Customers get angry for lots of reasons – slow replies, unclear information, mistakes or feeling ignored. We’ve all been there.

The good news: a simple, consistent support system can lower the temperature. Combine clear help content with a smart chatbot, ticketing and live chat to stop problems escalating and fix more issues, faster.

Why speed matters

When a customer is upset you don’t need to get into the details straight away. A quick, empathetic response allows your customer to feel heard, lowering stress and giving you time to solve the problem. Fast acknowledgement, clear next steps and visible progress matter more than long explanations in the first reply.

"When service providers do not appear to exhibit an appropriate level of effort, consumers attribute this to the service provider not caring. This in turn leads to the customer feeling more negative emotions, such as anger and frustration."‍ – McColl-Kennedy & Sparks (2003)

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Prevention is better than cure

Stop customers reaching the angry stage in the first place with a few practical moves:

1. Simple self-service

Make key information easy to find. Give customers search, quick links and a chatbot option so the most common requests are just one click away.

*Western Bay of Plenty’s homepage and chatbot combo does a great job of this*

2. Don’t create roadblocks

Avoid asking for contact details before answering simple questions!

And don’t build chatbot flows that trap people in loops – always offer a clear exit to a human or a searchable FAQ.‍

‍3. Monitor feedback and fix root causes

Use feedback and support tools to spot repeat issues. For example:

set alerts for specific keywords on your support channels
get weekly summaries of unanswered questions so you can close knowledge gaps

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How each channel helps

Chatbots: instant empathy, fast triage and answers

A chatbot acknowledges requests 24/7, answers common (and uncommon) questions, and collects details when escalation is required. It can also detect sentiment and adapt its tone.

If your organisation has a lot of knowledge, and people might be asking you questions on hundreds of topics, the thought of building a chatbot to accommodate all that information might feel daunting.

AI-backed chatbots (like Helpfruit) are designed to accommodate the long tail of customer questions as well as FAQ.

How that works:

Load up your FAQ and the things it’s important to answer the same every time.
Link up your website or other knowledge source as a backup – so if there’s no ready-written answer to a customer query, your chatbot can use AI to respond if there’s relevant info in your backup knowledge.

Ticketing: track progress and set expectations

When the bot can’t fully resolve an issue, create a ticket capturing the bot conversation. You can then provide the ticket number and expected response time back to your customer.

✅ Progress logged

✅ Expectations managed

Even better, use routing rules and classification to highlight the tickets that need your attention fast.

*Sample Helpfruit AI rule that detects angry sentiment*

Help content

Sometimes you need more than chat. Longer form content, in the form of clear, scannable help pages make it easier for customers try a new feature or service, or troubleshoot an issue, without even having to contact support.

The best help content is written in plain non-technical language your customer can easily understand, supported by a clear step-by-step structure and screenshots or videos.

In an integrated help system, your long form help content can be connected to and help power your chatbot – so you just need to update things in one place, and the messaging is consistent.

Live chat: human empathy for complex cases

If you have the capacity (even just at certain times of the day or week), you can make live chat available for complex issues, high value enquiries or when someone’s upset. Set up rules and triggers so other channels do the heavy lifting, and live chat is only offered when it’s needed.

This kind of setup can be great for busy teams – they don’t spend time answering the same questions over and over again.

And if it’s part of an integrated help system, agents get the conversation history and customers don’t have to repeat themselves. Yet another way to not be annoying!

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Turn that frown upside down

Angry or frustrated customers can be a warning sign that your help system has some gaps, and highlight opportunities to do better.

When help content, chatbots, ticketing and live chat are well tuned and working in concert you can minimise customer frustration, respond faster, and turn angry customers into customer advocates.

And if you're looking for a customer service software that does all that, check out Helpfruit! Book a demo or enjoy a free trial now.