It is an effective tool with a 73% satisfaction rate among all customer service channels. But, no matter how organised your system is and how watchful you are of the quality of your customer service, there will always find yourself dealing with difficult customers. Handling these difficult customers is as inevitable as autumn after summer.
Live chat systems allow everyone who visits your website to engage with the company and gain assistance. This also means that you will be dealing with difficult customers from time to time. All you can do is be patient and develop the right mindset for it.
Here are three types of these customers and how you can deal with them professionally and ethically.
Types Of Difficult Customers
1. The Impatient Ones
People prefer live chat systems on websites because they take less time and offer instant assistance. You can be sure that you will come across customers who are even more impatient than they should be. These customers do not understand or care about the fact that the thing they are looking for is not available or can’t be done at the moment. They want everything “now”. Also, don’t be surprised if they can’t seem to understand that you do not offer certain services or features.
Dealing with These Difficult Customers:
Once you realise that this type of a customer is not capable of understanding that not everything can be done, all you have to do is be patient, not respond with emotions, and wait for them to calm down. Handling difficult customers in this way ensures that sooner or later they will listen to your explanation of the situation. Also, learning to say “no” to a customer can go a long way.
2. The Complaining Ones
People who naturally like to complain about things are the ones who are very difficult to satisfy. Even if you are able to solve their problem, they will find a way to create new problems and then complain about them through live chat systems. You can’t fight their nature.
Dealing with These Difficult Customers:
You should know upfront that no matter how efficiently and quickly you solve their original problem, they will never be pleased and satisfied; they’ll keep jumping to new problems. Deal with all their complaints and do your best without hoping to receive a word of satisfaction from them.
3. The Lazy Ones
We have all heard about lazy service, but there are lazy customers too. These customers are commonly encountered in live chat systems, and they do not want to put in the least amount of effort on their own. They expect you to do everything and want their problems to get solved magically — without them having to do anything.
Dealing with These Difficult Customers:
In order to get them going, you need to tell them that whatever you need them to do is very easy and only takes a few minutes. Getting them started is the hard part, but once they are at it, they will form a habit of doing things in their control to solve their problem.
Having a clear understanding of the situation and possessing the right mindset can help you deal with any kind of customer. Take these tips to heart and apply them the next time you’re handling difficult customers.
Good luck!
