Be Your Customer's Hero

CHAPTER 71

There’s No Silver Bullet for a Hand Grenade

I know how much frontline reps can dread nightmare customers. I can spend half a day talking about customer service to a roomful of frontline reps and can tell them how to succeed at 99 percent of their job, but when I open up the floor for questions, most of them will go straight to the 1 percent issues: “How do I handle a customer who is going off on me, who is completely irrational, and who is just plain crazy?” “How do I handle a customer who is foaming at the mouth, has flames shooting from his eyes, and has a voice like a Hollywood monster?”

Before I answer those questions in detail, I want to share a story with you that I like to tell frontline teams. It’s about a new Army recruit ...