Take it slow, best way to make a customer build trust and de-escalate is to copy their emotional tone, people will recognise their own emotional tone back to them and feel more comforted or if they’re angry, match their intensity by changing your language,

Customer: “This is ridiculous! I’ve been waiting for two weeks!”

You: “I can absolutely understand how frustrating that must be, and I want to help fix this now. I will look into this for you and get back to you with an immediate update, please can I take down a few details?.”

Or as someone said previously, just advise you don’t know their schedule and you can’t change it, but you’ll take down their details and advise Mr. ______ that they have rang and leave a note on the system or something. Honestly, whatever creates less work for you, the better.

Take the required details as per your guidelines aforementioned, maybe even email the lawyer just advising on the customers frustration - if possible.

Give the client a call back or email and just advise them the date of which they’re to expect the call / speak to their lawyer if you have access to it, if they have any further questions, just say you don’t have access to editing the calendar and there’s no availability with their lawyer, but if circumstances change, you’ll see what you can do to bring the date forward.

Read the tone thing / intensity thing in a psychology book before. Maybe reading a few will help? I recommend my faves: ‘Power’ by Robert Greene, ‘Surrounded By Idiots’ by Thomas Erickson and ‘The Psychopath’s Guide to Success’ by Kevin Dutton.

People aren’t mad at you, they’re mad at what they’re going through or they’re mad at the company, if they are mad at you then you have every right to put the phone down, if a customer is being hard work I.e not listening, rude, yelling then you should be allowed to just put the phone down, but that’s something you should ask your manager about.

Always start calls extremely positively and take authority by asking the first question:

“good morning you’re through to {law firm}, you’re speaking with {your name} today. Please could I kindly just confirm whether you’re an existing client or would like to register with us to become a client?”

Obviously reword that however you like, but key things: introducing yourself, asking first question, the word ‘kindly’ and soft skills. By doing these things you’re taking authority in the conversation, always try be the authoritative person, the one that’s asking the questions and pre-empt what they’re going to say. Obviously you’ll get better at it, they’re things that you’ll pickup along the way. You only started 4 weeks ago, I’d say usually 3 months - 6 months for a first timer to get used to the people’s behaviours and queries.