Customer Service : Handling an Irate / Upset / Aggressive Caller

There are times when a call will escalate, our first goal is to prevent this from happening but sometimes it is unavoidable, in these instances it’s important to try and do the following: 

• Listen attentively
• Remain Calm and confident
• Don’t take it personally
  • Remember they are upset / frustrated about the situation
  • Sometimes they are just simply having a bad day
  • They may have had previous experiences with transportation that didn’t end well
• Acknowledge their frustrations and concerns with empathy
  • Some of their frustration might be because they aren’t aware of protocol
• Remain as positive as possible

For those times when you need to make an outbound call to a Driver / Transportation Partner / School:

• Communicate the steps to the parent that you are taking to resolve their issue
• Place them in park and then make your call.
  • If you are still on another call after 3-5 minutes tell your current caller to hold so you can check in with the parent
    • Park the second call and return to the first
    • Inform the parent of the status and let them it is being worked on a quickly as possible, apologize for the delay, and inform them you’ll need to place them back on hold (park)
  • Continue to check in the First call as much as you are able to, having a frustrated caller on an extended hold fuels the fire

The goal is to have the caller calmed, the issue taken care of, and the caller feeling like their matter.