PPB January 2018

as the cost of goods returned and costs due to losses (theft). Therefore, management must put policies and procedures in place that capture reporting from front-line customer service personnel and front-line managers. For example, you may implement a procedure where all complaints about customers are referred to a special group or department set up to review the customer, the associated complaint and the impact on the organization. This group can then make recommendations for future actions with that customer. Those actions could range from initiating a dialogue with the customer in the hopes of changing whatever internal or external stimuli are causing the customer to act out (such as arguing with customer service personnel every time they call) to firing the customer and not doing any more business with them. I have released undesirable customers who consume too much time and do not create a payoff by treating themwith courtesy and professionalism but never initiating any efforts to sell to them. The second issue is the cost to your employees.There is a direct relationship between customer conflict and physiological, emotional, cognitive and attitudinal effects such as stress and emotional distress. Employees can also feel frustration, anger, guilt, irritation, anxiety, sadness and even depression due to customer misbehavior. Customer conflict can also affect the motivation of your employees and their job satisfaction, and it can have the overall effect of reducing their trust in customer honesty and ethical behavior. It also creates a lack of faith in the organization to address the problem. When front-line employees are not confident that the organization will do anything to change the negative environment, it reflects poorly on the organization as a whole. Front-line employees may also engage in patterns of negative reciprocity, where they begin to treat customers in a disrespectful manner, and they are able to justify it when dealing with disruptive customers. In these situations, employees’ attitudes suffer, they build coping mechanisms that may not be in line with organizational values and they may ultimately take their valuable knowledge and skills away to another company so that they can move to a less stressful environment. Organizations must create a culture of excellence that defines the service experience and eliminates the opportunity for a customer to engage in misbehavior. This culture should extend throughout the firm, and by extension, to every employee. D. Alan Christopher, MAS, is a multi-line rep in the Southwest. He is a PhD candidate in marketing and social media marketing at Northcentral University. A 30-year industry veteran, he has served on the PPAI Board of Directors and as chair of the PPEF Board of Trustees. Reach him at dacaustin@aol.com. Five Tactics To Defuse Difficult Customers To help manage difficult customers, behavioral researchers Kate L. Daunt and Lloyd C. Harris recommend a technique called L.E.S.T.E.R. This involves training front-line employees in six key areas: Listening, Echoing, Sympathizing, Thinking, Evaluating and Responding. The training involves role-playing for both customer service and line management to be able to recognize and understand situations where customer misbehavior, such as verbal or even physical misbehavior, might occur. A second method is to identify front-line personnel who have the personality and disposition to work with customers who may be rude, unpleasant and sometimes deceitful. Managers who can handle situations that escalate beyond front-line personnel should also be evaluated and hired. These managers must have the authority to satisfy the customer and reduce the impact of customer misbehavior on the organization. The third tactic organizations can take involves employee compensation. Employees who are in positions where customer misbehavior is common, such as customer service, can be more highly compensated to watch for and deal with customers exhibiting such behaviors. When additional compensation is not possible, other perks such as flex-time or shift rotation might benefit those employees. A fourth technique is to design work teams that involve various types of personalities to work with misbehaving customers. This also has the added advantage of providing continual training to employees. The fifth tactic involves counseling employees. Training and compensation can only go so far. After an unpleasant encounter, employees may need the opportunity to talk about what happened and receive additional support and training. While these recommendations involve an investment of time and money, there is a return on investment to the organization in terms of employee health, increased productivity and fewer inventory losses. 24 | JANUARY 2018 | INNOVATE