Hey, customer! Take a chill pill!

Kerri Guyton

OK, so while this may be what’s coming to mind as you open your mouth to diffuse an emotional customer, good communication skills will filter this statement into something pleasantly soothing and magically transformative. Some may claim that performing magic would be easier than pleasantly responding to an irate customer, but with a focused commitment to positive communication, business professionals might be surprised at their own “power” to redirect a customer’s frustration.

While situations vary, keeping your cool is the overall goal of any heated interaction. Simply by remaining calm, you exude a confidence that the problem has a solution. The rest of the interaction can be remembered as easily as you remember your vowels: AEIOU.

•    Acknowledgment
•    Empathy
•    Insight
•    Offer
•    Understanding

Starting with an acknowledgement of the customer’s concern and empathy for their distress immediately softens the customer’s defense and begins to assure them that you are open to helping them.

The next stage of the interaction involves gaining insight into the situation – listening to the customer’s story to determine the problem. This stage may also involve providing insight, which may settle the situation right then and there. If you are able to clear up a misunderstanding or answer a question that wasn’t being answered, that may be all that was needed to clear up the situation.

You can most often expect the offer stage to turn the corner for the situation, be it an offer to do something about the problem, to provide a reimbursement or replacement, or even to handle something differently in the future. Unhappy customers are likely to come with a demand ready, and by having a spirit of offering ready to go after gaining the insight needed, you continue to control the positive momentum.

A lasting impression is made in the understanding phase, where it is imperative to communicate an agreement that the situation has been resolved, so that the customer can walk away feeling taken care of, satisfied and far from the angry patron who initiated the exchange. 

And then, you can put your “magic wand” back in your pocket.

Sometimes, simpler is just plain better.

Courtney Liebenrood Ellett

 We’ve all been guilty of it at some point – getting distracted while driving, whether looking at our phone, grabbing something out of the passenger seat or stealing a glance into the back to see why the kids are squealing.

But we also know that distracted driving is dangerous. And thanks to a simple strategy by the Tennessee Department of Transportation, we are now privy to how many lives are lost every single day on the roadways of our home state.

This spring, TDOT began posting the fatality count on electronic message boards along interstates and highways. I remember the first day I saw that count; it was near the beginning of May. I believe the number was circling 300. I thought to myself how high that seemed so early in the year. As a Collierville resident who drives Downtown every weekday, I can’t help but pay close attention as that count inches up.

With each increase, I think about how old the person might have been. I wonder what led to the accident. I ask myself could it have been a child. And then I think of my own children. It’s the daily reminder that I need to stay focused on driving and not on attempting to retain my crown as the queen of multi-tasking.  

My PR point is this: The State of Tennessee was experiencing an alarming rise in traffic fatalities in the first three months of this year, up about 28 percent from the first quarter of 2011, despite the state enjoying record-setting declines for the previous seven years. In 2011, 946 deaths was the lowest number recorded since 1962. 

Something needed to be done to drive the safety message home. While TDOT may be involved in other efforts (both operationally and communication-focused in nature) to curb that increasing total, what I see is that number on the electric sign creeping up – and sometimes spiking – every day. And it makes an impact.

This message is simple, free to execute through existing technology and infrastructure and is always up-to-date. It is more effective than any traditional PSA campaign or news story could be. Most importantly, it keeps my eyes on the road so I’m not the next statistic on that board for someone to see and quietly lament.