Tell me about a customer who came to you angry — at you, your company, or the situation. What did you do first, and why that?

De-escalation can't be faked from a script because the sequence gives it away — what they did first reveals whether they defend, deflect, or listen. Anchoring on a real incident also surfaces whether the fix addressed the complaint or just the emotion.

• What were they actually angry about, underneath the first complaint?
• How could you tell your approach was landing — or not?
• What did resolving it cost you or your team?
• Where did the relationship land afterward?

Lets the customer finish before responding, separates the person's anger from the actual problem, names a concrete fix or an honest limit, and checks back afterward rather than assuming the storm passed.

The customer is cast as unreasonable start to finish, the story is about winning the argument, the anger got handled but the underlying problem never did, or the resolution was handing them to someone else.