I’m in the midst of preparing
training material for corporate training for a group of customer relationship managers
on Customer Experience Management. Their organization is focused on creating a
memorable customer experience that evokes positive emotions and a pleasurable
outcome that will have the customers attached to them. Lesson two for tomorrow
is on emotional intelligence.
As I sit here going through the
specific points that I intend to speak about, it occurs to me over and over that
the essence of providing sustained exemplary customer service lies in the
emotional intelligence of the service providers. And by service providers here I
mean the actual contact points that directly deal with customers and all the support
systems behind them that facilitate smooth transactions.
Why is it important to be
emotionally intelligent in the customer handling process? What relationship
exists between the ‘self’, ‘emotional health’ and ‘customers’? Well, the one
thing that’s repeated to an almost clichéd degree is to not take things
personally. Whilst this may seem like
common sense, it actually isn’t. Why?
Picture a common scenario where
an irate customer is (in typical Kenyan speak) ‘causing’. Something has gone wrong and the promised
service has not been rendered or rendered below expectation. This customer is
spewing all manner of expletives directed at you and you are the target of
their wrath. It is quite an emotionally uphill task to remember that although
this vitriol is directed towards you, and almost always directly being
attributed to the customer’s perception of you being the cause of all their
problems, that in reality it isn’t about you. It never is. This customer doesn’t know you from Adam and
is not your relative. And therefore all that emerges from their being is an
attack on the system, process, procedure or structure that has resulted in
their disservice and not about you even if in reality it seems otherwise.
It is natural to have our hackles
rise when we’re accused, and have our defenses naturally go up. As the irate
customer speaks to us either directly or on phone, a progressively louder and
louder voice rapidly speaks to us in our head saying ‘How dare he speak to me
like that?’ ‘It’s not my fault and he’s
blaming me?’ ‘I’m here breaking my back and he’s coming to shout at me like
that?’ ‘Does he have to shout like that even if he has a problem?’ with several
variations of the same consistently getting louder each sentence tripping over
each other to be heard.
Now what separates the
emotionally intelligent from the rest is the conscious effort to have these
voices remain just that and not escape out of our mouths in response to the
attack. An already irate customer is not going to have a miraculous change in
dispensation when questioned about their irrateness. If anything that serves to
irk them even more. And should any of these sentiments erroneously slip out, I
guarantee that the customer’s level of annoyance will go up on the annoyance
scale by several degrees, further ‘explosifying’ the situation.
What is promoted by emotional intelligence
proponents is to take a deep breath, invoke an internal counter conversation in
a voice that speaks with authority to damp down the dissenting internal voice
that declares instead ‘This is not personal’ ‘This customer isn’t attacking me’
‘They are only unhappy about something they feel has gone wrong whether
perceived or real’ ‘What can I do to calm the situation and turn it around?’
and other take charge variations of the same.
This should serve to diffuse the
explosive situation and if not, at the very least to diffuse any enraged
emotions internally that may threaten to bubble to the surface. Not easy
indeed, but practice makes perfect. In the beginning it may seem even a little
silly to run these conversations around and asking the customer to ‘please give
you a minute’ and walking away to re-compose may prove worthwhile. But as is
touted 21 one days is all it takes to form a habit. By the 21st occurrence,
you will have mastery over dealing in an emotionally intelligent manner with
difficult customers and emerge emotionally unscathed from the battle zone.
Now doesn’t that sound like an
inviting proposition? Come on ….let’s jump into the emotional intelligence boat
and sail off to freedom. I invite you…………………..
