Dealing With Angry Emails

It doesn’t matter how good your products are or how wonderful your service is, it is impossible to keep every single person that buys from you happy. It might even feel unfair – we’ve all come across people that appear to be completely unreasonable and complain about the slightest little thing. Their claims might even be completely false. I once had an email where someone accused me of being a scammer and I felt angry and upset that someone should say this without good reason. On the other hand it might be a legitimate complaint and you might have made a genuine mistake but simply not realised it.

So how do you go about dealing with angry emails and customers?

In situations like this it is all too easy to fire off a retaliatory email to the customer telling them where to go. This will only make the situation worse and can do your reputation a great deal of harm. I have seen situations where the other person goes to an internet forum and posts the email you sent. This can have a serious effect on your business, so don’t even go there!

Wait a few hours before you reply to give yourself time to calm down, think about the situation, and plan out what you are going to say.

When you do reply, stay calm and keep the email courteous. As hard as it might be, thank the customer for contacting you with their concerns and try to address what they have said. If you can, provide facts or reasons to back up what you are saying. No matter how snotty the original email might have been, it is important to stay courteous at all times.

Your response will obviously depend on the nature of the complaint. Ask some questions to try and find out more about the problem they have and show genuine concern that they feel this way.

If there is something you can ‘fix’ (and believe you should) then do it and resolve the situation immediately. Most problems have a solution in one way or another. If the customer has had problems with your product or service, apologise, tell them how you are dealing with, and consider offering something extra to go with it.

The most important thing when dealing with angry emails is to not get angry yourself. Always remain professional, and if you do this your business will continue to prosper and operate successfully.