How to counter Abusive Customers.

After 2 consecutive angry postings on unreasonable customers, i have kind of calmed down. I have spoken to many people regarding this issue. A mind boggling question always resonates in my mind, "How do you counter such a verbally abusive customer!?!!?"


Strategy 1: Usage of "Same to you". The concept of this reply is really crisp and simple. For e.g.

"You.. stupid chinese Dog, give me my transport voucher" (customer)
"Same to you, Sir" (me)
"You are a stupid PA officer. Why your parents give birth to such a stupid son?" (customer)
"Same to you, Sir" (me)
"May your whole family die tomorrow". (customer)
"Same to you, Sir. May it happen faster to you Sir" (me)

Such a simple yet powerful reply.....

Strategy 2: Switching off. When the customer is scolding you, try to look at a focal point e.g. your shoe or a nice scene outside the office and focus on it. While the customer is still berating you, continue looking at that focal point. When you hear silence, then smile to the customer and ask, "Thank you for your feedback. Sir/Mdm"

Strategy 3: To an abusive customer who is scolding you non-stop or going into vulgarities, you can proclaim loudly to him/her:

"I am sorry Sir/Mdm, I am afraid we cannot continue this conversation if you cannot calm down and hear me out." Repeat for 3 times. And if the scolding still continue, leave the customer and ignore him/her."

Strategy 4: Facilitate a transfer of ownership effect. This concept is a little hard to comprehend. Take the case of the same transport voucher incident. Before the fucker handed you his application form, he could scold you as much as he wanted. However, after a period of scolding,you decide to "take" in his application form. The customer would calm down now and on the contrary now fear you because his application form is in your hands now. So when the customer takes his leave, you can simply chop the big "REJECT" stamp on the form without a blink of an eye. If the customer scolded you too fiercely, you could also simply shred the application form because technically, when he returns to dispute the case, you can simply reply, "Sorry Sir, do you have an witness to prove that you handed the form to me?" (Remember to smile innocently)

Strategy 5: Always prepare a digital camera that has video recording capabilities with you. The moment you encounter a verbally abusive customer, take out the camera and ask your colleague to video-cam the whole process. Do not speak a word until the camera is rolling. Ask your colleague to point the camera explicitly at the customer's face when he/she is scolding you. Then calmly proclaim to the customer that, " I welcome all feedback from you Sir/Mdm. Please do continue to verbally abuse me as i will have enough evidence to sue you."

If the customer rushes forward to snatch the camera or smash the camera to the ground, you now have valid reasons to call the Police and you may now file a magistrate's order to sue the fucker for

1) Stealing of personal property
2) vandalism of CC property ( if the camera belong to the CC)



My ending words are: It is never worthwhile to get so worked up such that you end up beating up the fucker.It is not worth it because there are better ways to piss these fuckers. Cheers!!!

How NTUC Deals with JAck-ass Customers

I refer you to a Straits Time Article published on 24th September 2008 Pg B1 in the Home Section. In my previous entry, i highlighted the fact that my organization lacks the balls to do anything to stand up against unreasonable customers. In fact, the upper management do not care because it is the field staff who bears the brunt and verbal abuses. At the end of the day, the Big guns will just rub it off and proclaim: This is what your field allowance is meant for-to be fucked by customers.

NTUC Income sets the leading example in dealing with Jack-ass unreasonable customers. They simply DROP these fuckers. I love the way that NTUC justifies her reasons diplomatically and i quote,

"Despite our best efforts, customer XXX has made clear his dissatisfaction with our services, and we are not confident of being able to meet his expectations moving forward. As with any business making a commercial decision, we feel that it would not be in the best interests of both parties to continue this relationship."

I love the subsequent part of the reporting: It is not the 1st time that NTUC has dropped a customer. It has in the past refused renewals from people who "ACT UNREASONABLY" when settling a claim, those who are suspected of colluding with car workshops to inflate motor accident claims and IT REFUSED TO DO BUSINESS WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE HARASSED ITS SERVICE STAFF.

Bravo!!!! and Kudos to NTUC Income. My organization will never have the balls, not even one ball left to do such a thing.

Getting Scolded

(Artistic Impression of the fucker who scolded me)

The title cannot be clearer. In my line of work, customer service is an important facet. Staff at the community centres face a barrage of unreasonable customers all the time. Empirically, it is possible for a counter staff to be verbally abused at least once a day.

As per all customer service doctrine, the golden rule has always been, "The customer is always right". But how right are these customers if you ask? What about the unreasonable customers?

The recent issuance of the transport vouchers was another perfect episode for the community centre counter staff to be abused again. Usually, the point of contention arises due to complaint 1) the resident did not produce his/her NRIC card which is needed for the application and complaint 2) the resident blaming us when they are notified that all vouchers are given out.

Historically in the past, the norm has been that the counter-staff would be verbally abused by unreasonable residents. Because most of the time, the counter staff are ladies, they tend to be submissive and not retort back. Most importantly due to the scene created by the rowdy resident, the manager would usually step in and grant whatever the customer demands. The signal delivered from the manager's gesture is crystal clear to the public: "All i need to get my way is to RAISE my voice and create a scene. The staff of all community centres will give in."

This is definitely NOT applicable for me. I met an unreasonable customer this week. I informed him that the application of the voucher is closed. He was furious.

"I took off today to come to make the application" (customer)

"Sir, application is closed. HQ has ordered it so." (me)

"Who said so? SHow me Black & white. WHere? Where?" (cust)

"HQ sir. The boss upstairs in HQ." (me)

"I dun care. I want to talk to your boss now" (cust)

I ignored him and served another customer waiting in line. I stared at him. My counter staff who sensed that trouble was brewing called for my boss to receive the customer. In any case, the customer declared loudly that he wanted to file a complaint on me. I stared at him and replied, "Go ahead. I am not afraid. I do not give in to tyrants like you". In the meanwhile, my boss who is a sweet lady managed to pacify him and explained to him properly.

Later i learnt that this fucker also came in late to apply for the vouchers last year. The staff at the counter gave in to him. Now that explained why he assumed that this year, he could do the same again. Too bad, he met the wrong dude to mess with. I will never forget his face and his tone and his "Come-beat-me-up face". I beliveved that I would have beaten him up. I swear i would. A man's ego is not to be messed with. I was not born to be shouted and verbally abused by people.

Some residents are just really cheap. When they see the counter staff is a lady, they will raise their voice and bully them. It takes a strong will to say NO. Because yielding to these customers will only invite MORE abuses in the subsequent years and days to come.

I was fuming mad for the next few days. Mad because i met such a customer. Furious because my Boss gave in to him. Agitated because i did not get to beat him up.

The turning point came when i did my block visit with my MP yesterday. In typical practice, there will be an entourage of officials from the town council, the police, NEA, LTA, HDB and lastly from the CC (i.e. me) who will follow the MP in the block visit. The logic for the presence of the other agencies representives is that whenever a complaint is made to the MP, the MP could quickly on the spot refer to the right chap from the right agency for answers.

After the debrief session, all the agencies reps sat down at my RC centre. The MP has left and we were casually feasting on the food that my RC has prepared. I remarked, "The residents in this constituency are really pampered, spoilt and unreasonable."

The reps from the other agencies all laughed and shared their experiences of unreasonable residents' complaints / demands. The list of complaints / demands ranged from

(From the Police)

1) My neighbour above me is dragging the furniture across the room. I cannot sleep. Go and arrest them. (Its 3pm in the afternoon, mind you)

2) My son is confined in the army camp. He is just a young boy at 18 years. I want you to enter the camp to arrest his commanding officer and bring my boy back. Oh he is such a poor thing.

3) Wild cats are mating furiously in my void deck. My little girls ask me to explain that sound. I can't. I demand you to kill these cats.

(From the Town Council)

1) I am about to dry my clothes on the bamboo pole. But it is going to rain. Can you make the rain stop? (DUH, WTF!!!! JACk ASS Resident)

2) The airplanes are disturbing my reading hour at 1pm. I demand you to ground the flights or i will complain to the minister. (Complaint filed during the Paya Lebar Airbase Open House)

(NEA)

1) I have mosquito larvaes in my dentures cup. I expect you to come to my place within the next 1hr to remove the larvae without touching my dentures in the cup.

(LTA)

1) The roads are too dull and dark. Can you get your workers to paint the road in front of me in pink?

2) Street lamps are too bright and shines into my reading room. It disrupts my reading hour. I demand them to be shut down after 7pm.

At the end of the sharing session, i felt so much better because other agencies have it worser....much worser.

You stupid stupid child!

I was working PM shift today. I reached bedok bus interchange at 1130pm and i saw a memorable sight.


This boy about 5 years old was playing and crawling at the floor. He was doing leopard crawls ;worming in and out of the queue lines railing. Coincidentally, this fat lady was sitting on the railing with her legs etched on the opposite end of the rail bar. The playful boy crawled underneath the fat lady's butt.



To the astonishment of the boy's mum, his mum shouted aloud, "YOU STUPID BOY. WHY DID U GO UNDERNEATH SOMEONE ELSE'S PI GU (meaning Ass). YOU WILL BECOME DUMBER AND DUMBER FROM NOW ON. I HAVE TO DISOWN YOU NOW!!!!"



It was a truly harsh remark. The boy was petrified and he was shocked to tears. He ran to his mum and embraced her. The mum was very pissed and pushed him away. Oh i must stress to you the mum and kid are both PRCs. I knew it from their PRC-ish accent.



The boy was definitely innocent. Im sure he had no idea about all these stupid cultural norms. His mum was certainly and probably justified in making a huge fuss due to the way that she was brought up. All these superstitious and silly myths and cultural folklores ingrained in her since young can make her lose it and be cranky.



I pity both of them. The child for suffering such a tramautic experience where his mum disowned him and the mum getting the realization that her son's future is gone now because he will be stupid forever and forever after today.



Whose fault is this? I shall not elaborate further. If you are smart enough, you will know the answer.

Im glad i listened on...

In our line of work, there are times when we meet one or 2 customers who will pour out their hearts and sorrow to the counter staff. Sure, as part of the GEM protocol, "Go-the-extra-mile" protocol, indeed we should hear the customers out.

Sometimes, my colleagues will lament that they are not paid to consol the public and worst of all these people take up too much of their time resulting in them being unable to finish their work. I also feel that at times we are just not equipped with the right counselling skills. Over time, without proper management of the staff's expectation, the staff will only grow to loathe these troublesome customers (who are usually homeless folks and senior citizens). This may sound really cruel but due to over-prolonged exposure to them, it is hard to sympathize with these customers because one thing is.. their problems are never ending.

Last week i encountered one such customer. She was a single woman in her late 50s. She brought several english letters to the office and she needed help to translate them. I was at the counter and i rendered help to her. It was'nt before long that she began pouring out her story to me. She was staying in a 2-rm rented flat. Her rental mate had passed away and by HDB's regulation, she had to find a new rental mate within a deadline or else she will be evicted. It was a sad story but there was nothing i could do. I advised her to go to the Meet the People Session.

She continued to pour her story to me. 30minutes had passed. My colleague back in the office sensed that something was wrong and they called my mobile phone. So i excused myself from the customer and ran to my desk to pick up my phone. When i got back to the office, my colleagues said they were trying to get me out of the situation by making me leave her. However, i reasoned that since it's already 30 minutes, i doubted that she had any more strength to continue. So i returned to the front desk again to listen to her. Oh gosh, she continued with much gusto and fire.

I glanced at the clock, 45 minutes have passed. Thie time round, my colleague wanted to rescue me again. She hovered to the front desk and remarked loudly to the customer, "Hey Andrew, your dinner is turning cold. You want to eat it first?". Again the customer did not budge and continued confiding in me. I felt that i was so helpless. It was only at 10pm, that my colleague made an announcement to announce the closure of the CC that the customer stood up and decided to end her talk. At that moment i heaved a sign of relief. Just when i was ready to head back to my desk to pack up, the customer held my hands and she commented, "Thank god, someone hear me out today. Or else, i would have jumped down the flat tonight"... With tears of gratitude in her eyes, she left the CC.

Oh Jesus, at that moment, a cold chill went down my spine. It was hard to get a hold of myself. Hmm i was so glad that i stayed on and listened to her despite several rescue efforts by my colleagues. I strongly belived that it was Abba who made me stay and listened to the customer. The power of hearing is so powerful.... I also realized that technically, no harm was done to me by listening to her. I did not lose a piece of flesh or something. I was glad i listened on...

The Art of Stalling a Reply

In my line of work, i spend a decent amount of time daily interacting with walk-in residents who enquire about courses organized by the community centre and other grassroots organizations. At times, i have to admit: I will bump into some really JAck-Ass customers.

For example, I organized an inline skating class for the residents. It was a 4-week course and one parent missed the last class with her 2 children. As per past practice on the 4th lesson, the vendor will issue the certification cetificates to the students. It is understood perfectly from a layman's point of view that if you miss the last class, you will fail the course and not be eligible for any certificates. It is the same logic for taking a driver's license test. If you miss the final test, do you think you can ask for a re-test or even claim the license? DUH!

After a few weeks, i was shocked to receive a call from this parent demanding a certificate. I explained nicely to her that she missed the last lesson hence no certificate will be given by the vendor. She shouted at me on the phone and blew her top. On my part, i was as sympathetic as possible. I listened to her whinning. At the end, i told her i will ask the vendor if it was possible to give a make up class for her children.

I called the vendor and explained the situation. The vendor was unwilling to issue a level 1 skating proficiency certification cert because honestly the coach cannot assess if her kids are fit for level 1. The vendor was only prepared to issue a certificate of participation. When i put down the phone, my colleagues cautioned me with this advice. "Andrew, do not call the parent after you have asked the vendor. Wait for say a hour later."

"Why? I want to be efficient you know!", i retorted.

"Well, by calling one hour later, you can give the appearance that you negotiated hard for a long time with the vendor. Look the vendor is not going to budge, so do the customer. Stalling time will pacify the customer and earn her gratitude!", my colleague explained.

"Awwww.. icic..", my eyes were enlightened.

Indeed an hour later, i called the parent. She was calmer and spoke in a peaceful tone. In addition, she bought the story that i negotiated very hard for her. In the end, she was satisifed with just a certificate of participation and not a level 1 certifcation from the vendor.

This episode has taught me a valuable lesson in the rules of engagement for such nasty customers. If you are in the service line, i hope this advice will be helpful.

A good Hesitation

A while back the local banks launched the sale of their preference share scheme. These preference shares promises a sizeable annual dividend of 5-6%. I was really tempted to subscribe for it but at the same time i balked at the minimium sum needed, $10,000. Sure i have this amount but to sink it in preference shares i had to think twice. I guess there was no peace. Coupled with my busy work schedule, i missed the application deadline for the shares. I was so glad that i missed the application because later i read an article from business times written by my finance professor from SMU. He has adviced the public that preference shares are not for young grads for me who are in the wealth accumulation stage because

1) Preference shares are not that liquid. YOu can't dispose of it to sell it for cash when you need it and the preference shares are only redeemed by the issuers i.e. the banks at god-know when?. Hence technically, your principle is considered lost... for a long long time...
2) Preference shares are only suitable for retiree folks with tonnes of cash to spare and look forward to a steady steam of income per year.

Thank God. Sometimes. the best way to grow the reserves is to do nothing for the moment......

New Name for ACMs

Ladies & Gentlemen, ACMs have a new alternative name now. It is also called the "Advanced Combat Man system"

Advanced Combat Man system is a term that can best describe my job scope now.... :p

When you say Nothing at all

At this moment, I am listening to this really cheesy song titled, "When you say Nothing at all". Oh do not misunderstand me. I am not listening to the one sung by Ronan Keating but it is the version done by Alison Krauss & Union Station.

If you think about it, a lot of things in life are better left un-spoken. For example, that silent breakup between couples, the silent job resignation that people tender, the silent joy that someone receives say when he/she wins 4D etc, the silent pain endured by a terminally ill patient...

Recently, i learnt of the resignation of another induction mate JSM. Perhaps what is most succinct about his resignation is that he was dead silent when he tendered his resignation. He only informed us like days after he tendered. Or a month ago, when a resident in my constituency just commited suicide by jumping down from her flat; dressed in all red. Moments before she jumped, she said nothing too.

Perhaps the most memorable incident to struck me is my residents' committee's recent visit to the Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society, Moral Home for the Mentally Disabled at 20 Jalan Eunos. The residents are intellectually challenged. Some are psychotic and some have slow mental development. But what binds all of them together is their inability to voice out their pain and suffering. They are in pain.. no doubt. Most of the residents are dumped by their family members. Whenever festive seasons like CNY or christmas come, their longing for their family can never be expressed verbally....

On this topic, it is coincidental that the government has opened the local political landscape for citizens to openly protest at the Speakers Corner. But did people really come forward to address genuine issues of dis-contentment? Self-censorship reigns. The newspaper reports speak for themselves. Anyway, this post is not meant to be political.

How about the endless sweat and toil endured by your mother when she brought you up? I bet she just kept silent and embraced it herself. How about the moments when she caned you after you did something wrong as a child? Im sure her heart ached but she said nothing at all...

Somethings are better left unsaid... right? How about this declaration of love for a person you like be it your parents, the girl/boy next door you fancy, your children? Hmm better left unsaid too right? Or should you say it and take that risk? Do you do it at a cost of your face/pride/ego?

Anyway.. i still have a debt of 4 kisses to collect... Please remind me... ;p