Whether or not you believe that "the cus­tomer is always right", it's true that some­times cus­tomers make unrea­son­able demands. So, what is the best way to deal with cus­tomers who make unrea­son­able demands?

Start by using pos­i­tive lan­guage, telling the cus­tomer what you can do for them, rather than what you can't. Avoid slang and jar­gon and main­tain a pro­fes­sional tone of voice. Chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions demand even more from you—attitudinally speaking—than ordi­nary cus­tomer inter­ac­tions. Com­mon sense and a pos­i­tive atti­tude will help you stay calm while deal­ing with unrea­son­able cus­tomers. Here are a few addi­tional guide­lines to fol­low when deal­ing with chal­leng­ing cus­tomers and situations:

1. Be Hum­ble. Even if the cus­tomer is wrong, is act­ing inappropriately,or is demand­ing a solu­tion you can't pro­vide, your strat­egy should be to pro­ceed with humil­ity. This sim­ple mea­sure puts the cus­tomer at ease and can change the direc­tion of the con­ver­sa­tion. Being hum­ble does not mean you have to apol­o­gize for some­thing that’s not your fault and it doesn't mean you have to get on your knees and grovel. It sim­ply means that you under­stand that your role is to serve cus­tomers, even if they are dif­fi­cult or unpleas­ant. Of course, if a sit­u­a­tion war­rants an apol­ogy, be sure to offer one.
2. Express empa­thy.Empathiz­ing allows the cus­tomer to feel that you heard and under­stood his or her con­cern. This can go a long way in get­ting the customer’s coop­er­a­tion that you need to resolve the sit­u­a­tion. Here are some ways to express empathy:
   • I can appreciate…
   • I can understand…
   • I know what you mean…
   • Yes, I wouldn’t like that too much either…
3. Remain poised. Ulti­mately the very best thing you can do for both your­self and your cus­tomer is to remain poised, calm, and con­fi­dent. This allows you to focus on a solu­tion and shows the cus­tomer that you’ve got the sit­u­a­tion under con­trol. If you are upset, you’ll only aggra­vate the cus­tomer further.
4. It is impor­tant to let the cus­tomer vent, at least briefly. In many cases, the oppor­tu­nity to express their frus­tra­tion is all cus­tomers need; then they’re ready to work with you on find­ing that solution.
5. Focus on a solu­tion. If there is a prob­lem, don’t beat it to death. Some­times details such as why and when the prob­lem occurred are not impor­tant. The best rule is to focus as soon as pos­si­ble on find­ing a solu­tion. To do this, put aside the emo­tions, dis­cern the impor­tant details of the sit­u­a­tion, and focus on what CAN be done (instead of what CAN’T be done) to resolve the issue or problem.
6. Avoid defen­sive­ness. Remem­ber that your job is to serve cus­tomers — even those who chal­lenge you — not to defend your­self against them. If a cus­tomer makes a dis­parag­ing remark, or blames you for the prob­lem, don’t take it per­son­ally. Stick to the facts and carry on with find­ing the solution.
7. Be pro­fes­sional. Avoid slang and jar­gon and main­tain a calm tone of voice.

If you are unable to ful­fill a demand­ing customer's request because of com­pany pol­icy or legal or eth­i­cal rea­sons, be sure to explain why you are unable to, show empa­thy, and let the cus­tomer know what you can do by pro­vid­ing an alter­nate solu­tion if there is one. By explain­ing why you’re not able to ful­fill a request, you help the cus­tomer to under­stand and accept the sit­u­a­tion. Avoid giv­ing a dry, rote, “That’s not our pol­icy.” Instead, speak in a pos­i­tive, con­fi­dent tone of voice, and explain why you are not able to ful­fill the request. It is espe­cially impor­tant to incor­po­rate the above-mentioned guide­lines when say­ing no.

It's impor­tant to rec­og­nize that appro­pri­ately han­dling cus­tomer demands has direct effects on cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, cus­tomer loy­alty, and the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. Just because cus­tomers may be per­ceived by you to be irra­tional or unrea­son­ably demand­ing, your job is still to help find a solu­tion. If you fol­low these guide­lines, you'll be more likely to con­clude the call with a sat­is­fied customer.

Peggy Car­law is the founder of Impact Learn­ing Sys­tems, a lead­ing train­ing com­pany spe­cial­iz­ing in improv­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions between front-line employ­ees and cus­tomers. Peggy is co-author of sev­eral books pub­lished by McGraw-Hill, includ­ing Man­ag­ing and Moti­vat­ing Con­tact Cen­ter Employ­ees and The Big Book of Sales Train­ing Games.

Peggy Carlaw

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