Four years of smiling and nodding before I realized I was making it worse

I used to just let angry customers vent and vent, thinking I was being patient and helpful. Then last month, this guy at the counter in Pittsburgh spent 15 minutes yelling about his AC quote and I just stood there taking it. After he left, my coworker told me I was supposed to interrupt and redirect after 30 seconds or they just get more wound up. Has anyone else had that moment where you find out your "good" habit was actually backfiring the whole time?

2 comments

2 Comments

holly631mo ago

You gotta interrupt them early or theyll just keep feeding their own anger. My trick is to say "I hear you and I want to help fix this, can I ask you a specific question?" right when they pause for a breath. That redirect usually stops them cold because they realize youre actually trying to solve something. If you wait too long they think you agree with every complaint and they dig in harder. I also found that keeping my hands visible and not crossing my arms makes them less defensive when I cut in. Just a simple hand up with a smile and a "let me jump in here real quick" works way better than standing there like a statue.

riley_ramirez811mo ago

There's this thing I read somewhere about how the brain actually rewards people for venting, so the longer you let them go, the more they want to keep doing it. Never thought about it that way until I heard a customer service expert talk about how silence just tells them you agree with everything they're saying. So yeah, being quiet and nodding probably just made them think you were on their side and they should keep going. That 30 second rule makes sense now, you gotta cut them off in a nice way and give them something to work with instead of just letting them build up steam. It's wild how the stuff we think is helping is actually the opposite.