The customer calls/emails you out of the blue. And, wow, are they mad! More often than not, it’s your company’s fault. The site is down. Data is deleted. Someone made a mistake impacting their business. A feature isn’t implemented. A dozen small issues have put them over the top. The Support experience is poor. Regardless of the reasons, your customer’s business is impacted, and they are angry!
Many of us have been there, and it is never fun. Having the courage to own getting the customer back on track is challenging, and is frankly one of the harder jobs for a CSM. Thankfully, there are strategies to handling these situations effectively that not only work but more often than not, make you even more valuable and appreciated at the end! Why? Because unlike most of their other experiences, you managed them through the escalation and got them back on track!
To effectively manage a customer escalation I will first walk through the mindset, define the two workflows you must manage, and explain how to handle the first call to reassure the customer, wrapping up with the resolution itself.
The Customer’s Mindset
It’s important to understand the customer’s mindset before your first call. They are angry, Almost always this is because an important expectation was not met, frequently causing them to be embarrassed at their work, resulting in them no longer trusting you as their vendor.
The good news. The fact that they want to talk to you is a good sign. It means that while trust has been broken, they want you to fix the problem so they can stay with you! It’s the ones that are just as angry, but who have NOT escalated that you have lost!
The worst thing you can ever do is to become defensive, deflect, or make excuses! Once you have handled the escalation, the customer will remember how you responded in a time of crisis and will know that you are one of a rare few companies who do this, and will be more loyal afterward as a result!
The Two Workflows
When handling an escalated account, it’s important to always remember that there are two tracks you need to handle:
- Solving their problem.
- Communicating status updates as you solve their problem.
I’ve seen multiple times where the customer is still upset even though we resolved the issue because we didn’t communicate effectively!
First Contact
The first meeting is critically important. If they are a key customer, ask your CS executive to join you on the call. Their job is to express empathy, show that the customer is valued by their presence, and allow you to handle the situation.
In the meeting, start by explaining the purpose of the call. Highlight that you understand they are frustrated and ask them to explain their problems. Actively listen and take notes. Once done, first express empathy. State that this is not the experience you are looking to provide. Then re-iterate back to them what you heard. By showing empathy and actively listening (proven by re-stating the problems) you are diffusing their anger and highlighting you understand their situation.
Most of the time you will not be able to solve the problem on the call. The customer will know this as well. You have aligned with the customer on the problems, so let them know you will handle this issue with urgency and will work internally on a plan for the next steps. Let them know when you will be telling them the next steps (tomorrow, end of day Friday, etc.), and wrap up the meeting.
Once the meeting is done, immediately send meeting notes thanking them for their time, summarizing the issues you agreed on in writing, and finally reiterating when you will be following up.
The Project Plan
From the initial meeting, you should understand all of the issues. You now need to prioritize the issues, understand what resources are needed, and get timelines on deliverables. These are all core tasks of project management! Escalations are typically pretty lightweight, so I recommend just using a spreadsheet like:
I track this in my CRM/CSP as well so you have a record of this activity and so other people involved in the account know about the escalation and the status.
Subsequent Meetings / Communication
Once you have created a project plan, you should schedule a meeting to share the update with the customer. It’s best to deliver this update in-person/virtually vs. over email, although email can work as well. In this meeting you should be sharing the issues, what you have done, and what the next steps are on them. If you can’t handle all issues at the same time, make sure you explain that and that you are working through them in priority order, which they’ve confirmed. Let them ask questions, and schedule the next meeting as appropriate. If you believe this is a long-running escalation, I recommend meeting at least weekly, sometimes daily, or 2-3 times a week depending on the speed at which the customer and you can get their issues resolved.. Always send meeting notes (a portion of which should be the project plan).
Final Meeting
Once you believe you have resolved all of the customer’s issues to their satisfaction, make sure to have a final meeting to confirm that you have solved their issues, ask if there are any other issues, and ask for feedback on how we could have handled this situation better (short of it not happening in the first place). Assuming you have done a good job, you should have an appreciative customer. Once that is done, let them know that you are wrapping up, and will be going back to standard business operations and meeting/communication cadences.
