Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom! I hope you are all having a great week, I’m happy to report this has been a surprisingly good week at work! I was nervous that things would feel crazy as I prepare to go out on vacation next week for the remainder of October. I always feel nervous when I am going to be out for so long and need to have my colleagues cover for me, primarily because I know full well they have their own duties and I hate putting too much extra work on them. Thankfully we have got my duties spread out nicely and there is quite a bit I am going to be able to do ahead of me leaving. So now the big stress is coming down to ensuring my luggage and house are all in order to head out. Thank goodness for the weekend!
Having finished my Breakdown up to Season 5 this last week, I decided to cover a topic rather than starting a new season. Just the other day there was an incident in which my colleague was dealing with a very difficult person on the phone, essentially disregarding her instructions and refusing to accept her answer. I decided to talk about tips and strategies to deal with difficult people at work, which I previously recapped back in The Office: Season 4, Episode 5 “Launch Party Part 1” so maybe we can go a bit more into detail.
So the topic is how to detail with difficult people at work, which means this could cover both your colleagues as well as customers. Given that I work in Human Resources, they are one-in-the-same which often makes our work more difficult. We do not have the luxury of banning someone from our store or hoping that person never comes back. At the end of our call we still have to work together and this means our interactions are under a certain level of scrutiny. But just because we are colleagues, doesn’t mean that we do not have instances where those employees can be just as difficult and upset as a toxic customer in a store. So what are some pieces to remember during this interactions?
Remain Calm and Professional
If remember nothing, the key is maintaining your composure during the interaction. Even when the employee is starting to yell and even curse, do not match that energy. You want to remain calm and professional, maintaining the same tone you would normally give a customer. If you get upset as well, this can only add fuel to the fire and just make the situation worse. Additionally, if the situation is reviewed by leadership later you might risk being reprimanded for treating that person poorly.
Attempt to diffuse the situation
We obviously would like them to calm down if possible and if you remain cool and professional, this can often begin that process. The hope is that they will realize that they are starting to sound crazed in response to your calm demeanor, and they will self correct. While we do not want to get angry like them, it can be helpful to show empathy and acknowledge their emotion and understanding how they got there. You should let them speak and vent, reaffirming their statements to confirm for them you are listening.
Offer solutions/answers to their problem
What happens most that the individual is upset for so long is that they are unable to get the immediate resolution to their problem that they want. Too often in society people are “rewarded” with their solution because we believe this is the simplest option. While you might not be able to give them the solution they want, what you should do is walk through the solutions that can be done. Often I will use phrasing such as “I am unfortunately not able to do that, but I do have an alternative that I can walk you through.”
Establishing boundaries
While we are taught that the customer is always right (which is rarely true) this does not mean you are not entitled to setting up limits to their tantrum. Following the recent step, if they are not willing to accept that alternative then I would have to respond with “If that is the only solution you are looking for, I am unable to assist you further.” It is important to let them know that there are limits to what they can get and you are attempting to assist them within those limits. Perhaps the biggest boundary is that even upset, they do need to present themselves with a certain level of decorum. If the person starts swearing and getting angry to a point that you do not feel safe, or that they are not a willing recipient for assistance, you are entitled to eject from the situation. I work with people over the phone so I would first ask that they calm down, explain I am trying to help them but it is important that they stop behaving that way. If this does not work then I would explain that this all is over and that they can reach out when they are prepared to accept assistance. I would then document this and loop in my leader so they are aware of what happened.
Do not take it personally
Regardless of how this turns out, it is important to not take it personally. While they are yelling at you and being rude, do not believe it has anything to do with you. A call like this has a way of ruining your day and can often stay with you for awhile, I recall one instance where the person said they would sue me personally because I was not doing what they asked me to do. You are not the source of their problem, you are simply a target for their blame and anger.
While these are my primary steps that I have learned over the years, each organization will be a little bit different and there are countless trainings out there. One of my favorites is from Zendesk Blog and they not only identify the types of problematic customers, but they offer a flow chart to follow when dealing with a difficult person courtesy of Mozhdeh Rastegar-Panah. Check out their article here; I am glad to see that my own methodology is very in line with what they recommend.1
While I am making it sound easy, there are customers out there that truly can be difficult to work with. I have had instances where I get so caught off guard by their sudden reaction, that I find myself mildly speechless and I panic. In those situations, if nothing else this is what you need to remember.
- Remain calm and professional.
- Do not make any promises that cannot be kept. While it is easy to make a promise to get them off the phone, if you cannot commit to it you will just make it worse.
- If you need assistance, get it. If you are in that situation where you are speechless and panicking, especially if you haven’t done this before, it is okay to say that you need to speak to a manager and will call them back. Sometimes that extra time does help calm the person down, but it is okay to “call in backup.”
So how about you, do you have any other tips on how to deal with difficult customers? How about specific scenarios where you either did something well that diffused the situation, or perhaps you handled it poorly and it got worse. What did you learn for the future?
I look forward to your insight into this topic, and I also hope you all have an excellent Friday and weekend! I’ll watch for your comments for our fellow readers, and as always I’ll be sure to watch for you around the Breakroom!
- Rastegar-Panah, M. (2025, August 11). How to deal with difficult customers: 13 tips + examples. Zendesk Blog. Retrieved October 16, 2025, from https://www.zendesk.com/blog/5-types-difficult-customers-help/ ↩︎
