How to De-escalate an Angry Customer: Fight, Flight, or Avoid?
How to keep composed and unflappable and which approach to choose when the communication gets tough.
No matter how successful a company is, there will still be unhappy customers. Don’t believe it? Look at the reviews of the most popular consumer apps such as Netflix and Spotify.
Unpleasant encounters and negative reviews shouldn’t be taken personally. As a company gains visibility and attracts a larger customer base, the number of those who feel their expectations weren’t met is likely to grow. Knowing how to turn frustration into satisfaction is a skill leading to success.
However, it’s not easy to remain unruffled and approachable when faced with aggression. There is a particular word that people use in 2025 for such “problematic” interactions: toxic, and there is a reason behind this word choice.
So, how to deal with irate and dissatisfied customers? What phrases or behaviours will result in feasible de-escalation? What reactions should be avoided? Is it possible to use the latest technology to resolve conflicts? Let’s find out!
Client communication then and now
In the days before fast internet connection, clients’ attempts to contact a company could take a long time if they were unable to come in person. This could give the customer support agent more time to prepare a proper response.
Nowadays customers expect to receive consideration and to get their problem solved promptly.
- 90% of customers rate an “immediate” response as essential or very important when they have a question about product or service. 60% of customers define “immediate” as 10 minutes or less, according to Hubspot.
- The younger the customer is, the more they value fast response and accessibility for communication, according to Comm100.
The high pace we live in sets new standards of customer care, and dealing with the dissatisfaction gets harder, too.
What causes customers’ frustration?
Let’s try to understand how we can prevent our customers from getting upset.
According to Statista’s customer loyalty survey, most customers’ attitude is impacted by the following factors:
- Rudeness from staff members: 57.1%
- Poor quality items: 44.3%
- Dirty stores: 42.5%
- Big price rises (10% plus): 40.4%
- Being regularly more expensive than alternatives: 33.8%
- No online ordering facility: 22%
- Unhelpfulness of staff members: 21.6%
- Spamming you with emails and marketing materials: 19.3%
- Getting an order wrong: 16.4%
- Hard to use website: 14.3%
- Being a bad corporate citizen (e.g., not paying taxes): 12.2%
- High delivery costs for online orders: 11.9%
- Untidy stores: 9.8%
As we can see, poor communication with staff plays a huge role: 57% mentioned rudeness from staff members, and over 20% pointed at unhelpfulness of staff members. This proves the crucial role of customer support in the growth of your business.
How to prepare your customer service team for difficult interactions
Option 1: Canned responses
What are canned responses?
Canned responses are pre-written replies made specifically to address frequent customer inquiries or concerns quickly and efficiently. They can be inserted into chats, emails, or social media replies with just a click or a shortcut.
Pros of canned responses
In a conflict situation they can help customer service agent maintain a professional tone while giving structured, empathetic responses to de-escalate tense situations and avoid emotional missteps at the same time.
Cons of canned responses
Being pre-made, canned responses might seem unempathetic. The clients might feel the automaticity, while also noticing lack of details. This may only escalate the situation.
However, using pre-made phrases to start the answers politely and professionally can be a good idea.
If you want to learn more about the use of canned responses, check out our article and watch our YouTube video.
Option 2: De-escalating protocols
If a canned response can possibly sound too artificial, a whole protocol of actions can be prepared as an alternative.
A de-escalation protocol is a structured set of steps designed to guide service representatives in calming resentful customers effectively. It provides a practical framework for addressing complaints, reducing tension, and steering the conversation toward a resolution.
You can change the details according to your company’s specific needs, but in general it can be divided into 4 types of de-escalation techniques.
Step 1: Remain calm and listen
Your emotional control plays a crucial role in a conversation so charged. The only way to let the customer slowly de-escalate will be waiting until they finish their speech. This will let them vent and give you time to prepare the right reaction at the same time.
When the customer has finished speaking, it’s time to show empathy and attention to their frustration. As it can be hard to show care just after a wave of aggression, prepare some empathetic statements beforehand. For example:
“I understand how frustrating this must be for you.”
“I’m sorry you’ve experienced this. I’m here and ready to help.”
Step 2: Working with concerns and introducing other options
Carefully shift the c’s focus from frustration to finding solutions. Even if you are unable to satisfy their initial demands, you can still offer them some options. This can actually help improve customer experience.
Dear Support Agent,
Meet Alloy Software, the firm behind Alloy Navigator, the all-in-one IT service management and IT asset management software solution.
We’ve been in the market for almost 20 years already, and we have customers who’ve been with us for 10, and 15 years. We think it says something about us as a partner.
We run this blog to promote our software solution. So if you’re looking for a new help desk software, we’re here for you.
Connect with our sales department if you want to learn more about Alloy Navigator.
Best,
Alloy Software Team
When we are frustrated and have no alternatives, mentally we feel in a weak position and struggle. But being offered several options we regain our control over the situation. However, you have to be careful not to make promises you won’t be able to keep later on.
Step 3: Acknowledge and apologize
When you’ve learned the details of a problem, it’s time to take responsibility for the occurrence of it. It doesn’t show your weakness or address the blame to you. It acts like part of the consideration process. The key for that is not to make personal excuses, but only to apologize for the certain situation. For example:
“I apologize for the delays in your service.”
“I am sorry you received the wrong product.”
“I apologize for the behaviour of employee X.”
Step 4: Finding a solution
It is important that you do not give vague or dismissive answers. At this moment you will have to come up with a clear solution for the customer. If the issue can’t be resolved immediately, at least help the customer understand that the next steps will proceed in 1-2 days time.
It may sound counterintuitive, but finishing the conversation with appreciation of customer’s patience and loyalty can help significantly. Don’t give too many thanks, but show gratitude for their cooperation and understanding.
If the customer is deliberately rude: what helps
It is completely normal to feel shocked and insecure when someone is intentionally spiteful towards you. What might help is the realization that the customer isn’t angry with you personally. They don’t know you at all. They’re either really unhappy with your company’s service or just happen to be in a poor mood on this particular day.
Moreover, the personal perception of human agents might influence the communication, too. If the agent doesn’t like the client for some reason, they might unintentionally interpret the client’s behavior as rude.
All this means that agents have to pay closest attention to cases where they think the client is being rude. Below are some tips:
Setting a proper tone
It is crucial for you to stay as calm as possible. Anger escalation in return has never calmed anyone down. Nevertheless, it’s completely okay to politely ask the customer to behave appropriately after he has already vented. Use phrases like:
“I want to help you, but the language you use is getting in the way.”
“I’m trying to help you, but I kindly ask you to stop using inappropriate language during our conversation.”
“I am happy to help you, but I ask you not to yell at me.”
Guide the client into a solution-focused dialogue
Once you’ve let the customer express their feelings, it’s time to get back to reasonable actions.
You have to repeat their concerns calmly and ask for consideration. For example:
“What I hear is you would like to do … but …. is preventing you. Is that correct?”
Coming to a solution
Reassure the customer they’re getting help with their issue in a certain amount of time (better no longer than 24-48 hours). If you have to transfer their issue to another specialist, explain that. Even when you can’t help them, the customer wants to feel like they’ve been heard. Use phrases that show your customer that you care, like:
“I will do the best I can to help you, but finding a resolution may take some time.”
“I assure you I will try my best to help you.”
“I appreciate your patience working together to find a solution.”
Why are customers being rude?
- Frustration with a long-standing issue: When a problem persists for an extended period, especially one that poses a potential danger or significant inconvenience, customers may lose patience and act rudely.
- Unresolved problems over time: Customers get angry when their complaints or issues have not been addressed in a timely manner, making them feel ignored or undervalued.
- Low self-control and bad mood: External factors, such as personal stress, fatigue, or a bad day, can lead to rude behavior, even when the issue at hand is minor or easily resolvable.
- Perception of indifference: Customers may feel disrespected or neglected if they perceive the company as apathetic or unresponsive to their concerns.
A customer can experience more than one of these issues. It’s important to be considerate of them, and remember that you’re working with a human being, not a robot. Appropriate reaction requires a huge lot of empathy.
De-escalating an angry customer: what to avoid
Our bodies’ natural reaction to stress includes fight, flight, or avoid response.
In the case of the fight response, individuals confront the stressor head-on, often with aggression or assertiveness. The flight response involves avoiding confrontation by physically or emotionally withdrawing from the situation. The avoid response is a more passive form of flight, where individuals ignore or deny the problem rather than addressing it. While useful for thousands of years in natural habitat, neither of these responses is acceptable in customer support.
Using AI to deal with upset customers
As in many areas, there are more and more applications for AI in customer service. When used correctly, it can help solve customer problems faster and more accurately. Here are the main ways of using AI:
Chat-bots and virtual assistants
AI bots can instantly respond to popular customer queries, provide standard answers, and redirect complex questions to a specialist.
Alloy Software
In our Fall 2024 Release, we’ve introduced several AI-assisted features. For text editing, we’re enabling “Improve”, “Summarize”, and “Translate” buttons in text fields for agents.
Check out these screenshots to feel it!
“Translate” feature deserves your special attention. Imagine how easy it becomes to communicate in global teams! The agent and the end user don’t have to speak the same language (yeah, pun intended). No need to use a clumsy external translation service and switch between two windows, either. Write the answer in your language, and click “translate” to, well, translate it to the language your vis-a-vis speaks.
Moreover, unlike our competitors, we’re giving admins the possibility to add their own custom AI-assisted workflow actions, which opens a whole brand new world of opportunities.
Would you like to experience the new AI-assisted features? Sign up for a demo with our Sales team.
Emotion recognition
Some bots analyze the tone of the text (for example, the level of anger or irritation) and adapt their responses to reduce emotional tension.
Predicting problems
AI analyzes reviews, past complaints, and customer behavior to proactively identify potential points of dissatisfaction.
AI-based simulations
AI can create simulations of complex customer issues so that customer service representatives can practice resolving conflict situations.
Real-time tips
AI analyzes conversations with clients (for example, in a call center) and prompts the employee with phrases or steps to handle difficult customers.
Sorting and prioritizing complaints
AI is able to classify requests and complaints by urgency, helping to process the most critical ones faster. Even with a large number of dissatisfied customers, AI allows you to quickly respond to requests without increasing the team.
Potential drawbacks of using AI to handle irate customers
The biggest danger of using AI to deal with angry or frustrated customers is the lack of understanding of the customer’s emotional nuances. While it can mimic polite responses, it can still feel artificial to a customer who’s already feeling unconsidered. Also if a customer needs to contact support, their issue is likely too complex for a chatbot to handle and requires a human agent’s attention.
According to a survey by Ipsos, 77% of respondents would prefer not to utilize chatbots for their inquiries.
To sum things up, while AI can be a great tool for analyzing customers’ reactions, sorting large amounts of data and training service teams, it should be applied carefully in direct contact with upset customers. If you want to find effective applications for AI in your business, check out our article about AI implementation in ITSM.
Conclusion
Difficult customers are something that can happen to any business. Knowing how to deal with their problems can improve your company’s image. Paying attention to customer complaints can help identify weak points in various functional processes.
Canned responses and de-escalating protocols can be powerful tools that help your service team not to get confused in a difficult situation which requires careful approach. These are the means of conflict-solving that can be prepared in advance.
To prepare your team for non-standard situations and working face to face with irate and rude customers, special psychological techniques are useful, as well as the ability to track reactions that should be avoided.
In some situations, it makes sense to apply artificial intelligence. However, this should be done to automate processes, and you should be careful and attentive when outsourcing customer support to AI.
Every customer interaction is an opportunity to showcase your company’s professionalism and increase customer retention. By combining human empathy, well-prepared strategies, and technological tools, businesses can turn challenges into chances to give customers satisfaction and loyalty and provide the best service.
