Hi, I'm Jennifer Hancock and this is how to handle crank customer problems using behavioral science. Now I normally teach how to stop abusive and bullying behavior using behavioral science techniques called operant conditioning. And I learned these techniques when I was in college I used to train dolphins and dolphin language cognition laboratory. Now these conditioning techniques do work on humans. And understanding how people are conditioned is going to help you respond to the situations you find yourself in better because every every experience you have is conditioning you it's you're responding to it and your responses either get good, good feedback or bad feedback and then that in turn encourages you to do things more or less All right. Let me put this kind of in plain English.

Knowing how and why you respond. The way you do helps you to not respond negatively when negativity is thrown at you and Amazing things actually do happen when you can control your response to the things that are going on. And that is that the person who best controls the response ends up controlling the dynamic. And this is a skill worth learning. I do teach it for kids, I teach it for adults, I have a bunch of other programs that kind of go into this, but this is applying this knowledge to the problem of having a cranky customer. So if you want to learn more about how it's applied to bullies or bullies in the workplace, take one of those courses.

What we're doing right now is we're just going to talk about how to use this knowledge to help you with cranky customers. We're going to talk about why people behave the way they do and how you can use that knowledge to control how you respond to them. And this is going to help you be happier and more in control and have better outcomes even with your cranky customers. So the first question we have is Why are people so cranky? Why are they so negative? Are they like this all the time?

Or is it just you But doing this with, it's actually possible and very probable that if they're cranky with you, they're cranky with everybody because humans are creatures of habit, right? We are conditioned to respond certain ways. And if we've learned being cranky, protects us, or it helps us like, be domineering in some way so that we can control the situation, then we're going to do more. And so people who are cranky have learned to the cranky because it's been rewarded in some way, shape or form. Now, the thing about cranky is it's also sometimes a symptom of fear. The great sage yodas once said that, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, right?

And it's very, very true. So when people are throwing flack at you, it you have to wonder if, if it's fear that's driving them People who are cranky may be trying to defend themselves from perceived or imagined threats, they might be going in with anticipation or fear that they think this dynamic isn't gonna go well. So they're, they're gonna throw everything they got at you before they even start. Is, is this a good way to cope? Not really. But for some people, this is how they've learned to interact with people.

Now, if they're a customer of yours, then all their fear all their negativity, all their insecurities are going to be put onto you, and are directed at you. So what do you do? And that's where things get kind of interesting, because everybody has their triggers. You have triggers to no one gets through life unscathed. We all have things that we've had to deal with. And we deal with them well, and sometimes not so well.

And some of us have PTSD and we have triggers And even those of us who don't have PTSD also probably have triggers. So, something happens, you're triggered and you respond, right? Well, what happens when it's your customer who's triggering you and you are responding to their crankiness and their threats that come out of being cranky with your own fear and insecurity. So, that's the problem that we have, right? And this happens to everybody, right? If you if every time a whistle was blowing, this is what conditioning is.

Let me give me an example of this. If every time a whistle is blown, something bad happens, you're going to start fearing the whistle and you don't even know what's coming, but it's gonna be something bad because enough times the whistle is blown. It's something bad. That's what conditioning is. And so when people are cranky, they might be anticipating something bad happening and you do this too. We're all impacted by this.

And the thing you need to realize is that pretty much Every single interaction you're ever going to have is a learning experience of some sort. Sometimes good things happen to you when you interact with people. Sometimes bad things happen when you interact with people. And sometimes nothing happens. It's kind of boring, right? But all of these positive and negative and neutral responses that you get to your behavior arch are training you whether you realize it or not.

Over time, and most of us are not aware it's happening. But it is. and becoming aware and paying attention to how you're being conditioned and trained by these responses will help you choose your response. You can break the cycle. Additionally, it's a lot easier to understand why people behave the way they do when you are looking at them. You know, through this lens because it's not necessarily you that they're responding to.

It's the history of all the things that have happened to them. That's leading them to behave this way with you. All right, and you don't know what that is. A lot of times people are cranky and they get into a self reinforcing loop with themselves. They anticipate something bad's going to happen so they get cranky in advance for that bad thing to happen. And then the bad thing happens because they were horrible.

And then it just self reinforces itself over and over and over again. It's kind of sad really, when you think about it, that this happens to people. People are cranky because they learned to be cranky. They were conditioned to be cranky. They have learned that being cranky, works for them in however they define that. You do not know why someone is cranky.

You don't know what the history is that led them to this point. They could have recently lost a child they could have lost a spouse that could have been laid off. They could have cancer. something bad might have happened to them. It might not even be contained. You might just be catching them at a really bad time, they might be just very overwhelmed.

So sometimes cranky is fear. Sometimes it's a learned behavior. And sometimes it's just where they are right now, because of all the things that are happening to them right this minute. All right, I get cranky when my blood sugar is low. It's low lunch picture problems. When I get low blood sugar, I have a very hard time controlling my behavior.

So you just don't know when you're meeting somebody who's cranky, why they're cranky. So don't don't make any assumptions. And, you know, consider them as you would consider yourself, you're not at your best 100% of the time, and neither is anybody else. All right. Now, the thing is, if they're a customer, we don't want to get drawn into their drama, right. You've got someone who's cranky for whatever reason they have for being cranky.

And you have your own set of triggers that cause you to respond negatively when people are being negative to you. And it's very easy for us to get To a cycle of drama with this person, they treat us badly we treat them badly back that reinforces their bad behavior, which reinforces our bad behavior. And we just get kind of we just go down the rabbit hole with them into deep dark, pickiness. You have your own limitations, you have mental health limitations, you have physical health limitations that impact your mental health limitations. And you have a lifetime that you have spent interacting with the world that isn't always nice to you. We all have our scars, we are all sensitive in some way, some of us more than others.

So when you can find someone who's spreading their suffering around for everyone to experience with your triggers. It's not a good combination. So we have to learn how to get it benefits us to learn how to take control over this these sorts of situations. So the question is how do you create boundaries so that you don't get into drawn into someone else's drama, but you allow them there. crankiness because you can't fix that. All right, that's you don't let their crankiness trigger your crankiness.

Right. How do you do that? The first thing is to understand that it's not about you, right there. crankiness. Even if it's directed at you, even if they're in your face yelling at you, it's not about you. Because if someone's doing that there's something going on very much with them, unless you've done something intentionally to hurt them.

They don't really have a reason to do that. It's about them. All right. You have no idea why this person is behaving this way towards you. Not really, you do not know them. Even if you know them, you might not know what's going on.

And that's okay. You don't actually need to know why they're behaving this way. You just have to kind of accept that they are that they're behaving badly. So it's not about you. There might not be anything you can do to fix this. And you have to accept that.

That's whatever crankiness there Displaying, that's where they are at this moment. And the reason I'm saying this is because it's amazing how much time and energy people spend trying to get people to not be cranky with them. And that's not something you can necessarily fix. It's a futile thing to do. You cannot change someone else's behavior only they can change their behavior. Most of us can't even change our own behavior.

So like the expectation that someone's coming in cranky and they're gonna magically be able to suddenly control themselves is ridiculous, because you probably can't when you're pushed to the corner, they're cranky with us. We don't want them to be because it makes us feel bad or it triggers our insecurities fine. But understanding that it's not about you does two things for you. One, it stops making it about you and two, it makes you stop trying to make them change. Right. If someone is cranky, It's because something has gone wrong in their lives.

All right, and it's silly for them for you to ask them to be perfect for you to put that on the side before you write. Because here's what happens, right? Our lives are made easier on people are good to us. And they're made harder when people are bad to us. So when people are bad to us, or they're cranky with us, it's not ideal for us. And so we want to them to stop doing that.

But as long as we're focused on them, not doing it to us, we're making the problem all about us. And it's not about us, it's about them. Right? We just happened to be the wall against which they're bat bashing their heads at the moment. And as long as you're focusing on you and your needs and your responses and everything like that, you're not actually going to be able to help them solve their problem. And you end up in a fruitless loop of insecurity like they're treating your insecure As your negative response triggers their insecurity and just go round and round around, and that's not the way to get out.

Keeping it about yourself ensures that you're not going to help them fix their problem and make them happy and they're your customer. So, yeah, don't be negative back. If you accept that they are who they are, and for whatever reason, they're behaving this way. You don't get sucked into the drama, you just don't you just go, Oh, I don't know why you're behaving that way. But okay. And that's it, you don't get emotionally involved.

You're you remain calm. And that sounds like when I say that, that sounds really not very compassionate and not humanistic. But that's actually not what's happening. All right, but emotionally, not getting drawn in. You put yourself into a position where you can actually help them. That's why you're doing this so that you can be rational and help them so not getting drawn into the drama is actually the compassionate thing to do.

Right, you can't stop mate, you can't make them better for your sake. So you get on with dealing with them as they are and work on solving their problems. All right. Now, the key to making this work, the key to not getting sucked in is humility, and compassion. Humility is knowing your own limitations, and your own stressors and your own triggers. And to know that this is maybe not, you're not responding well.

And it's amazing how just acknowledging that dilutes the power of the stressor. I mean, you'd be surprised just acknowledging This is a stressor for me is often enough to just emotionally distance yourself enough so that you can handle it. Compassion is really hugely important too. It's not enough to know that your own limitations are there. But actively thinking about the other person as a real human being who's really got stressors and is suffering in some way also helps you get another layer of distance, emotional distance. Between you and this person.

And again, the emotional distance is not to let them just hang there your customer, it's so that you can be in emotional space, a healthy enough emotional space so that you can help them. That's what this emotional distance is. If they are stressing you out, you need to get some emotional distance so you can fix the problem. All right, so you don't get caught in the drama and just go down the rabbit hole with them. The compassion allows you to give them the space to be the cranky person they are without you getting drawn in so that you can fix the problem now