Handling Irate Customers

In business, irate customers are a fact of life. Keeping the customers of your Antares vending business happy and satisfied is very important. That means the people the people who speak with and deal with customers control the future- and the destiny of their company. When a customer is angry, or you are unable to deliver the way they expect, the formula that will make them forgive you, continue to do business with you, and tell others about you is: “React, Respond and Recover.”

If a customer is unhappy about something in a vending business, then that would mean that an operator would need to react, respond and recover. One thing that is very important in any vending business is that, no operator would want to lose any of the customers that they already have. Acquiring and retaining customers is something that is not easy to do. The one thing that should always be on your mind as an Antares operator is keeping the customers happy and dealing with irate customers in the right way.

Use the right words

If a customer is irate then the words that you use in such a situation are critical. Defensive words, lame excuses, bad attitude and other negative acts of stupidity only fuel the fire and anger the customer further. You would need to get empathetic as fast as you can. Start your response with one of four phrases: 1) “Oh, that’s horrible,” 2) “Thank you for telling me that,” 3) “No problem!” or 4) “You’re in luck!” These types of phrases show the customer that you care. This means that they can put you on the path to begin to resolve the problem. This would be the best way to deal with the customers of your Antares vending business. For most people the first instinct when speaking to an angry customer is to apologize. You should avoid doing this.

You need to be aware of the big picture

Whenever there is problem with one of the customers, first and foremost, you would need to take responsibility for whatever has happened, even if the fault isn’t yours. All the customer wants is for you to handle the problem. It is important to be aware of some practical realities when trying to accomplish the task of satisfying the customer. The customer knows exactly how they want it, or what exactly they want, but may be a lousy communicator and not tell you completely. As the Antares operator, it would be your job to understand. Word of mouth will help you or haunt you as you market yourself.