Ask HN: How do you deal with the emotions of customer support?
I’m a sole developer building software integrations, and automations.
I find customer support very difficult: everything feels like a personal attack, and I can’t help but get defensive.
How do you, or your team, deal with the emotions of customer support?
53 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] thread- Take a systems view. This helps you remember that you and your product are a very small part of that person's life and to remember all the variables that aren't you that might be making the person unpleasant.
- Since you're a solo dev and therefore working for yourself, I presume: It's perfectly acceptable for you to have standards for how you're addressed. One of the benefits to working this way is the ability to say: "I am not comfortable working with someone who is speaking to me this way."
1. See things from customers POV.
2. Maybe you’re not willing to accept what is built is not perfect & have issues. Once you're self aware it will help manage issues better. You need to move from denial to acceptance phase.
3. Our brains are wired to be defensive. Try to acknowledge or trigger whenever you’re defensive. Hard to explain but it’s like anytime you get defensive an inner force tells you YOU ARE BEING DEFENSIVE.
4. Best way to deal with an angry customer is just to agree with them initially, this will calm them a little & from there you can have a more productive conversation.
Good luck!
I built a feature in my program that I thought was a good idea. I was stubborn, took it personally and couldn't see why people didn't see the value in it.
I kept getting support request on discord about it, "how do I disable this ** thing" etc... It's not easy to not take it personally.
Then I took a step back and I saw the feature from the point of view of the user, it made sense that they complained about it, that it was interrupting their workflow and not adding much value.
I decided to stop having it enabled by default.
I’d much rather a company says “sorry, your use case is an edge case and not something we support; you could try doing X or Y but what you’re attempting is outside our typical use and not on our roadmap. While we’d love to keep you as a customer I’m not going to make false promises. You might be better off with a tool that specifically enables what you are attempting - or continue using us in the knowledge that this is not possible. Sorry we can’t be more help.”
I leverage that response by trying to make the client feel like I am bringing them closer into the loop. Make getting involved in the suggestion board feel more like an invitation. Let them know of the team that wants to hear from them. If on-boarding is not considered a part of a client's problem-pain calculus, white-glove the sign-up process. Since people have gotten comfortable with video calling, clients have enjoyed getting personal attention from executives in 30-minute qualitative meetings with the product team.
But yes - I imagine too many MBAs is the problem most of the time…
If you remember part of the job is play acting this role, it can actually become fun as you learn more scripts and lines, and you’ll end up making a game of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-CA2EW4Z_U
"Good Morning, XXXXSoft, this is XXXX how can I help? :)"
sets a way different tone for the enjoyment of your day than
"Hello, xxxxsoft."
I sometimes use a similar technique to clean/organize my house, and prevent myself from going down the rabbit hole of "what do I do with this stuff?", "I need to list that on eBay", "Oh this is that card I got from so and so I need to write them back", "why do I own all these books??".
I pretend I'm a housecleaner and this isn't really my stuff, and just focus on getting the job done.
Then I can save the existential questions for later, after my house is clean.
Often customers that have had a problem that we fix are the ones that advocate for us the most. They see we are responsive, personable and out in effort to fix their problems.
I am NOT a founder. However, support is a lifeline for startups because it is front line customer feedback. You can offer a meeting with the “founder” and get product feedback and show extra effort.
I am not overly emotional about support but sometimes it is demoralizing. You will get both praise and also frustration. As a founder you at least have the ability to make changes upstream to fix downstream problems and slow the ticket pipeline. THIS IS A LUXURY.
These “personal attacks” have to be considered market feedback. Solving those problems will be the reward and you will get less frustration.
I really hated the fact that we didn't get the needed time to fix problems. I was only allowed to file calls and move on to the next incoming phone call.
Later I became an application manager, and I was basically fixing my own calls (and others' too) and felt 10x better about it.
Not taking stuff too personal is basically what I wasn't good at.
Some people are naturally better at communication than others, and they will definitely do a better job.
Unless you want to learn how to deal with emotions for the sake of personal growth. In that case, check out Stoicism. It is [oversimplified] a philosophy for keeping calm in emotional situations.
Volunteering to engage with feedback saves you from needing to defend your pride and reassert your value when the feedback arrives. It also puts others on their best behavior and helps them think harder about useful feedback. And finally, it scopes the conversation to a narrow problem solve, rather than an open ended gripe-and-defend session.
To help make that "let me help you do good things with our product" moment work, you can first or also feel out how they feel while you gather the details you need to move forward.
If there's justified anger - if it's clearly something that's broken from the jump, or even a known issue, and it probably shouldn't have shipped broken - you can empathize honestly because we've all interacted with something like this. Sometimes the biggest thing someone on the other end of the call needs is for someone to officially acknowledge that yeah, this sucks.
If there's anger that's not yet justified - something that might be a bug, but might also be user error - make it clear that you're here to help the company fix the problem. If it's user oversight, it's not necessarily the user's problem; the docs could be improved (even if nobody reads them), the UI could be clearer (even if nobody notices the change). People want to know that their problem will result in action, for them, which makes them feel not only value but invested in the product. (This doesn't work as well when there's a new problem every week - in which case, they know they're a tester, and someone should reach out with a discount or be ready to churn them.)
If there's outright panic - if the product is blocking them so critically that their job or a large project is in danger - get the wheels turning on escalation ASAP and make it clear that you're reaching out for help. Nobody wants to be on the phone/in chat/in an email thread with something big on the line and on your end, nobody's taking it as seriously. Even if the end result is user error, or an easy fix, even just hinting that other people are working on it will help. And even if you can only get another person on your side who can't do anything but keep the customer talking while you investigate the issue, it'll prevent long gaps on hold where you might be working your ass off but the customer thinks you're shuffling them off hoping they go away. (If every issue is a panic, they either have a MASSIVE organizational problem on their end that they genuinely need to address to stay a customer, or they're abusing escalations to have you do their job for them. Either way, track escalations closely and sync with others in your company on them as often as you can.)
If you can gauge these things early in the interaction and get the customer closer to being alongside you fixing the problem, then when you tell them "I'm going to work with you until the root cause is identified and fixed for you and everybody else", they're not going to try to see through it as customer service speak.
- Fix phone menus so they actually cover my normal, everyday case. Like if I want to report that your service is being used to conduct phishing, don’t make me have an account to do so (looking at you, Microsoft).
- Fix broken links so I can find information.
- Add entries to an FAQ. Have an FAQ. Make it easy to find.
- Fix chatbots so they can cover my question. If you can’t, then have them escalate to a human who is empowered to file tickets that get acted on.
- Don’t lie on your website. “Our chatbot can help you solve the most common problems.” No it fucking can’t.
- Don’t have circular “contact us” flows that ask the user to categorize their issue into an incomplete list of categories which do not cover the user’s case, while never actually allowing the user to “contact us.”
- Try your own services. If you have a phone number on your website, call the number and verify that it actually works. Same with every link on every page of your website. Sign up for email and see if you actually receive email. Don’t assume you will. Do a password reset and see if it works. If there’s a shopping flow, try to buy something. Try to cancel service.
- Don’t overlook the power of clear, crisp writing to help people help themselves. And don’t underestimate the extent to which unclear, ambiguous, confusing writing, or even just imprecise terminology, will be a drag on everyone, both external and internal.
- Make shit work.
I suspect doing these things will have huge bang for the buck toward addressing the issue. If even big companies (Microsoft, Google) can’t get this right, a small company doing better at it will be appreciated.
Other tips: - get somebody else to help you with support - reserve time for support, like an hour a day at a fixed time - don't leave support cases linger in background. something small can/will become a monster
Tbh i'm actually confused what you would see as a personal attack. At the end of the day if someone is aggresive, he's the one having a problem, not you who has a cool product many people use.
2) there's also the benefit of adopting the "customer success" mindset: everything you do is intended to help "customers" succeed in some way, and operating from this perspective will make it easier, also
3) some "customers" are not a good fit and need to be "fired", which helps, too.
"If you think about it, isn’t anger the most pointless of the emotions? It’s beastly, isn’t it? When people act in anger, they really are betraying the animal within, all “red in tooth and claw,” as poet Alfred Lord Tennyson put it.
[...]
We have brains that, for the most part, we can control. We’re not just mindlessly going about our day being led astray by impulses that control us. We can learn ethics and have morals to guide our behavior so that we can always remember to never intentionally cause harm or discomfort to others.
We can have a say and make choices about what we experience and how we react. We can use our logic and reason to mitigate the effects of strong emotions in order to have better outcomes for ourselves and those around us."
From: https://moviewise.substack.com/p/a-vow-to-never-get-angry-ag...
- Remember that getting honest feedback about your software is one of the hardest things to do. People complaining is feedback. Use that and seek it out!
- Put yourself in their shoes, realize they’re just trying to get something done and they’re frustrated with some feature they expect to have or expect to work a certain way. Sometimes a feature I felt was a differentiator compared to my competition turned out to actually just confuse people and wasn’t the great innovation I thought it was, for the simple reason that I did something differently than how everyone else did it. User complaints can help me understand why my assumptions are wrong. User complaints also help my understand where my documentation is missing or sub-par. Always listen to complaints through the lens of ‘Somehow I led this person here, but they’re upset, so what could I do better for the next person?’
- Always ask them questions! Get as much information as you can out of a user that is engaging with you. Keep the conversation going and get them to tell you their feelings on the rest of your software, not just the broken part. Get them to explain their workflow to you. I was frequently surprised and learned a lot from learning what people were trying to do and how. Ask them about other software they used before they found yours, and why they switched.
- When people are being a little bit mean about the software, respond quickly and kill them with kindness. A huge number of new users to my software seemed to assume they were talking to a bot or emailing the great void. They would be surprised and a little embarrassed when a human responded with de-escalating language to an angry rant. Let them know you’re interested in hearing what they have to say, and you’re interested in fixing the issue they’re having. Give them a reasonable and realistic time frame for when you can fix the problem. (But resist the urge to promise too soon; be diligent about prioritizing accurately and protecting your own time & sanity.)
- Delete and ignore comment by non-paying users who send nasty comments. Ignore most of what free users say anyway. For some reason people who don’t pay have higher and less realistic expectations than paying users. They aren’t invested and they generally seem to be less nice. By all means engage people if they’ll give you useful information, but set the bar high for engaging if they aren’t giving you either money or helpful feedback. Remember that their behavior reflects on them and not you.
Online lists and such are great reminders,[1] but I suggest an in-person class where you can actually do and say things with someone who can provide informed feedback. Look for de-escalation training around you, probably in less expected spaces - I got mine as part of a soccer supporters group, because we'd have to de-escalate drunk fans from crossing lines in the stands.
[1] https://www.crisisprevention.com/Blog/CPI-s-Top-10-De-Escala...
The detachment that can help - but not remove - that emotional response is to try to change who you represent before you pick up the phone, as much as you can.
When you're developing software, you're representing yourself, more specifically your ideas, plans, and execution. The software is a reflection of how you work.
When you're supporting customers, you're representing the customer. This means the software isn't yours anymore - it's someone else's, something the person you're representing has spent money on but is now in your ear telling you they aren't getting the value they expected.
If you can turn your viewpoint in that direction even a little - roleplay it, change your voice, give yourself an alias, literally put on a different hat, anything that can trick your brain into detaching yourself from your "normal" dev role and emotional attachment - the stress changes.
It doesn't go away, it can't, because you're still YOU. But instead of taking the customer's WORDS as personally, you start to take the customer's PROBLEMS personally. And that doesn't sound like much, but it's an important shift from the problem making you feel SAD to the problem making you feel FRUSTRATED.
It's hard to get past being sad because someone hurt your feelings. It's still hard, but less so, to identify a problem that makes you frustrated, because you can solve problems. You're a developer - you're an engineer, at least on some level. If you can identify a problem, you can solve it, which turns that frustration into motivation. (That sounds cheesy but I can't find less cheesy words right now, I'm pre-coffee.)
I was once asked to spend some time making sales calls. Not only did I not get any sales, I realized that I was irritating some of the people I was calling. Up until that time, I thought I was a great "people person" (aside from being technically very good). It was very humbling. I don't think I could ever learn to be good at sales: I just (I now know) have no talent for it at all.
Is your customer support by phone, or by email/webform? If it is by phone, then I would suggest switching to email. Also, never respond the emails on first reading. Always read them, walk away, and respond later.
In general, a message from a customer is a gift. They may be upset, angry, etc -- but they're giving you a chance, by opening a door to communication. The first thing is to listen, and to understand their perspective. (Hear and empathize.) The second is to acknowledge their concerns. People want to know their concerns are understood. The third task is respond to their concerns. Are you able to address them? If so, let them know what steps you're taking. Finally, always thank people for reaching out.
In terms of the personal side of things; it feels like a personal attack because you care. That's a good thing. On the flip side, it's important to understand that most customers are not at all thinking about you -- they're thinking about their own (often misguided) perspective.
Understanding their perspective can be challenging. You can, and should, make your interactions about them, and not about you. If it feels like a personal attack, then you're likely not seeing things the way they're seeing things. This is a sign that you should focus more on their perspective.
In general, my email format, in terms of responding to customers, is as follows:
> Thank you for getting in touch
> I'm happy to help with [their concern]
> I understand the issue is [the problem they're facing]
> Here's the first thing you can do to solve the issue [propose solution]
> (If there's no solution, give some context, and explain why there is no solution, and let them know you'll take it into consideration for the future)
> Thank you for getting in touch.
> Let me know if you have any questions, or need further assistance. I'm happy to help.
I don't care what they say, how they say it's how wrong (or right) they are or who (if anyone) made a mistake.
I only care about "what is the most helpful thing I can do for this person".
I have apologised, explained internal constraints, identified where our processes have failed, offered video calls, empathised if I felt it would help, however I am mainly looking to "solve the problem this person has" within the limits of my authority.
Look for the facts, ignore the rest, and be helpful and kind.
Also, being sole developer and supporting customers is very hard. I'd be trying to separate me from the software and the customer issues, see them as independent from one another but nevertheless influencing each other (customer issues help you identify what to improve!)
L - Listen to understand the issue being presented to you.
A - Acknowledge by showing the customer you understand their grievance by verbally confirming it.
T - Thank them for letting you know about the issue.
T - Take action to resolve the issue. Turn the bad experience into a positive one.
E - Encourage them to return and build loyalty.
Another tip is that you have to separate yourself(mostly your ego) from the objective nature of the request. I build products for a living and when a customer tells me something is garbage or unusable, that can hurt my ego. But there's truth in everyone's perspective. You learn from it, you see the perspective, and you take action to improve it a little more for the next time.
So I don't know exactly how you separate yourself from the emotion, that it feels like a personal attack. And the feeling of wanting to defend what you've created. From my experience in the condo, in some cases it might actually be that you are being personally attacked, and to recognize it. I've had an individual use a fake police badge to intimidate my staff from enforcing parking rules, or been sent emails saying that they'll start spreading lies to all my neighbors if I don't do what they want, when they want, how they want it. There is a percentage of the population, I'm going to say 10-15% that just have no clue how to elicit help and have the person actually want to help you. So just recognize that for some it might be the case.
Also, be clear on what workplace harassment is, it's less of a bar than most people think, or those saying, you're doing support, just live with it. If customers are stepping over the line, I think it's important to realize the impact it has on you and take appropriate actions. In condo land, that means getting lawyers involved when there is actual harassment of staff, which fortunately is rare. But we've gotten things like Death Threats over a delivery to the building.
For some actual advice, here are some tactical items I've deployed to try and diffuse tensions in support: - Not everything requires an immediate response. If an email frustrates you and you can recognize it, build a cooling off period. Reply in a couple days. This also helps prevent just arguing back and fourth over email, if the cycle always take a couple of days. This might be harder in software support where you want expectations of quick responses, but if an immediate response affects the quality of the response, it can wait a day, an hour, etc. - Set expectations. If it's a difficult problem and going to take time, don't leave the person on the other end guessing. Tell them the current status of the investigation, and you'll hear from my by end of next week. In condo's, the unit is flooded and the homeowner is living in a hotel. Does the homeowner have reasonable expectations on when they'll be back in their home. The might think everything can be patched in a day, and if they're then left waiting 2 weeks just for contractor bids, they can sit around stewing about how no one does anything. But if you're upfront, we're collecting bids, and will give a status update, it can in some cases diffuse this early. - Some people will try and draw you into an argument, with big long emails with many, many points. You don't need to go through and counter every point. If you're doing that, you might just be having an argument over email. I try to recognize it and not get drawn into it. Just leave the accusatory stuff out of it, and try and steer the conversation back to point, the actual problem that is being reported and address the noise in the most general way possible. - Different cultures do react differently. I don't know if it's the case, but if you have lots of customers in a particular culture group, you might just find them use a lot more force in their messaging, or will do things like never admit when something is their fault. So if you do find this and your customers have a different background then you, might be worth checking out whether there is a cultural boundary between you and your customers. - Repeat problems back in your own words, to make sure you understand the complaint or what the customer is looking for. It's easy to frustrate customers by working on x when they want y. - Try and place yourself in the customers shoes. In software support I did as an example, our product was a flaming piece of poo. So a customer tel...
After that... hire someone to do it for you.
If those aren't options:
1. Email only support. Clear expectations on how quickly they can expect a response.
2. Nothing in realtime helps you avoid an overly defensive response and frequently the customer will figure it out on their own
3. Canned responses as much as possible
4. Link to self-service support like help docs so they don't need to reach out next time
5. keep the self-service support updated as new issues come in
6. Create boundaries and rules and stick to them. If someone isn't treating you like a person then cut them loose.
7. Always take the high road. Eventually you will get a weird satisfaction in responding overly nice to the worst of your customers.
Edit: adding 1 more
Create a support email address and direct all customers to use that. If anyone slips into your inbox you just tell them to copy support "for the fastest and best service" next time and then you forward the message to the support inbox.
Then treat that inbox as a separate task from your other duties and get to it when you feel up to it.
Also don't fall down the rabbit hole of feature requests from overly demanding folks. That will kill your business as fast as anything else.