Tell me about a time you had to work with a difficult customer.

"In my current position, I deal with hundreds of customers weekly. I once had a customer who would come in regularly and try to return broken items and items without receipts, and often our manager felt they were items that person stole. I found that when dealing with difficult repeat customers, consistency is key. I made sure everyone on the team followed the same process and delivered the same message to this customer. I calmly reiterated our policies to her and never appeared judging or rude to her. I found that consistently following the same process helped set expectations for this customer, and eventually, this behavior stopped."

"I once had a customer come into my store yelling about how she had just purchased an item the day before and the leather ripped already. I remained calm and kept my tone pleasant and positive. I apologized for the problem and her inconvenience of having to come back to the store and asked her for her receipt. She did not have it and continued to be upset about the quality of the item and her wasted time having to come back. I again apologized and offered to look the information up in our system for her. I was able to locate her receipt, and we were able to replace her item, and my manager also approved me giving her a discount on another item in the store for her trouble. I was able to de-escalate the situation by being helpful and understanding and not getting emotional in response to her anger."