Taking care of angry customers can feel overwhelming or frustrating, especially if it feels like their anger is uncalled for. The good news is that there are several great templates and examples for turning an angry customer into a happy (or at least calmer) customer. Here are some of the best.

General Guidelines

In How to Deal With Angry Customers: Examples, Research, and Field-Proven Best Practices, Groove put together some great guidelines to keep in mind when responding to angry customers in different scenarios including a crisis, one-on-one with a customer, issues that keep coming up, and dealing with jerks. Plus, they include an in-depth example of what happened when a company responded to a customer's angry tweet in an unexpected way.

The How to Respond to an Angry Customer Email section from this article by Hubspot also does a good job of breaking down some general guidelines to follow when responding to an angry customer:

1. Respond as soon as possible.
2. Apologize for their negative experience.
3. Acknowledge your mistakes.
4. Explain what may have gone wrong.
5. Offer an incentive, refund, or discount (when possible).
6. Allow them to respond with further questions, comments, or concerns.

Check out the full article section for more details on each guideline.

Now, depending on what a customer is upset about, here are different templates and examples that can help you write up a great response.

Product or Service is Broken or There's an Outage

Groove has a great template (#5) for when your product or service is broken or there's an outage:‍

Hi %{first_name},

Sorry for the delay in response.

We encountered an issue earlier today that affected a portion of accounts — and unfortunately yours was one of those affected.

We have rectified the underlying problem and you should be up and running again now. No conversations were lost during this time, but please give it a few minutes for them to flow into your inbox.

We understand how critical we are in the role of supporting your customers, and will be implementing a host of solutions to ensure that a situation like this does not occur again.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to give us a shout.

Thanks,
%{agent_firstname}

Vague Customer Complaints

In How to Write Support Emails Your Customers Will Love, Help Scout has a good example for handling vague customer complaints (#11 int he article) and they show both what a bad and good response look like.

Customer Refuses to Provide Troubleshooting Details You Need

Help Scout has a great example and guidelines (plus some alternative options) for customers who insist that “I’m not doing your job for you” when you need more details in order to troubleshoot their issue:

• Avoid making ultimatums
• Convince the customer you need their help
• Be explicit about what you need
• Show them a positive outcome is coming

Customer is Angry Before, During, or After

Kayako provides some great examples in their Handling Angry Customers: 3 Email Responses Your Team Need article that cover customer who are:

• angry before they reached out to you
• angry during your interaction
• angry after the interaction was over