What would you do if you had a problem that you could not deal with – perhaps if you were faced with a difficult customer?

This question is being asked to assess your ability to handle customers and provide them with the best care you can. Everybody has to ask for help at times during their working life. Your answer should show that you would not give up as soon as you were faced with a problem, such as an irate or awkward customer. The employer wants to see that you would be responsible and calm in your dealings with customers who are important stakeholders in any business. Explain that you would try to find out the exact nature of the problem troubling the person, while calming him or her down, if necessary. You need to apologise quickly in cases like this. Apologising does not mean taking all of the blame – you can feel sorry that the customer feels upset and show empathy. It can really diffuse the tension. In many cases you would be able to sort out the problem yourself, but in particularly difficult or complex cases, sometimes the issue needs to be dealt with at a higher level. Tell the interviewer that you are aware that if this were the case you would need all the details in order to pass them on to whoever could sort out the problem. Apologising to the customer for the delay, you would tell him or her exactly when the problem would be attended to. You would then pass on the query to your supervisor or the person responsible.