I’m Mad as Hell and I Won’t Take It Anymore!

1. Your new secretary informs your customer that he has lost his credit privileges and must now purchase on a C.O.D. basis. You know that the account has been overdue, but you don’t know that your accounting department has just received full payment. Your customer is on the phone and he is fuming mad!

2. You obtained an order from an important customer and promised a four week delivery. After accepting a 25 percent deposit, your production department informs your customer – but not you! – that the model on order is no longer available. Unknowingly, you visit your customer and he confronts you with an expression of anger and disbelief.

3. You sold a business machine to a law firm. One week after their office personnel have been trained in the use of your equipment, the client learns that he could have purchased a similar competitive model for 20 percent less. The lawyer calls you and accuses you of deceptive business practices.

Anger in customers is perplexing. If it’s unmanaged, you’re going to lose valuable customers, find it difficult working with employees and get in dutch with the boss. Anger always is expressed – whether outwardly or inwardly. Often it’s covert and indirect. Coming late, absenteeism, losing things around the office are examples of covert expressions of hostility. Blowing up, confronting people with negative feelings and blaming people are more overt expressions of anger. Anger always is expressed. Anger is something that can either get in your way or can be managed in such a way as to expedite your work and get your job done.

Anger is not sinful, weird, sick or crazy. Anger is a natural normal emotion that all human beings have and we all have the opportunity to learn to deal with it. Look at it this way. You either control your anger or your anger controls you. Successful people are those who acknowledge their emotions – even the difficult ones like anger – and learn how to express them appropriately. A mark of boorishness and lack of civility is when one is dominated by strong emotions and expresses them haphazardly and in a way that’s unproductive and results in lost sales or friends.

Look at the three vignettes above. How would you have handled those kinds of situations? Do you feel equipped to be able to deal with the emotional impact aroused either in yourself or in other people by the examples given? When you manage your client’s anger there are a number of benefits. You release the tension in the situation. You open communication. You unblock the energy needed for clear thinking. In addition, learning to handle your client’s anger will give you a chance to build a closer relationship. It’s not unusual that an initial conflict once successfully managed makes room for a longlasting and profitable business relationship. It’s a truism in psychology that a mutual emotional investment creates a lasting bond.

You may remember in high school that it was often the kid you had a fight with who became your best friend later on. So, too, in the business world, an effectively handled anger situation can develop into a positive personal and business relationship.

Silent Anger:

There are many styles of expressing anger. We can deal with them under two categories. One is the silent treatment, or the flight response. This is a way to get away from dealing with the anger and hostility that you feel. You go inside yourself and retreat and withdraw – in fact, the silent treatment, as we experience it, is that people literally do not speak to the person they’re mad at. This often happens in marriages, and very often happens around an office. A secretary in one of my anger seminars indicated that she hadn’t talked to her boss for ten days except to say yes and no and follow orders. She said it made him extremely uncomfortable, and rendered him powerless to deal with her.

Another form of the silent treatment is sabotage, crime and obstructionism in the workplace. I heard of a company that every day for three months had to call a plumber because somebody went into the men’s room and stuffed two rolls of toilet paper down into the toilet, causing it to overflow. Obviously the person was expressing anger covertly and silently and effectively. I’m sure you can think of examples in your own workplace of this particular way of expressing anger.

Explosions:

The second category for expressing anger is what can be called open anger. The most obvious example is the exploder. This person shouts and screams and hollers whenever he gets angry. This person is usually somebody in charge or who has power and uses it to intimidate employees and salespeople who approach him. It can be used as a manipulative technique to keep people off balance. It’s not a very direct or fair way to work with people.

Then there’s what I call the John Wayne approach to expressing anger and that is revenge. The old saying goes, “I don’t get angry – I get even.” Around the office it goes like this: “Next time you do this, I’m going to fire you.”

Another example of expressing anger is the judge: a person going around passing judgments on other people’s behavior. “It’s not fair when you talk to me like this.”

Then there’s the blamer. That person usually starts sentences with, “You should have …” or ”I told you…,” implying somehow that you are bad and wrong for whatever you’ve done. Instead of being direct and saying, “I’m angry,” or ”I’m upset,” the attempt is to put the blame on the other person. The nitpicker can also be a person who is expressing anger. Challenging the budget and constantly complaining about little details can be a means of expressing hostility under the guise of being a superperformer.

ANGER MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

Here are some key rules for managing people who are angry and upset:

Don’t try to control or threaten people who are angry. You can’t control another person’s anger; you can show that you are understanding. A good way to do this is just to allow them to be angry without criticizing or somehow trying to get them to stop expressing their anger. Give them some time to share their anger and talk about it.

Show you care. Empathize. Show understanding about how your client feels. For example, you can say something like, “I understand how you feel, and I see that getting what you ordered is a major concern at this time. I’d be angry too if that happened to me.” It’s probably best to stay with allowing the customer to express his anger and not be tempted to say something like, ”You’re right, our production department is making a big mistake in discontinuing the model. It’s infuriating, I know.” In-house criticism is not going to be very helpful to the people involved. Stick with the feeling of anger and with allowing the person to have the anger until you can calm him or her down and begin to renegotiate the situation.

A third key rule for handling angry customers is to assure the client that the anger won’t jeopardize the relationship. For example, you can say, ” I understand your reaction and appreciate your openness. You see this gives me a chance to work harder to make our relationship work.” Or you can say something like,

”I’m sure you realize your business is very important to me.”

Then, after your clients have had time to vent their anger, you can clarify, diagnose and respond to the real issues. “Now, could you help me understand the details of this competitive offer?” Once you’ve allowed the venting of angry feelings, you can begin to think through what the problem is and see if some new answers can be established. This is a time when you can renegotiate and build new bridges in the relationship. This is very difficult to do if the person has not had a chance to get any of his angry feelings put forward. Any attempts on your part to block those feelings because of fear or anxiety will get in the way of your continuing the relationship and bridging on to new business.

Watch out for the nonverbal expressions of anger. It’s a good idea not to mirror the client’s negative, nonverbal expressions. Don’t withdraw, don’t show defensiveness; express an open posture. Look at the person without challenge, but with caring. Crossing your legs and arms will only show a desire to retreat on your part and make it more difficult to establish communication with your customer.

Managing the Silent Customer

When you encounter a customer who is obviously upset or angry, but is also silent, you have a big problem. You can tell the person is annoyed by his clenched jaw, averted glance, and unwillingness to communicate very openly or directly. The problem is difficult for you because you don’t have any information. You don’t know what the problem is and it seems embarrassing or too personal to ask. The customer has a key advantage. He is in the passive manipulating position and can create feelings in you of doubt and insecurity. You stand around wondering what you did wrong.

Here are some key strategies that could help. You can ask questions that are essentially statements about the customer’s silence:

“Is there anything about me or my company that prevents you from doing business with us?”

“I can’t help noticing that I have been doing most of the talking, and at this point, I’d like to ask you what seems to hold you back from expressing your objective opinion.”

“Obviously, you must have a reason for saving your objective opinion on what we’ve been discussing. Would you mind if I asked what it is?”

If you use these techniques, be prepared to accept open anger. You may push a button which will help the person express his anger and hostility directly. Then you can revert to the strategies mentioned above of listening and allowing the person to vent his anger, and then sit down with him to discuss and renegotiate your situation.

In summary, then, you can manage other people’s anger. It takes a certain amount of derring-do, but not really all that much. Be prepared to listen, ask searching questions and be willing to take the risk of confronting anger directly. It’s important to remember that anger is okay. It is there to be handled, and it can be something with which you can be enormously creative.

Finally, in dealing with other people’s anger, you will learn something about your own. The best management technique for handling angry clients is to improve your own anger-management skills. The more comfortable you are with your own anger and hostility, the better chance you have of effectively defusing a client’s anger and turning it into a creative selling opportunity.