At first, glance, handling a difficult customer may seem like a thankless job. Fortunately, you can develop skills to adapt to the challenges difficult customers pose and extend these skills to handling difficult people and situations throughout your daily life. By improving the focus of your thoughts and feelings, how you manage stress, and how well you listen to and empathize with others, you will be better able to meet the challenges other people pose in both your professional and personal life. Implementing the guidelines in this module is the first step in a process toward forever changing how you interact with others.

Workshop Objectives

Research has consistently demonstrated that when clear goals are associated with learning, it occurs more easily and rapidly. With that in mind, let’s review our goals for today.

At the end of this workshop, participants should be able to:

• Cultivate a positive attitude
• Manage internal and external stress
• Develop abilities to listen actively and empathize
• Build a rapport with customers in person and over the phone
• Understand the diverse challenges posed by customers
• Develop strategies to adapt to challenging circumstances