How to keep even the most challenging customers happy

As stories of customers acting out in rage continue to rise, emotional intelligence provides a solution to solve problems and please even the trickiest customers.

Passengers screaming on airplanes and causing them to land, mad men throwing food at the drive-thru, ladies storming around stores and shouting about their rights… Who hasn’t seen a story like this recently? These types of incidents are a daily occurrence, and they often seem unavoidable, but are they really? Sure, customers can be a handful and sometimes their dissatisfaction can lead to epic blowouts. However, there are ways to deal with even the most difficult customer, but it definitely requires the superpower of emotional intelligence.

At Elmhurst public hospital, in the densely populated and ethnically diverse borough of Queens, New York, Pierre Pham gets summoned when there’s a particularly difficult situation with a patient. He’s not a doctor, he’s the hospital’s first “chief experience officer”. Drawing on his background in hospitality and his own personal strengths, it seems he always finds a solution.

“One time, a patient and her two sisters, all older ladies, had complaints,” he says. “I went to see them, and I thought: ‘don’t interrupt, just let them talk’. At one point, one of them said: ‘my sister just wants to go home to see her dog.’ I said: ‘you have a dog?’. Then, all we talked about was the dog. I said how I used to have one of the same breed, and soon they were all smiling. I said I’d make sure the team helped them. The day they went home they insisted on seeing me again so they could give me a hug.”

Pham is modest about which of his skills helped with that turnaround. Yet, it’s a powerful example of the application of emotional intelligence (otherwise known as EQ or EI) in a customer-facing business setting. Pleasing today’s finnicky customers is not just about providing good products or services, it’s about dealing with complaints, anticipating needs, and providing exceptional service in a way that takes care of their human emotions, a technique that requires Emotional Intelligence.

In this article, we’ll explore the implications of emotional intelligence in the customer journey and provide tips for improving the customer experience by improving EI in staff and management.

Why is EI so important?

Recent data highlights significant increases in customer dissatisfaction, driven by factors such as reduced service quality, high prices, and increased digital interaction. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), customer satisfaction in the U.S. has been steadily declining since 2018, with particular dissatisfaction in areas like retail, travel, and healthcare. This trend is further exacerbated by issues such as inadequate customer service and high costs, especially during the ongoing economic instability.

Moreover, research by EY reveals that nearly 60% of consumers feel companies are not prioritizing customer experience, with rising prices and reduced trust being major concerns. The study suggests that consumers are losing faith in brands due to their perceived prioritization of profit over customer care.

Addressing these issues may be easier that some people think. Using data analytics to understand customer pain points is a great start, but instilling Emotional Intelligence in staff and managers is the best way to improve service delivery, and foster brand loyalty. And the stakes are quite high. As competition grows, companies that fail to address customer dissatisfaction risk significant long-term impacts, including loss of reputation and customers.

How EI supports human interactions

Emotional intelligence was popularized by the American psychologist Daniel Goleman in the mid-1990s as a way of improving human interactions. Basically, it’s the ability to understand, use, and manage emotions in a positive way. It involves recognizing one’s own feelings, understanding how they affect thoughts and actions, and being aware of others’ emotions, too. People with high EI can communicate well, handle stress, resolve conflicts, empathize with others, and make thoughtful decisions, all while managing their emotions.

In the case of Pham and his discontented patients, Pham was able to disconnect from the angry voices and faces and focus on what mattered—how that patient felt. He made them feel heard and, in the process, defused the situation for his colleagues and created a happy experience for the patient and her family. It’s a perfect example of how EI works to improve customer experiences in service-focused businesses and organizations. EI didn’t solve the problem (the fact that the patient wanted to go home quickly), it simply made them feel more understood and recognized. And sometimes, that’s enough.

Soft skills, which rely on EI, are becoming ever-more important in every type of business, from the traditional service industry sectors of hospitality to the people-centric areas of education, health care, finance, and technology. Pham says people in his New York neighborhood have become noticeably more aggressive and impatient since the Covid-19 pandemic. If they don’t get what they want, when they want it, matters can escalate quickly—a tricky state of affairs for a hospital with one of the busiest emergency departments in the US. And they’re not alone.

The New York Times traced a rise in stories of bad customer behavior back to 2020 as businesses came out of Covid restrictions, and it has continued to note incidents of out-of-control rage directed at supermarket workers, flight attendants, restaurant staff and others. And the consultancy McKinsey has identified that social media provides customers with new, more public, places to air their complaints “with far-reaching reputational consequences for companies.”

How EI works

For Stefano Borzillo, associate professor of organizational behavior at EHL Hospitality Business School, such incidents provide an opportunity to practice our skills. Rather than being fixed, like our IQ, EI is something that can be improved, he says. It builds on four competencies.

The four key competencies of Emotional Intelligence

• Emotion recognition: reading facial expressions, tones of voice, and body language as signs of a person’s inner emotional state
• Emotion understanding: empathizing with how the other person is feeling
• Emotion regulation: managing our own emotions to respond appropriately
• Emotion management: finding a way to close the interaction in such a way that you reach consensus and remain on good terms.

Recent research indicates that rising customer dissatisfaction is largely driven by unmet expectations in customer service, and one way companies are attempting to counter this is through training in emotional intelligence and other soft skills. These approaches emphasize the importance of empathy, communication, and problem-solving, aiming to build stronger emotional connections between service representatives and customers.

Emotional intelligence training, in particular, helps customer service teams better recognize and respond to customers’ feelings, making customers feel more understood and valued.

Studies show that when service representatives practice active listening and show empathy, customer satisfaction tends to increase, even if the issue isn’t fully resolved. By prioritizing emotional intelligence in training, companies can help their teams handle challenging situations in a way that de-escalates anger and prevents public complaints on social media, which are increasingly common.

In addition to improving customer interactions, emotional intelligence also helps maintain team morale. Handling unhappy customers can be stressful, and emotionally intelligent strategies help employees navigate these interactions in ways that are more satisfying for both sides. This approach ultimately fosters a more positive and resilient customer service environment, which can significantly reduce the costs associated with customer churn and reputation management.

Soft skills and EI are critical for every sector

It’s not just hospitals that are looking to EI to improve their customer relations. Other industries showing an interest include private banks, luxury goods companies, private clinics, and airlines.

“Companies have to make the space, time and investment to buy into these skills, but they are becoming critical to differentiating your brand from others. Good customer experience has been shown to boost customer loyalty, enhance brand reputation, increase revenues and cross-selling opportunities, and reduce costs because, typically, happy customers require less support.”

– Stefano Borzillo, associate professor of organizational behavior at EHL Hospitality Business School

Meanwhile, back at Elmhurst, chief experience officer Pham says its 6,000 staff are eager for more support in dealing with patients. The hospital is at the start of a program to boost EI and is evaluating ways of elevating the patient experience.

“I’ve worked on the front desk of hotels where people will yell at you if they’re not happy,” says Pham, “but in healthcare, people might not have experienced that until recently. Now there’s a focus on how to treat people with kindness and also internally manage staff to be more resilient. I think emotional intelligence helps with both these domains.”

Examples of EI in action in customer service

The following chart applies the four skill sets of emotional intelligence to challenging customer interactions, with examples of phrases to use in each step:

Customer: “This product doesn’t work, and I’m frustrated!”

Agent: “I’m sorry for the inconvenience! Let’s look into this together. Can you share what issues you’re experiencing?”

2. Achnowledge emotions

Customer: “I’ve already tried to fix this, and nothing worked!”

Agent: “I can hear the frustration in your voice. It sounds like you’ve put in a lot of effort, and it’s still unresolved. Let’s find a solution that works for you.”