Unit Five: Case Incident 2: Abusive Customers Cause Emotions to Run High
Unit Five: Case Incident 2: Abusive Customers Cause Emotions to Run High
Chad K
Kaplan University
MT302 Organizational Behavior
6/15/10
Unit Five: Case Incident 2: Abusive Customers Cause Emotions to Run High
Dealing with abusive customers can lead to stress and burnout very quickly. When you have someone constantly everyday verbally abusing you it can take a toll on your mind and emotions. This usually happens because all of your anger just stays bottled up inside, since most customer service companies make you stay positive. With automated telephone systems that create a labyrinth for customers, result in long hold times, and make it difficult for them to speak to an actual human being, a customer’s frustration often settles in before the representative has had time to say “hello” (Robbins 2007, p.291). This is why most of the time you will get angry customers. As a recruiter for a customer-service call center, I would prefer to hire people with an excellent sense of humor and strong emotions. Having a great sense of humor and strong emotions can possible allow you to take more heat and verbal abuse from customers without getting upset. If you have people that get upset very easy or their feelings hurt very easy, the employee would be arguing with the customer or possibly always crying or very emotional. If your employee has a lot of other bad things or stress going on in his or her life, this may also not allow them to take too much customer abuse. Emotional intelligence can play a large role in responding with abusive customers. If you know how to read emotions or manage emotional cues you may be able to calm a customer down or make them seem you are on their level. If you as an employee can keep calm and hold back your emotions in certain situations, it could benefit you as well. Being able to keep calm could cause you a lot less stress and maybe you could calm heated situations down. Companies should brief their employees and run them
Chad K
Kaplan University
MT302 Organizational Behavior
6/15/10
Unit Five: Case Incident 2: Abusive Customers Cause Emotions to Run High
Dealing with abusive customers can lead to stress and burnout very quickly. When you have someone constantly everyday verbally abusing you it can take a toll on your mind and emotions. This usually happens because all of your anger just stays bottled up inside, since most customer service companies make you stay positive. With automated telephone systems that create a labyrinth for customers, result in long hold times, and make it difficult for them to speak to an actual human being, a customer’s frustration often settles in before the representative has had time to say “hello” (Robbins 2007, p.291). This is why most of the time you will get angry customers. As a recruiter for a customer-service call center, I would prefer to hire people with an excellent sense of humor and strong emotions. Having a great sense of humor and strong emotions can possible allow you to take more heat and verbal abuse from customers without getting upset. If you have people that get upset very easy or their feelings hurt very easy, the employee would be arguing with the customer or possibly always crying or very emotional. If your employee has a lot of other bad things or stress going on in his or her life, this may also not allow them to take too much customer abuse. Emotional intelligence can play a large role in responding with abusive customers. If you know how to read emotions or manage emotional cues you may be able to calm a customer down or make them seem you are on their level. If you as an employee can keep calm and hold back your emotions in certain situations, it could benefit you as well. Being able to keep calm could cause you a lot less stress and maybe you could calm heated situations down. Companies should brief their employees and run them
References: Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2007). Organizational behavior (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.