Notes

1. - Stay calm
- Do not argue back
- Do not react emotionally
- Acquiesce in indefinite terms, but not make promises impossible to keep
- Pay attention to everything (if the customer is short and to the point, then mimic them. if the customer enjoys building rapport, do the same as well.)
- BE POLITE (being aggressive or rude back only aggravates the mood and makes the situation worse)

2.

Mandatory courses and meetings to teach representatives how to deal with hard customers
Give customer representatives sheets to use during calls to remember what to do
Extra resources (optional talks, videos, etc)
Adapt to multiple styles of learning (eg. Giving employees a choice between a presentation or a training manual)
Make training interactive with quizzes, scenarios, and role playing.
Let new employees shadow more experienced representatives to learn how to take calls from tough customers

-Stages
Stage 1: Customer is being difficult (frustrated, tone begins to rise)
Steps: Try to deescalate, listen (not only gives more insight on the problem, but also makes the customer more friendly if they know the representative is listening), establish rapport (empathy, personal connections, actively engage with the customer)
Stage 2: Customer is angry (loud, yelling, some minor threats/insults may appear, minor impoliteness like talking over the representative)
Steps: Do not fight back, show empathy (I understand, this is a very tough situation. I know that this is a tough problem and I will try to resolve it for you.), reps need to remember to always be polite (use honorifics eg. sir, ma'am, apologize, calm tone)
Stage 3: (Q1 Stage) Where the customer is being extremely harsh (yelling, threats/insults, disregard for politeness)
Steps: Try to appease the customer (eg. We will be working on a solution on this problem, I will bring this up to our manager to resolve this issue), work hard to try and resolve the issue as fast as possible, warn other representatives about a hard customer, report the incident
Stage 4: Final Stage. The customer is making serious threats against people related to the company, the company itself, the representative's job, or other groups, is not listening to the representative, and it is nearly impossible to work with them under this stage. This stage and the steps therein are only to be taken in drastic measures.
Steps: Forcibly disconnect the call, blacklist the caller, report the incident, speak with the caller's supervisors/managers if possible