Difficult clients

If your company offers a service, you may find that you have to deal with complaints from customers

and clients. In this unit, we look at some phrases that may be helpful in this situation.
如果你们公司提供一项服务，你有可能发现你要处理来自顾客和代理商的抱怨。在本单元，我们学习下一些短语，

这些短语对你可能有帮助
Imagine that you work in a travel agency and a customer comes in to complain about a recent holiday.

The customer tells you that they experienced a bad delay at the airport which ruined their holiday.

How do you respond?
假设你在一家旅行社工作，一位顾客跑来抱怨近期的一次度假。这位顾客说航班推迟了，假期也泡汤了，你怎样回

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Difficult clients

Useful Phrases You can explain to me what actually is the problem… Can I take your name? I

understand you are having a few problems Would you like to just explain from the beginning what’s

happened? I’m sorry for that wait I don’t know what the problem was As you can imagine… I’m sorry

about this, Mr Anderson I can actually look into that for you … I’m sorry for the inconvenience I

can assure you Let me check for you
Transcripts¹
Angela:  Hello, I’m Angela, I’m the customer services（客服） manager. Would you like to come 
with me and come and take a seat and you can explain to me what actually is 
the problem? 
Alison:  Okay, okay, fine. 
Angela:  Can I take your name? 
Alison:  Yes, my name’s Alison. 
Angela:  Okay. Alison, if you’d like to make yourself comfortable. As I said, I am the 
customer services manager and I’d like to help you. I understand you are having 
a few problems. Would you like to just explain from the beginning what’s 
happened? 

Alison:Well, yes. I’ve just come back from one of your holidays. I went to Crete, in Greece, got

back last week and the whole thing was a disaster.
Angela:Would you like to just explain from the beginning what’s happened?
Alison:Well, yes. To start with, when we got to the airport in, in Crete, we had a two-hour wait on

the coach, I think there was a delayed flight or something, and… and…
Angela:…Right, that’s quite possible…
Alison:…Yes… And I just can’t work out why you didn’t take us to our hotel and then come back to

the airport to pick up the people from the delayed flight.
Angela:Right, I’m sorry for that wait. I don’t know what the problem was. You mentioned a delayed

flight there. As you can imagine, you probably weren’t the only family on the coach waiting, and to

ferry（渡船，渡口） people to and from resort to the airport would have been a lot of extra work and

they like to try and keep everybody together who are going on the same flight. I can actually look

into that for you …
Karen:Hello!
Mark:Hello, can I speak to despatch², please?
Karen:You’re through to despatch.
Mark:Right. Well, I phoned two days ago to say that I hadn’t received delivery of my order and I’m

ringing again to say it still hasn’t arrived.
Karen:Can I just take your name please?
Mark:Yes, it’s Mark Anderson.
Karen:Ah! I think there’s been a problem with that order, Mr Anderson.
Mark:What kind of problem?
Karen:Oh, I don’t know offhand（即时的）. Let me check for you. Yes, part of the order didn’t

arrive here at the depot（停车场）, so I couldn’t send it out until we’d received everything.
Talking Business . BBC Learning English Page 2 of 3 bbclearningenglish.com
Mark:Well, surely that was your problem to sort out（分类，整理） without my having to call you back
-again. I did phone and draw your attention to this a couple of days ago. Look, I placed this order

weeks ago. I'm sorry, it’s just not good enough.
Karen:Yeah, I’m sorry about this, Mr Anderson. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I can assure

you we’ll do everything we can to send it out to you today.
(本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑)

1 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句

2 despatch   

n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道

参考例句：

• The despatch of the task force is purely a contingency measure.派出特遣部队纯粹是应急之举。
• He rushed the despatch through to headquarters.他把急件赶送到总部。