Dealing with angry electronic people

Lessons from a lifetime of email interaction

I know these next few weeks in December are stressful for people.  Just try to stay relaxed and realize that the people you interact with are stressed out too so if you’re the one being calm, and being a leader by staying positive and moving ahead you will be making a huge impact on your own personal ecosystem.

I’ve got so many great topics I can cover but I’m going to give you a simple communication tip to take away today.  I have been using email and computers for 25 years to communicate with other people and I feel like I’m very good at communicating in that medium, but sometimes I slip up.  I’m going to give you a couple tips here about communicating so you can avoid creating the wrong impressions.

I’ll give you an example.  I worked at one point with an office in Quebec Canada.  For some reason my short and to the point style of communicating was always translated by the marketing staff up there as an attack.  From my end, I’m just busy and efficient and asking a question.  Form their side they think I’m being brusque and attacking their decisions and processes.

When you sense this happening, whether it is in email or on a website, or Twitter you need to stop sending emails.  When someone is totally misinterpreting what you are saying and thinks you are attacking them you are not going to make things better by sending more emails.  Pick up the phone, or if possible go face to face in your protein form.

This is also true with the example of the angry customer letter.  Let’s say you get an email from a customer and they just attack you and your company and your product etc.  What do you do?

Well, what you don’t do is write a response while you’re angry.  What you do do is pick up the phone and say. “Listen, I got your letter, and I realize you are concerned.  I’d like to meet with you face to face to talk this through.  We’ll hear each other out. Maybe we won’t come to a positive conclusion and we can agree to disagree, shake hands and move on, but maybe we’ll figure out a way to work together.”

Don’t try to explain to them why they are wrong.  You’re not going to convince them of their wrong position.  Listen, restate what you think they are saying.  You can say “I hear what you are saying but in the spirit of open dialogue, I disagree and here’s why.”  You can say “I think you may have remembered that incorrectly…”  that works better than saying you are lying and making stuff up to support your point of view.

I hope this was helpful.  Remember it takes two people to have a fight.  As much fun as a long angry exchange of emails is, it’s unproductive.  Pick up the phone.  Have Face to face. It’s a lot harder for someone to be mean to you in person. Take the high road and we’ll all get where we are going.

And I will see you out there.

Ciao,

Leave a Comment