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What is an Escalated Contact? It’s important to remember that even when you do everything right and try your best, not every contact will go perfectly. In fact, customers rarely contact us when everything goes smoothly—they have no need! Typically, our customers only co...

What is an Escalated Contact? It’s important to remember that even when you do everything right and try your best, not every contact will go perfectly. In fact, customers rarely contact us when everything goes smoothly—they have no need! Typically, our customers only contact us when something has gone wrong, and they need help. In customer service, when a customer contacts us and expresses extreme frustration or dissatisfaction, this is considered an escalated contact. This is named both for the escalated or higher tension from the customer and also because these contacts may need to be escalated up to leadership. These conversations require a higher level of support to resolve the issue and to turn the customer experience around. CULTURAL DIFFERENCES It’s important to note that Grubhub Inc. employs agents like yourself all over the world! However, our customer base is predominantly within the United States of America. Because of this, cultural differences are often present. Depending on the culture of the customer, you may need to adapt your communication style to suit their expectations and preferences. Some cultures may prefer a direct, assertive, and concise style, while others may prefer a polite, indirect, and elaborate style. For example, you may view a customer's direct and short answer as rude or upset, but an American might view this as concise and efficient. Power Skills Power skills, sometimes called Soft Skills, are character traits and interpersonal skills that enable people to interact effectively and harmoniously with others. Power skills refer to our human-centered skills, such as communication, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and problem-solving. Power skills are different from hard skills, which speak more to the technical and procedural tasks you perform daily. Hard skills are concrete, measurable abilities like skill assessment tests or completed work. WHAT IS EQ? While IQ (Intelligence Quotient) measures one's ability to solve problems and think logically, EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient) measures one's ability to recognize and understand emotions in oneself and others and use this awareness to manage one's own behavior. We need both IQ and EQ to be successful in customer service! WHAT IS DE-ESCALATION? The de-escalation process in customer service is a strategy aimed at easing the customer's negative emotions to prevent escalation of conflict and help resolve complaints promptly. This is our goal with all escalated contacts. WHAT IS YOUR ROLE DE-ESCALATION? As a Customer Care agent, you are the hero of the story! Your role is to use your power skills to turn the customer’s experience around. So, let’s learn a little bit about the tools and techniques you have at your disposal. HEAT H - Hear Them Out E – Empathize A – Apologize T - Take Action H - Hear Them Out Think back to the last time you got really upset about something. Did you call or text a friend to vent about it? Often times, when a customer is contacting us upset, it is because they want their problem resolved but also because they want to feel heard. Let’s talk about some skills for hearing our customers out. GROWTH MINDSET- The first step is getting into the right mindset to handle an escalation. A growth mindset involves reframing our thoughts, how we approach challenges, respond to criticism, and orient our goals. By changing our mindset during escalations, we allow for a more positive outcome and experience for not only the customer but ourselves, too!  Intelligence Can Be Developed A fixed mindset might say intelligence is static. A growth mindset knows it is not; rather you can grow your brain’s capacity to respond to complex problems. If at first you don’t succeed, it doesn’t mean that you don’t belong or you can’t learn. You’re strengthening your ability to do the work every time you face a challenge. Embrace Challenges When you encounter a problem you have not faced before, try not to get overwhelmed or give up. Instead of feeling frustrated that you do not know the answer to the problem, reframe your thoughts and view the challenge as a way to learn something new that will help you in the future! Every challenge provides you with new skills.  Persist In The Face Of Setbacks Setbacks do not equal failure. Experiencing setbacks is like building a muscle. You develop your muscles intellectually and emotionally, just as you do physically. Setbacks may be the experiences you learn from the most, so when something goes wrong, remember you are only getting stronger and you will overcome. Keep pushing forward! Learn From Feedback & Criticism It's easy to take feedback or criticism personally. Whether from QA, leadership, or a customer, remember that criticism is never a personal attack on you as a person and is only ever meant to help you learn, grow and get better as an agent. If you receive harsh feedback, use your growth mindset to reframe the criticism into something positive that you can learn from.  Practice Self-Reflection Regularly reflect on your thoughts and beliefs about yourself and your abilities. Get into the habit of self-reflecting after you handle a tough contact. What did you do well and what could you improve on next time? Don't forget it's just as important to celebrate your wins as it is to review opportunities for improvement. ACTIVE LISTENING Active listening is a communication skill that involves going beyond simply hearing another person's words but also seeking to understand the meaning and intent behind them and providing appropriate feedback to show attentiveness to the message being presented. It requires being an active participant in the communication process. We covered this briefly in the Call Flow module, but’s let’s review these skills again in more detail.  Listen carefully and use probing questions to better understand the situation: Is this a repeat issue? Is the customer questioning our reliability? Is there an underlying issue that is not being addressed? Paraphrase your understanding based on what you heard and your notes: Is the customer upset about more than just the obvious contact reason? Can we identify why the customer is actually upset about the experience? Do we understand what the customer wants to make this situation right? When we take the time to actively listen to our customers, we can identify the issues we need to take action on, such as a late delivery or incorrect item, and what issues we need to acknowledge, such as the inconvenience caused. TARGETED EMPATHY While general empathy is always appreciated, we don't want to be too generic when applying empathy by stating a blanket statement that could work for any situation. We want our customers to feel heard and special. Targeted empathy listens to and labels our customers' emotions. Labeling a customer's feelings helps validate those emotions, building more trust and connection with our customers and easing their concerns. Review the examples of targeted empathy below:  EMPATHY MEANS PUTTING YOURSELF IN SOMEONE ELSE'S SHOES Have you ever been hungry and had to wait longer than you'd like for your food? Have you ever spent the day looking forward to a particular meal, only to have it not meet your expectations? Think about where the customer is coming from, and why they are presenting the emotion they're presenting. Once you truly understand how the customer is feeling, let them know that you understand! Convey how you would feel if you were in their situation and acknowledge their feelings are valid with targeted empathy.  PROVIDING REASSURANCE After labeling and validating our customer's feelings, we also want to reassure them that we will resolve their issues and that we are the right person for the job! This can be as simple as saying, "I want to assure you I am going to do everything in my power to make this right!" or "I assure you, I can get this refund processed for you." Reassurance means letting our customer know that this wasn’t the experience we wanted them to have and we’ll do everything we can to make things right in this moment and in the future. We want to convince our customers that their experience is not typical to Grubhub, but when things do go wrong, we’re always here to make it right.  TONE So how do we show empathy to our customers? Tone is important in communicating that you understand the situation. Controlling your tone also controls the situation. For example, if a customer is upset and raises their voice, you can control the situation and stop it from escalating further by remaining calm and speaking in a clear and steady tone. As agents, we need to be able to adapt our tone to the situation. Some customers may appreciate humor, personal stories, or small talk, while others may find them inappropriate or irrelevant. Some customers may want you to be formal, respectful, and professional, while others may want you to be friendly, casual, and personal. You can use cues from the customer's behavior, language, and feedback to adjust your style accordingly. We’ll talk about ways to adapt later in this course. A - Apologize Words matter, and the words you choose have meaning. Words show our ability to walk in our customers’ shoes because that is how we can communicate empathy over the phone. Providing the customer with a meaningful apology has a large impact on improving the situation. WHAT IS A MEANINGFUL APOLOGY? Apologies are more than just saying, “I’m sorry.” Think back to when you were a kid fighting with a sibling or friend, and an adult told you to apologize. It was often met with “Fine! I’m sorry!” but you knew they didn’t mean it, and it didn’t solve anything. Let’s work on crafting meaningful apologies that will improve any situation. WHY are you sorry? WHAT are you sorry for? HOW can you relate to this situation or feeling? An apology should never end in “but.” “I’m sorry you’re upset, but there isn’t anything else we can do.” The “but” negates everything you just apologized for and makes you sound insincere. When we apologize, we want to take accountability, regardless of fault. We, as agents, have little control over the customer's orders and deliveries, but ultimately, the customer’s experience has been less than satisfactory, and for that reason, we are sorry. Remember, it is never us vs the customer; it is instead us and the customer vs the problem. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT STATEMENTS Acknowledgement means recognizing and validating the customer's feelings/feedback. Acknowledgment helps to establish trust, making the customer feel heard and valued. Let’s put our empathy, apology, and reassurance together into a strong acknowledgement statement: T - Take Action WHEN IN DOUBT Use your resources! Remember -- you won't always be able to make things right in the exact way a customer would like. For example, think about a "Change of Plans" contact. The customer may be frustrated about not being able to cancel an order they no longer want. In this case, don't let their frustration, or the knowledge that we cannot give them what they want, throw you off! Instead, consider all of your resources: Is there pushback verbiage available in ZDG that you can use to help the customer understand why their order cannot be cancelled? Are there concessions you can offer? If you have concessions available to you, have you negotiated with the customer all the way to the third tier of concessions available? If you have offered concessions, can you consult with a local leader to try to offer something more? Don't forget to highlight the value of what you are able to offer instead of focusing on what you cannot do for the customer. Pushback Sometimes, even when we do our best, our customer is so frustrated that they don’t want to hear our acknowledgement or accept our resolution. When a customer pushes back on what you have to offer, always remember to consult with your local leadership to ensure we’ve done all we can for the customer. Utilize our Customer Care Escalation Guide(opens in a new tab) to navigate pushback on resolution and requests for a supervisor to ensure you’re doing everything you can to assist. Never escalate a customer who is simply unsatisfied with the resolution you have to offer. KEEP IN MIND While we always want to attempt to de-escalate a situation, it's never acceptable for a customer to verbally abuse you. If a customer continues to scream, use foul language, threaten you, or in any way make you feel uncomfortable, you may disconnect the call. First, provide a warning: “I understand your frustration [customer name], and I want to help you; however, in order to do so, I need you to please speak professionally throughout this call/chat. If you cannot, I will have to disconnect this call/chat.” Remember to only offer solutions within our policy and attempt to rectify any issues before needlessly offering concessions. We never want to just throw money at a problem, and concessions are meant to surprise and delight. If you notice that a contact continuously calls in upset or irate and receives refunds or concessions, flag the account for potential policy abuse to your local leader.  KNOWN SCAM & RED FLAGS We have a current issue where fraudulent actors often use aggressive tactics to coerce Customer Care agents into immediately transferring them to DET by falsely claiming ongoing investigations related to data breaches. Once connected with DET, the customers communicate a different issue, demand excessive compensation, and are often provided multiple promotional codes. Be on the lookout for: Phrases such as “I need to speak with the diner team about this ongoing investigation regarding a data breach” or “Grubhub has been selling my information.” First name with last names abbreviated to one letter. ex: Zach h Multiple contacts with odd and inconsistent claims (ex: data breach claims followed by complaints about orders picked up by someone else). If you encounter any of these red flags, follow the steps outlined in the Account Takeover/Compromised Account and Unknown Charges(opens in a new tab) ZDG article.