Hey, not every single call coming to our business is a pleasant one. Customers get angry, clients want something more or something different, you have to set something straight with a vendor. Calls can be stressful, especially if they are long or if the anger is unwarranted. So, how do relieve stress while on the call? How do you shake off a particularly bad customer who went over the line? We have a few excellent to help you relive stress, shake off the negativity, and continue doing your job with grace and a positive attitude. Hopefully, you find them very helpful.
Don’t Take It Personally
With an angry customer who’s willing to call you names, you don’t have to care about them or what they are saying. Obviously, that person doesn’t know you, probably hasn’t personally met you, and probably never will. They really don’t care about you or your company, or else they wouldn’t be treating you this way.
With these types of calls, do your job and do your best to remedy the situation, but consider the possibility that there might be nothing you can do and you might just have to listen to the person for a few minutes.
Step Away for a Few Minutes
Especially after a stressful call, or a heated situation, it’s best to take a short break. You know, gather your thoughts, get a drink of water, go to the bathroom etc. Do something the opposite of stressful. This includes not turning your breaks, like your lunch hour, into another stressful hour.
The best way to do this is to get away for lunch, or at least part of lunch. Eat away from the desk and at the break room, or eat out once a week at a local restaurant. Or, better yet, get some fresh air and some exercise by going for a quick walk after lunch. It’s actually a great time to go the bank, or to go the post office, or get another quick errand done.
Realize You Can’t Control Everything
There are many thing that can make a phone call stressful. It could be urgent, it could be happening at the wrong time, or it could just be one more thing that you now have to do. As awful as stressful, ill-timed, unimportant phone calls can be, remember that you can’t control everything.
If it’s a particularly busy day, then that’s something you can’t control (and hopefully for you, busy days go by faster). However, what you can control is your attitude. If you think about how these things stress you out, or why they’re stressful, or even let them stress you out, then it’s only going to be much worse than it needs to be. Instead, realize you can’t control everything, and that one thing you can do and do well is take the call and get it done.
If answering the phone and handling a tough situation just isn’t your thing, then professional answering services can help you. Of course, you shouldn’t think of this as handing off these stressful calls to someone else, but as outsourcing your phone calls to someone who is much better at it and who as the time to do it. Think of it as the latter then no professional answering service is going to work out for you. But, we do admit, you didn’t start your business or apply for this job to talk on the phone. Save yourself the stress with a professional answering service.
Related Links:
How to Make Your Phone Calls about the Customer
