"I am a lead in our department, so I take the calls that are escalated or too difficult for one of the other reps to handle. I had a customer who yelled about how much money he spent on a device that didn't work. He was beyond the return date, so we couldn't give him a refund. I let him get all of his anger out and finish talking. I then asked him questions and always addressed him by his first name to build some rapport. I learned that he hadn't been to see his physician for a follow-up. We have relationships with the caregivers at one of the local facilities, so I was able to put him on hold and see when they had an appointment available. When I transferred him over to the scheduler, he calmed down a bit. It wasn't a perfect scenario, but I tried to treat him with dignity and respect and not take his attitude personally."

"I used to be a waitress in college, and dealing with difficult customers was my specialty. My co-workers would always give me the cranky regulars because I had a way of working with them that made it look easy. One evening, I had a customer who was very upset with his food order. I listened to his concern and asked him if he would like me to bring him something else, but he kept going on and on and was getting quite loud. I apologized and told him I could give him a discount on his order or bring him another choice. He took the discount and left. Difficult customer interactions don't always end perfectly, but I feel I handled the situation appropriately."