Encountering difficult customer situations is an intrinsic part of dealing with customers & clients – whether they are internal or external to your business.
And with the ongoing frustrations and increasing pressures with the rising cost of living, stock shortages, employee shortages and so on, there has been a noticeable increase in the stress levels of both customers and employees who are all learning to navigate through life with their own personal and work challenges.
So it’s inevitable that this is manifesting in more complaints by customers, and employees are feeling under more pressure than ever.
But how many of your employees are truly equipped and have been specifically trained to handle those situations?
Managing angry or upset customers effectively takes a lot of confidence and skill, yet most employees have never had any skills training in this area. They are often left to learn by trial and error, which often results in a poor outcome for your employee, the customer and ultimately, your business.
It’s also not uncommon for staff to fall back on their own internal viewpoints and belief systems and take things personally, which again, leads to a poor outcome for all stakeholders.
Whilst equipping your employees with the right skills to handle these situations and taking care of their mental health has always been important, there has never been a more critical time to ensure your staff has the skills and confidence they need to handle a range of difficult customer situations.
The October 2024 Managing Difficult Customers course does just that – empowering your employees with the skills and confidence to handle any difficult customer situation with proven strategies that have been refined over decades, and all taught directly by an industry expert with extensive knowledge and a very engaging style that will ensure your employees will be ready to put their skills to immediate use.
In all my years of customer service, and we are now in the 4th decade of customer service, I have never done a course that answered so many questions I didn’t know I even needed an answer to.
Without a shadow of doubt, hands down, dead set – this was the BEST course I have ever taken about how to do my job. EVER.
Meeting Daniel and drinking up his enthusiasm for his work has re-sparked my desire for my job. I now have the tools and the understanding that I never had before, or if I had been given the tools, they were not explained very well, because now I get it. I get it, I never did before.
The TED talk, which I watched a couple of times over already, was perfection and I think everyone should watch it. Brilliant. I could go on.
The four of us from Dulux think this was amazing and to quote one of us, “Daniel is in the right profession.” Thank you.
We recorded a short video with the CEO of CX Skills, Justin Tippett and course facilitator Daniel Ord providing some additional insight about the course and to enable you to hear and learn directly from the person who will be conducting the training for your employees.
The October 2024 Managing Difficult Customers training course teaches staff how to identify the different types of difficult customers and situations and then how to confidently identify and apply the correct solutions.
This course isn’t just a few words and phrases to use or some basic concepts scraped off Google.
It’s a comprehensive, high-quality program that has been developed and refined over decades, and is delivered over 2 x 4-hour online/virtual sessions by a genuine industry expert that will make a lasting impact on your employees.
From learning how to negotiate or how to say NO! effectively and with professionalism, the October 2024 Managing Difficult Customers Training Course is the ideal training course to help you or your team members handle difficult situations with grace, style and confidence.
As with all our CX Skills courses, this online course involves workshop exercises, quizzes, role-plays, videos, examples and more to make the course both interactive and engaging and, of course, to enable the learnings to be absorbed.
And with an average rating of 4.9/5 since we began offering this course, it’s easy to understand why this is one of our most popular courses as you’ll notice in the customer reviews and testimonials.
This particular October 2024 course is run publicly, meaning there will be others on the course in similar roles and situations, providing a great opportunity to share stories and ideas and make your employees feel that they are not alone in their challenges when dealing with difficult customers.
If you need to train larger groups of employees, or need more flexibility in the dates/timing and would like to keep all the discussions ‘in-house’, please contact us for private training options.
The October 2024 Managing Difficult Customers training course is designed to equip employees with the skills and confidence to manage any difficult situation when dealing with customers or colleagues, regardless of the industries, products or services.
As such, it’s suitable for anyone who deals with internal or external customers on a regular basis either over the phone or in-person with typical roles including:
Please note this entire course is specifically focused on dealing with difficult customers and situations.
If you need your employees to learn more generic customer service skills, check out our other customer service training programs (which can include a short module on managing difficult customers).
if you need to help your employees build their resilience skills, please refer to our Workplace Mental Health courses.
Dan was so friendly, informative, knowledgeable and engaging as an instructor and very funny to boot. He made a scary and daunting part of my role at work interesting & funny.
I’m excited to put his suggested approaches into action and see what kind of results I get with customers. And I have a heightened enthusiasm for trying to help our customers as best I can.
Very appreciative that my employer enrolled me in the course and would love the opportunity to do another and maybe even get to meet Dan in person!
Cannot recommend this course any more highly for any professionals who deal with customers.
Whilst we’d been teaching this course for over 20 years face to face in a classroom setting (in a pre-COVID world!), we have now fully adapted this course to be delivered online/virtually and as you’ll read in the customer testimonials, it’s had no impact at all on the effectiveness of the training.
In fact, even with onsite training now an option again, most of our customers now prefer online training because of its numerous benefits, such as flexible timing, lower costs, better learning outcomes, etc.
Our October 2024 Managing Difficult Customers course teaches course participants how to identify and manage difficult customers and situations with confidence.
This isn’t just boring textbook and video training – this course is highly engaging, delivered over 2 x 4-hour comprehensive sessions with a total of 8 hours of live training by world-renowned customer experience trainer Daniel Ord.
Short breaks are included to ensure our training is delivered effectively.
The October 2024 Managing Difficult Customers course comprises of four key modules delivered over two 4-hour sessions on separate days.
We open the workshop by helping your employees consider their own behaviours.
Your employees will learn about the different ways people can interpret difficult situations based on their own internal belief systems – it’s a powerful introduction that sets the scene for the entire course!
Your employees will learn:
Difficult customers can often be grouped into different ‘buckets’ so in this module, your employees will learn the differences between the different types of difficult customers, and how to handle them, including:
While the basics of communication will always have their place when dealing with customers, in this module, we deep-dive into communication techniques, teaching your employees advanced patterns & techniques they can readily use every day.
Specifically, your employees will be taught some of the leading global practices on service, including:
In this final module, we transition from the classic ‘Listen’ phase to the ‘Solution’ phase of the conversation.
While there are many solution types in Customer Service, these six have been chosen because they come up often in dealing with difficult situations:
The trainer for the October 2024 Managing Difficult Customers training course is Daniel Ord from OmniTouch International – recognised as one of the leading customer experience and contact centre trainers in the world.
Daniel has trained over 50,000 participants across over 40 countries and is regularly featured in leading customer management publications and presenting keynote speeches across the world.
Credentials-wise, Dan is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP), an International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) Certified Associate, a Call Centre Industry Advisory Council Training Partner (CIAC) and is Net Promoter Certified.
Daniel is consistently regarded as the best trainer in the industry with his incredible subject matter expertise, excellent storytelling with real-world examples, a great sense of humour and a clear passion for the industry and helping people achieve success.
So it's not surprising to note that despite all the numerous industry accolades and recognition, it's the Customer Testimonials Daniel is most proud of and you can read a selection of his recent testimonials below.
We can write the best course descriptions in the world, but ultimately, what matters the most is the customer testimonials and reviews from real people who have completed the course!
The latest customer reviews for the Managing Difficult Customers course are below.
“This course was really engaging and very well organised. Daniel was amazing, and I didn’t ‘zone out’ once, a sign of an excellent trainer. Really enjoyed the course and learnt lots, particularly liked the examples of situations where certain vocabulary is acceptable. Made the course sink in.”
“I just wanted to email you in thanks as I have found your recent training session very helpful! I have been able to use UNER(R) very effectively, where previously I had problems saying ‘no’, generally going into far too much detail on my explanation. This has helped stop at least two complaints and I‘ve also been using the Human Touch in more of my emails ? .”
“Hi Daniel, just wanted to say thanks for the brilliant workshop. Was lovely to meet you and it’s always a pleasure to learn new techniques, perspectives and ways of working.”
“It was a really fun and exciting training course and I will be able to apply all these methods now and in my future career. Loved the tips on how to deal with the especially fussy guests!”.
“Very good and interactive – fun but full of knowledge.”
“The training was really fun but more importantly I learned a lot of techniques that I’ve been able to use on lots of my calls which has made my job a lot easier – thanks!”
CX Skills is a specialist training business that only delivers customer service, customer experience (CX), contact centre, workforce optimisation (WFM/WFO) and workplace wellness courses designed and facilitated exclusively by industry professionals.
We're the official training partner of the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA), and we are proudly Australian-owned and operated.
We’re grateful to have been trusted by hundreds of customers, and we’re proud of the amazing customer testimonials we’ve received, so you can rest assured that when you book a training course with CX Skills, your training is in good hands.
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We're grateful to the following companies who have trusted CX Skills with their training. View our full customer list here >
The October 2024 Managing Difficult Customers course is delivered via Zoom Teleconferencing and users will be sent an electronic workbook (PDF) and Zoom link prior to the course commencing.
This is a public course meaning it is available for anyone to book and the dates and times are fixed to enable you to plan ahead.
If you have large numbers to train or would like to have more flexibility on the dates and times please refer to our private options.
Dates don’t suit? Search for other available dates >
Highly recommend Simon, his extensive knowledge and experience makes for really engaging and fun training sessions. He has an absolute passion seeing people excel at phone and sales skills. Highly recommend! Thanks again, Chris.
The October 2024 Managing Difficult Customers Training course is $497 per person ex GST for 8 hours of facilitated learning (2 x 4-hour sessions) delivered by global CX training expert Daniel Ord as well as a course workbook (delivered electronically).
Available Discounts
Tickets can be purchased via credit card or invoice – just select your preferred option on the checkout page.
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Members of the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA) save a massive 25% off ALL CX Skills courses for a full 12 months!
With annual memberships starting from just $35 per employee, it can be a great way to save money immediately on your training, plus, you'll gain access to a vast array of best-practice resources to improve your customer experience.