In the past few months, much radio air time has been devoted to the post-Imus considerations of how to respond to inappropriate verbal and written language. These issues are pervasive and extend well beyond radio talk shows, including in the world of condominium management.

In my experience, company owners and/or senior executives at leading management firms have noted, with growing frustration, the increasing number of inappropriate E-mails and phone calls received by their staff. They often struggle with how to push back on the inappropriate language without also losing a customer. To find the appropriate balance, it is vital for these business owners to train their staff members how best to respond to an irate client.

Unfortunately, there is no magic answer to this challenge, but it is important to place this issue into the larger context of dealing with societal trends that many of us perceive to be inappropriate. These trends may include, but are not limited to, the use of abusive language that is laced with racism and vulgarity.

After more than 20 years of owning various companies, in my experience, the answers to these situations are always the same: Identify the values that are important to you, translate those values into standards, communicate those standards to employees and customers, and, finally, enforce those standards.

A Line in the Sand

As a matter of business practice in my management firm, I do not tolerate aggression or profanity directed toward my staff by customers. I communicate this standard to the trustees during transitional meetings with incoming clients. To make sure my staff members are adequately equipped to handle profanity or other abusive language from unit owners and/or tenants, I train the staff on how best to respond to aggression.

In our office, the correct response follows a specific set of steps. At the first offense, my employees are instructed to document the offense and to immediately tell the customer that the issue is being documented and that the conversation will be terminated if the offensive language continues. We call this approach a "Two Strikes and You're Out" profanity policy. To keep our database up to date, my employees enter into the unit owner's database record details of the call, including the exact language the caller used, and the information is date- and time-stamped. But I also make it a policy to go one step further to underscore the importance of the transgression and to protect my employees: I personally follow up each offense promptly and forcefully.

How Does the Process Work?

Bad behavior most often crops up in a very specific situation. Typically, a unit owner calls for an urgent repair or a document he or she needs for a closing. For some reason, the request can't be met by the administrative staff, and the owner's request escalates to a demand.

Faced with this situation, some customers get upset and, unfortunately, elect to use profanity as a "weapon" to attempt to change the response from "Yes, but not right now" to "Yes, we will bend the board's policy and/or change the backlog of the staff to immediately accommodate your non-safety demand." If a customer makes a decision to use inappropriate language, he or she is immediately informed of our profanity policy and given a choice. Most times, when faced with a firm response, the customer calms down and often apologizes. But there are those instances—and they happen more often than one would assume—when my staff is forced to terminate a call because the customer makes a second attempt to bully the staff with profanity.

In my office, on those very rare occasions when the situation has escalated, the next step is to call the customer, and to verify the notes in the database, so there is no misunderstanding. In nearly every case, there is no dispute of facts. The customer agrees that he or she lost control and used the profanity my staff noted. In most cases, the customer quickly apologizes.

But the process isn't guaranteed to be that smooth. In some cases, the apology is followed by the customer making an attempt to convince me that he or she has a "right" to use abusive language toward my staff. The rationale the client uses follows a predictable path: he or she pays the bills that underwrite my staff person's salary, so the client should be free to use whatever language he or she so chooses. The vast majority of these customers are men.

To answer this line of thinking, I make it a practice to ask if the customer is married or has a daughter and/or a living mother. If I am told that, yes, the customer's family includes those members, I ask for their telephone numbers at work. When asked why I need this information, I respond that I am going to call them at work to ask if they approve of the course of action the customer elected to take with my staff.

My inquiry is often met with the response, "You're nuts!"

Fast on the heels of that first response, I inject that, surely, the customer will not mind if I lace my conversation with his or her family members with the exact profanity the customer used with my staff. Clearly the customer will have no issue because he or she obviously endorses use of such language in a business transaction.

Most often, after some silence, this garners an apology, as the person is aware that he or she was wrong and should stop acting like a bully. In my long experience of dealing with the public, very few people have tried to escalate beyond this point.

Real Life Examples

Let me offer one real life example of how this policy worked. One special customer called the board president of a key account to complain that a management staff member hung up on the customer.

The board member listened to the upset unit owner and asked a series of questions, including, "Did the person at the management firm give you a warning after you first used abusive language?"

After some silence, the customer said yes, he had been warned. But he went on to explain that Reason XYZ gave him the right to be upset.

The board chair followed with another question: "How long after you used profanity again did that staff person hang up?"

The customer was dumbfounded that the board chair was taking the staff's side on the conversation.

To close the conversation, the board chair told the unit owner that he expected the owner to call back, apologize, and then wait a while before calling for any service of any kind.

Finally, the board member called the staff to apologize for the actions of the rude unit owner.

The value of this exchange is that it underscores for the unit owner or tenant who might be tempted to use inappropriate language several points: that standards have been defined for acceptable communication, that everyone on the leadership team is aware of those standards, and that my staff will be backed when they enforce those reasonable standards.

One Hand Washes the Other

The exchange between the board president and the unit owner raises another noteworthy question: How does a management company generate such loyalty from the volunteer board member?

The answer is simple: The management firm must show loyalty to the volunteers.

As managers, we receive weekly, if not daily, negative feedback from unit owners about the "useless" board members at their condominium. In some cases, the words that unit owners elect to use to describe their board members are much more offensive than

If volunteers are going to protect the interests of their manager, then the manager has to extend the same courtesy to the volunteers.

If a community association manager takes the time to confront aggression, he or she will force everyone in the community to understand that the trustees are the "good neighbors who are trying to make a positive difference." The confrontation also makes clear that those volunteers must be treated with respect or the caller's request will not be given full consideration.

In summary, the key to success is to manage expectations. To manage something, there must be a standard and that standard must be known and understood. Then that standard must be enforced. As a company owner, I try to create a standard under which I would like my wife and daughters to work, at their offices, in other industries. I do not tolerate abusive language directed toward my family members, so why should my employees be forced to tolerate aggressive language? If I want unit owners to step up to be volunteers, can I tolerate abusive language directed toward these unpaid leaders? If I don't support the volunteers, should I expect them to support my staff members?

If people in leadership positions are silent in the face of verbal abuse, then a dangerous form of language becomes acceptable, and we all pay a very high price. Some clients may not feel comfortable with a community association manager imposing standards, but I find that the most desirable clients will find these higher standards refreshing. In the end, a slightly smaller portfolio (in the short run) of the right clients will lead to higher employee productivity, lower employee turnover, and higher levels of customer satisfaction, which, in turn, leads to more client referrals. In my book, a portfolio of the right clients being serviced by the right staff is the best outcome!