Turn an irritated customer into a happy one.
In the field of customer service, dealing with dissatisfaction, frustration, or even aggression is often a major source of stress. However, a well-handled complaint is far from a failure—it’s a golden opportunity to regain a customer’s trust and build loyalty. Knowing how to defuse a tense situation professionally requires specific communication techniques and a high degree of self-control.
This training provides you with practical tools to stay calm, reassure the person you’re speaking with, and turn crisis situations into genuine relationship successes for your company.
Is it for you ?
Customer service professionals, representatives, receptionists, sales consultants, technical support staff, and front-line team managers.
Prerequisites
No prerequisites are required. However, having prior experience in customer service can enrich the discussions during the practical exercises.
What You'll Walk Away With
- ✓ Stress Reduction: Learn proven methods to stop letting your emotions get the better of you when faced with aggression.
- ✓ Customer Loyalty: A customer whose complaint has been heard and resolved often becomes more loyal than a customer who has never had a problem.
- ✓ Brand reputation protection: Prevent escalation (negative reviews online or on social media) by resolving disputes at the source.
- ✓ Boosted self-confidence: Take control of the interaction with confidence and assertiveness.
Training content
A customer—whether internal or external—who complains… it happens. Effectively managing a customer conflict or a difficult situation, and responding appropriately to a complaint, takes practice, because it’s possible (and desirable) to improve your ability to respond in a way that maintains a positive customer experience.
How do you handle a dissatisfied customer? To do so, you must first identify your own sales style, manage your emotions, clarify the customer’s actual expectations, and communicate with them in a way that aligns with your goal.
Getting to know yourself better first—so you can then better understand the customer—will allow you to turn a complaint from a dissatisfied customer into an opportunity to build loyalty.
1 Anticipate
- Proactive vs. reactive to avoid recurring difficult situations
- Manage priorities and emergencies
- Defuse negative customer emotions
- Know the strengths and weaknesses of your personality type
2 The importance of the first impression
- Taking care of your appearance to influence perception
- Conveying enthusiasm
- Adopt a positive attitude by working on your mental posture
3 Respect the client's basic needs
- Ensure respect, security and empathy
- Work on your speech to reach a solution
- Adapt to the context (telephone, e-mail, in person)
- Expressions to avoid and to favour
- Managing expectations (realistic vs. unrealistic)
- Delivering bad news
4 Active listening
- Evaluating your listening skills
- Using advanced active listening techniques
Making a good diagnosis
- The art of questioning
- Clarifying and confirming
5 Client personalities
- Characteristics of the 4 main types of clients
- Identifying and dealing with client types
- Avoiding prejudice
- Retain and build loyalty
- Differentiating between difficult customers and difficult situations
- Formulating an apology
6 Approaching hostile customers
- Cutting off conversation tactfully
- Ending a conversation tactfully
- Setting your own limits
- Maintaining a positive attitude in conflict situations
- Managing stress and staying calm.
📌 Practical information
Our training sessions are offered in Montreal or Quebec City, in person or in a virtual classroom. Dates and locations are specified when you select your session below. If you have any questions, check out our FAQ.
