Coping with the stress of abusive customers
This article first appeared in MG Business in June 2002
We know of some credit management operations that keep a book (some use a whiteboard) in which they write down some of the funny or "interesting" things customers say. In one business there is a regular competition to see who has been called the worst name. (Obviously, you’re not supposed to provoke people to anger so that you win the competition!)
Things that customers say in the heat of anger are often funny when you look at them afterwards, even though the situation may have been stressful at the time. When we tape calls as part of the training process we find that the wild and irrational customers are the ones staff get a particular kick out of, and replay for their amusement. It helps them to remember not to take the abuse personally.
In psychological terms, this is a technique for "trivialising" and "externalising" the bad experience. It’s one way of dealing with the stress of angry customers - the subject of this article.
The chief executive of ACA Research, Martin Conboy, was quoted in BRW Vol. 24 No. 21 Thursday, 30 May 2002, as saying that "only 2% of [Australian] call centres offer stress training. If your call centre is the front line for dealing with disgruntled customers, then making sure your staff can deal with their own stress levels is imperative." While we have no hard research to prove it, we suspect that credit staff get more angry customers than sales or customer service staff. Whether in a call centre or not, credit staff need to cope with the stress of dealing with those customers.
There are four possible approaches to helping you cope with or reduce the stress of your job.
1. Training to make you better at your job. As a training business we would say that, wouldn’t we, but it’s true: the better you are at handling your customers, the less stressful you will find it. If you feel powerless and incompetent, you will feel stress. If you are confident and competent, you will feel less stress.
2. Training to make you better at dealing with angry customers, and calming them down. There are techniques that work on the majority of people. There are also ways that you can nip problems in the bud - defusing the situation before the customer becomes angry. In the case of debtors, the emotions underlying the behaviour are most likely to be:
- Frustration (the customer is not getting what they want from the interaction)
- Feeling unimportant (the customer feels that the business doesn’t care about him or her)
- Feeling stupid or incompetent (for example, the numbers you are trying to explain, which are easy for you to understand because they’re on a screen in front of you, completely lose the customer)
- Guilt (they haven't paid)
- Powerlessness (they don't have the money to pay)
In many cases, if you’re sensitive to it, you can hear these problems coming and deal with them before the customer explodes.
3. Changing your job. We know of someone in a call centre who completely lost his cool and started screaming obscenities at a customer. Then there was a guy in another credit team who was so angry at what had been said to him that he punched a hole in a toilet wall. I think it’s fair to say they were in the wrong jobs. Remember it’s only a job - if you’re losing sleep and suffering from high blood pressure as a result of dealing with customers you need to remember this. Either learn to deal with it, or get out. If you can’t effectively cope with the abuse that customers give you, you should seek another position.
4. Learning to cope with the stress. Here are some ways to help you cope.
i) Drugs are one solution. I’m not talking here about alcohol or illicit drugs (though there is often an element of self-medication in the problems of many alcoholics and addicts) but drugs H2 antagonists like ranitidine (Zantacâ) which suppress acid production in the stomach. Upset stomachs, tension headaches, skin disorders, sleep disorders, hair loss, overeating, under-eating, and many other symptoms may be the result of stress. If you’re feeling the affects of stress, talk to your doctor.
ii) Meditation is not for everyone, but many people find that some form of mind-clearing - even just a quiet walk in the park at lunchtime - helps lighten the load. I remember my father, who owned and ran a shop for over many years, telling me that there was a tremendous relief in reaching the point where he was profitable enough to employ staff. For the first time, he wasn’t tied to the business for the whole day and was able to go for a walk at lunchtime.
iii) The idea of meditation leads us naturally to exercise. If meditation doesn’t sound like your thing, perhaps yoga might be. I know people who wouldn't be caught dead doing anything as touchy-feely as meditating but who have found that yoga is excellent for helping with their back problems. One such person was telling me recently that he cleared his mind so successfully at the end-of-session relaxation/mediation period that he fell asleep! And many people will be familiar with the endorphin buzz they get from a run or a good workout at the gym.
iv) Perhaps the easiest solution is to share the problem with someone else - the basis of the old saying "a problem shared is a problem halved". It helps just to have someone listen. If they can also provide a few words of encouragement ("you handled it as well as anyone could have") or sympathy ("bummer!"), that’s even better. And, as I suggested at the start of this article, it’s also useful to have things put in perspective. The chances are, they’ll have a story to top yours ("you think that’s bad, man, you should have heard the guy I had yesterday.") The message is that whoever speaks to these customers is likely to receive the same abusive treatment. Sometimes people just have to get those negative emotions out, and credit and customer service staff are often the recipients.
The other side of the coin is to volunteer that support. Some people won’t raise the issue. They’ll bottle it up inside. If you hear one of your workmates on the phone to an angry customer, give them some support. Make them laugh. Have some fun. Listen to their moans.
These four ways of dealing with this issue are far from being the only solutions. Stress is a fact of life. We need some of it in our lives. We’ll probably get some of it in almost any job we do. Perhaps the main message is not to sit there and take it. Find some way to make sure you handle it.