When someone throws an emotional grenade at you, don’t try to catch it. Anger is one of the hardest emotions to deal with, especially in a tire dealership when you are sometimes asking employees to stay late or customers are receiving bad news from you. Anger is a common reaction to surprises and even expected bad news.
Often, an employee or a customer presents anger right out of the gate. With it comes a lot of unknowns for the unlucky sales advisor or manager on the receiving end. Mistrust expressed by a customer who hasn’t even given your dealership a chance to prove it’s trustworthy can be extremely frustrating to deal with and work through. Remember, as I mentioned in a previous MTD column, woodpeckers, as I call people like this, come in all shapes, sizes and functions in a shop. Woodpeckers prevent progress.
Angry woodpeckers, unlike their cousins, the “nice” woodpeckers, put everything and the kitchen sink on the table when provoked. They firmly believe if they squawk enough and loud enough, that will get them what they want. It’s an adult version of a temper tantrum. Why do they do it? The rules of retailing almost always genuflect to beliefs that “the customer is always right” or excuses like “I’m already short-handed” or my favorite, “He’s a good guy/customer/employee, but…”
People use anger because there are rules in retailing and the problems brought up by angry customers are usually solved quickly — just hardly ever correctly. There’s a big probability that anger in retailing on either side ends up in a short-term gain for one side and long-term loss for both sides.
Many people in life try to get along — to a point. Eventually in a tire dealership setting, if management and employees can’t even find common ground, the employee will either choose avoidance by finding a new job — good employees leave first — or find a reason to not help the customer, ever. Angry employees can get away with avoidance tactics for a short while, but eventually the pattern becomes obvious. Avoidance then contributes to more anger.
Angry customers use anger to scare people into decisions — often against good judgement. Pleasing an angry customer usually just quiets them down from making a scene — for now.
Both customers and employees who use anger to get their way quickly burn off any goodwill others have given to them or to their cause. Let’s look at some other combinations:
Anger versus anger. Some people fight anger with anger. Imagine two rams butting heads or two boxers just trading punches with no concern for defense. Anger versus anger absolutely never ends in a winner. Professionals in our industry know this. Good customers know this. In today’s modern world, social media has built an empire on videos showing anger versus anger. Anger versus anger may make for popular videos, but it will make a company very sick, very quickly.
Anger versus “being nice.” Being nice to angry people makes angry people, believe it or not, angrier. Why? Because anger doesn’t produce a pleasant response. Its desired reciprocal emotion is fear and quick action. Being nice is a false front trying to mask another emotion. If you ever want to see an angry person launch like a rocket into the stratosphere, be nice to them. It won’t solve anything, but can be entertaining under the right circumstances. It can also help you lose customers.
Anger versus neutral. The only proven, successful emotional tactic for long-term success against angry customers or employees is remaining emotionally neutral. I’m not talking about indifference. (Ignore someone else’s anger at your peril.) Neutrality is recognizing the other person is upset, establishing the cause of the emotion and trying to resolve the issue that caused the emotion in the first place. If you try to solve their anger, which you have no control over, you will spin your wheels like a rearwheel-drive car in Alabama mud.
Solve the problem and the anger will dissipate — not magically, but it will reduce itself considerably. On occasion, you’ll get an angry woodpecker who’s on a mission — hellbent on trying to strike fear in everyone. Find agreement somewhere in that flood of emotion and keep repeating the solution to the problem. If this angry bird doesn’t want to let you speak and solve problems — remember, their anger isn’t your problem, it’s their problem — or agree to move forward, then so be it. Retail has rules. It has boundaries, like trees lining a vegetable field. What’s beyond the trees is out of your capability.
Loud, obnoxious woodpeckers — whether customers or employees — can test the patience of the very best of us and some you just can’t satisfy within the rules of business. Let them go.
Learn from the fallout. Maybe there were clues before it got out of hand? Many times, especially within the walls of a busy tire dealership, problems are allowed to fester. The very best woodpecker hunters among us recognize those signals.
