How to deal with customer frustration

Let’s say one of your customers is dissatisfied with your product and can’t stop yelling about a software glitch. Or perhaps they’re peeved with their customer experience and want to raise a complaint about the service.

Neither of these situations is good for the customer or your brand. And to make matters worse, they keep leaving negative comments on your company’s social media platform.

So, if you encounter this, what should you do? Let’s unpack that.

Customer frustration

It’s very natural to think of a frustrated and angry customer as your enemy, particularly if they’re unfriendly, impatient, and keep damaging your company’s reputation on the internet. But here’s a tip on how you can handle this: try to see this situation as an opportunity to better your product.

Raymond Otero, Director of Customer Experience at Microsoft, admitted in a keynote presentation at Customer Success Summit that he “loves complaints because if [he] can figure out how to fix those complaints, it'll help [him] generate more bottom line.”

Remember, as a success or support manager, you’re constantly growing with your customers, and to do that, you need to understand that these customers have the same goal as you, which is to get the most value out of your product. 

Incidentally – and quite shockingly – only 4% of unhappy customers voice their complaints! Meaning when customers do get in touch, there’s a heightened need for businesses to address this feedback promptly.

This aligns with broader industry insight: according to the State of Customer Churn Report, just 11.5% of teams actively seek to understand churn through exit interviews. There’s a significant opportunity here to better capture and act on customer sentiment before it’s too late.

1. Be empathetic

So when encountering this situation, it’s always best to apologize first and show your empathy. Taking an empathy-led approach allows you to put yourself in the customer’s position. They’re irritated and are looking for helpful answers, so don’t just provide boilerplate solutions that are impersonal to their situation.

Is this a revolutionary step? Probably not. But this small measure can help de-escalate a heated conversation and turn it into a productive one. 

Tactical empathy tips:

• Use calm, measured language… even if the customer isn’t.
• Say things like: “That sounds incredibly frustrating. I’m here to help.”
• Mirror their words to show you’re listening (e.g., “You mentioned this happened after the update…”).

This approach not only improves customer experience but will also help defuse tension, build trust, and increase the likelihood of a positive resolution. Win-win, right?

2. Actively listen

This might be the understatement of the century, but no one likes to feel ignored – especially when they’re airing a grievance. Make sure that you actively listen to their frustration and map out the steps you’ll take to solve the problem.

After the customer agrees with your idea, don’t forget to follow through on your promises. If you promised to get back to them in three days, you need to do so. By living up to your promises, you can build trust with your customers and deepen the relationship.

“Closing the loop is really, really crucial… you're going to tap into the 96% who don’t complain.”

- Raymond Otero, Director of Customer Experience at Microsoft

Active listening also directly supports CS goals. In the State of Customer Success 2024 Report, relationship management and retention are among the top CS responsibilities, with retention accounting for 25% of CSM focus. Getting this moment right isn’t just good practice – it aligns with core KPIs.

Tailor your response to the channel

Sure, there’s been an influx of customer complaints on social media over the last 15 years, but these complaints often occur with non-direct interaction. So, depending on where the complaint comes from, your approach might need to shift.

It’s worth noting that 75% of CS teams engage customers via email, followed by 41.7% by phone, and 30.2% by video calls (State of Customer Churn Report). Knowing the dominant communication preferences can help you decide which channel to use first to prioritize retention.

Prepare ahead of customer complaints

Role-play scenarios

A great way to prepare yourself for any customer unpleasantness is to find some colleagues to role-play with you. It might seem a bit forced at first, but for customer success, role-play is an effective way to practice obtaining and maintaining customer satisfaction.

Once you get over the awkwardness (and high-school drama-esque-ness) with your colleagues, then you can probably handle most situations with your customers! It also teaches you how to tackle different scenarios seamlessly in real life by stimulating real conversations to help customers with their concerns.

That’s why running these role-plays is really helpful. It allows you to be geared up before diving into facing a real-life crisis. So, if you can, have a go at this with your colleagues. 

Everyone watching the roleplay should take notes and provide constructive feedback, so you can all improve as a team.

Build a customer success plan

Beyond role-play, another powerful way to get ahead of frustration is to prepare a customer success plan right from the start. 

“At the very start of your customer relationship, create a customer success plan that speaks of their previous state, what the future state holds with the use of your product, what their goals are. Get as hard into numbers as you can… that’s your source of documentation.

- Kalyn Lewis, Head of Sales & Customer Experience at Visme

However, only 39% of CS professionals implement mutual engagement plans during onboarding, according to the State of Customer Onboarding Report. This is a missed opportunity – having a shared roadmap can defuse future complaints by creating clarity from day one.

When complaints come in, especially nitpicky or emotional ones, having that plan in place allows you to pull the customer back from the rabbit hole and anchor the conversation in facts and goals.

What’s more, a strong customer success plan not only reduces complaints, but it also creates pathways for upselling and cross-selling by reinforcing customer value early.

Track and measure complaint handling

It’s not enough to resolve complaints; you need to know if your efforts are working. Here are some key metrics to track:

• CSAT (customer satisfaction score) after resolution
• NPS (Net Promoter Score) trendlines
• Time to resolution
• Repeat complaint rate
• Follow-up survey feedback

If you see the same complaint over and over, it may indicate a deeper issue that needs product or process changes. Metrics like customer health scores, used by nearly half of CS teams, can proactively flag issues before they become full-blown complaints.

Document and share internally

Every complaint is also feedback. Make sure to:

• Log complaints clearly in your CRM or support tool
• Tag by category or theme
• Share recurring issues with your product or engineering teams
• Create a “voice of the customer” summary each quarter

The most common internal barrier to improving customer experience is a lack of resources and poor collaboration with product teams, as highlighted in the State of Customer Success 2024 Report. Having a structured customer feedback loop turns individual complaints into organization-wide learning opportunities.

A customer complaint case study in action

In 2015, Proposify, an online proposal software that helps to optimize the sales closing process, experienced a lot of issues with its site.

This led to many angry customers, and some even left negative and sarcastic comments on Twitter, like this one:

And here’s how Proposify responded to the customer’s frustration:

In this tweet, we can see that the first thing Proposify did was apologize and then they offered support for the issue. Although some may argue the ‘looking to publicly shame us’ bit can come a bit passive-aggressive because of the tone, you could say this is just part of their strong brand personality.

But what the company did after the tweet was something we can really learn from. They followed up with an email that covered all the key issues that needed to be addressed.

At the beginning of the email, the CEO of Proposify, Kyle Racki, asked for clarification about the customer’s problem. Because let’s be honest, the customer’s tweet doesn’t give much information about the company. If you don’t really understand the customer's question, you might end up causing a lot of confusion. So, asking for clarification first is vital when you want to target the issue and solve it.

Then, Kyle addressed the customer’s problem like this: “This is something we’re working on within the next couple of releases. For now, you have to create a new page and budget table manually.” 

Here, we can see that Kyle tries to set realistic expectations for the customer. He made it transparent that there are limits to what their product can do. But then again, Kyle also made the customer aware that it is something they’re planning to improve, so the customer will still have faith in the company.

And finally, Kyle apologized and left the contact information for the customer to reach out to if he had more questions in the future. Interestingly, he also mentioned in the last sentence that he and the customer were from the same city.

This is a really smart move, as it builds a sense of connection with the customer. Also, it shows that although this is a business relationship, everybody in the interaction is a person at the end of the day.

So, when dealing with customer frustration, you want to act like a real human and be as authentic as you can possibly be. It also helps to build a meaningful relationship with your customers. Just see how Proposify used their tactics to turn an angry customer into a happy brand promoter. The customer even followed up on Twitter and thanked the company.

When it still goes south

Even when you do everything right, there will be customers who escalate things, either CC’ing your CEO, yelling at your team, or refusing to compromise. It can feel like the worst possible working day of your life, but your first port of call should be to gently remind them that this is a professional relationship. And for full transparency, you’ll want to loop your line manager in, too.

If things really go sideways, and you feel like you’ve done everything possible, it’s okay to let it go. As long as you feel you’ve thrown everything you can at the situation, that you did everything you could, then that’s all that matters.

This mindset also helps when you face churn or tough losses. Many CSMs in the early stage of their career take churn personally. Like it’s their fault the customer left, when actually there are a myriad of reasons that have nothing to do with their performance.

You’re not always in control of the outcome, but you are in control of your effort, your integrity, and how you show up. Focus on what you can own, learn from what you can, and then move forward.

Stay resilient as a CSM

Handling complaints is emotionally taxing. CSMs need psychological safety, too. Here are a few tips for maintaining resilience:

• Don’t bottle things up; make sure you talk to your team.
• Schedule decompression time after tough calls.
• Remember: you’re not your churn rate.

It’s not always recognized, but CS can be emotionally draining. Interestingly, 32.5% of CS professionals feel their work is undervalued by the C-suite (State of Customer Success Leadership Report 2024). That’s why peer support and internal advocacy are vital.

If you, unfortunately, encounter a situation with an angry customer, try to remain calm and listen carefully to their needs, and you’ll be on the right path for customer retention.

Frustrated customers aren’t always fun, but they’re trying to tell you something. If you listen well, respond authentically, and follow through with action, those complaints can become your best source of growth.