The Best Technique to Defuse Anger

Recently, I wrote an ebook suggesting that one way of dealing with customer service personnel, such as the cable TV guy or the phone company was to simply be pleasant using the so-called mirror neurons.  A simple "How are you doing?" or "How is your day?" at the beginning of the discussion can do wonders in enabling you to get what you want and sometimes even more than you asked for. How to Get the Best Deal: A Free E-book, November 24, 2012.

Well, this post is about how those service personnel can defuse an angry customer with the same logic. Many customers call the customer service personnel irate at some failure of their car, computer, cable system, you name it.  What is the service person to do?  How can she benefit from the mirror image rule I discussed in that post?

The simple answer is for her to say something like, "I know you are angry and I'm sure your anger is justified. But how can I help you now so that together we can resolve your problem?" It is really as simple as that.  Generally, that person on the other line or across the complaint counter will be taken aback and his anger will disappear (or at least be reduced in volume)..

If every business taught its customer service personnel this simple approach, I believe they would have fewer complaints and happier customers.