Personal Attacks in Retail Sales

"In this section we're going to discuss some methods you can use in dealing with tough customers. I'm Pamela Unruh on behalf of Expert Village. An example that a customer might cross the line is dealing with you and just going from tough customer to abusive customer is if they launch a personal attack on you. Now attacks can come in many different forms and this is different from just your frustrated customer who has an issue they are trying to get solved. This is somebody who takes this past professionalism and into something a little bit more personal. If a customer personally attacks you, that can come in a form of verbal abuse. Maybe they are saying something personally rude about you, yourself you don't have to take that. It can come in the form of profanity and I had customers slip into profanity before and I just reminded them whether on the phone or if they're in front of me, Sir or Madam. I really want to help you but if you are going to continue to use that kind of language, I'm not going to be able to. Nine out of ten times that I done that, that the customer has apologized and moved passed that. As far as the more verbally abusive personal attacks you on the character or attacks on your appearance or attacks on your authenticity, none of those should be tolerated. You don't have to ask the customer to stop that. You can just simply disengage you working with the customer at that time. This is obviously not somebody who is respective to hearing what you can do to fix their issue they just want to make a personal attack. The best way to stop it is just to complete stop contact with that person at this point."