How To Deal With Angry Clients
When Customers Go Ballistic.” Barlow and Moller outline five principles to handle “difficult customers.” Among them are aikido and euphemism.
The aikido method reminds me of some advice a mentor gave me when I got married 20 years ago. When fighting with your wife, he said, never apologize too early. Angry people need time to vent, he explained; apologize too quickly and your wife won’t get what’s made her mad off her chest. Pacing is just common sense. Euphemism annoys me on principle; I am a writer, after all. But our chip-on-the-shoulder culture has come to demand it. Partnership is easy to overdo (call an irate person “buddy,” and he may punch you in the nose).
