Customer Service: When A Customer Demands To Speak With Your Supervisor

1. When a Customer Demands to Speak With Your Supervisor By VanSight

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3. The Situation One of the most common requests a frustrated customer Makes is to speak with your supervisor or manager. A customer Who demands to speak with your supervisor may Be trying to intimidate you or may have a concern he or She feels will be best handled at the level above you. Customers who ask for such access may not even be frustrated, But believe that dealing with someone with more Power is a faster, more efficient way to get what they want. 3

4. Techniques Used 4 Probing Questions Assurances of Effort Not Taking the Bait Referral to Supervisor

5. Dialogue 5 In this example, the customer asks to speak to the supervisor . Customer: I want to speak to your supervisor. Employee: I'll be happy to help you talk to Mrs. Jones who is my manager, but is there anything I can do? It might save you some time.

6. Dialogue 6 Customer: [sullenly] No. I don’t want to speak to you. I’m Tired of speaking to people who don’t know what they Are doing. Employee: OK. I’ll check to see if she’s free, but it would help if I could tell her what you’d like to speak to her about. Customer: Just tell her I want to talk about the poor service here Customer: OK. It will just take a minute. If you want to take a seat, I’ll be back in a minute or two.

7. Dialogue 7 [The employee goes to the supervisor’s office.] Employee: Mrs. Jones, I have a customer who is demanding to speak to you about “poor service.”Are you free? Supervisor: Sure, I’ll come out and bring him or her to my Office. [The employee and the supervisor approach the Customer.] Supervisor: Hi, I’m Mrs. Jones. I understand you wanted To speak to me about some service issues. If you’d like To come with me, we can talk where we won’t be interrupted [gestures to customer to follow].

8. Explanations 8 Since the customer asks to see the supervisor right off, the employee doesn’t know why this request is being made. So her first approach is designed to identify the “why,” and to determine if the employee can be of assistance. To do that she asks one or two probing questions , while at the same time assuring the customer that the employee will make the effort to connect the customer To the supervisor. The employee quickly understands that this customer isn’t going to provide any additional information. Note That the employee refuses to take the bait when the Customer says: “I’m tired of speaking to people who don’t Know what they are doing.” In essence she simply ignores This backhanded swipe.

9. Explanations 9 The second and third parts of the conversation show The mechanics of the referral to the supervisor. In the Second part, the employee explains The situation very Briefly to the supervisor. In the third part, the supervisor And employee go to the customer. What’s important here is that the supervisor takes control over the interaction Immediately: she introduces herself, rather than the Employee doing the introductions. You can see that, as part of the introduction, the supervisor says, “I understand You wanted to speak to me about some service. Issues.” Why? To show that the employee has told her Why the customer wants to speak with her and she is Ready to discuss the issue.

10. How to Diffuse the Situation 10 As an employee, you should know when your supervisor considers it appropriate to refer a customer to him or her and when it is not. If you are not clear about what your Supervisor expects, ask. While you may want to offer your services to help, instead of referring the customer to your supervisor, it’s important to do this in a non defensive way. Don’t appear to be trying to dissuade the customer from speaking to the supervisor.

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