Dealing with challenging customers

The majority of customers that you will deal with will be pleasant and appreciate your help and advice, but others will require a little more thought with regards to the way you communicate with them.

When dealing with an angry customer, our first natural reaction is very often to feel we have done something wrong and then become defensive or emotional ourselves. It is important to make the distinction between the person and the problem and seek to understand the reason for their behaviour. Having the skills to be able to diffuse an overheated situation will not only provide you with confidence to manage the problem, it can also help to ensure a positive outcome for the customer. Most anger is of brief duration and low intensity, but it can range from mild annoyance through to extreme rage.

Pharmacy can be quite an emotive environment; when people are ill themselves or caring for someone who is unwell this can heighten any feelings of upset or anger that an individual is experiencing and influence the way they view or react to a situation. For example, if there was a prolonged wait for prescriptions within the pharmacy, for one customer this may be a welcome opportunity for them to do some other local shopping, and for another it could mean an extra 20 minutes waiting in pain for medication they desperately need.