Stressed Out on Customer Service?

Let’s begin today on the bright side.  If you’re working in customer service your job is to make people happy.  Throughout the day, you’re in constant communication – either on the phone or in writing – with the people that your business depends on the most.  Your customers’ satisfaction is what helps keep you in business; therefore, your business success depends on the service you provide

Now let’s examine the dark side.  Working in customer service means listening to people complain, sometimes angrily.  If your skin isn’t thick enough, this can lead to stress.  In fact, statistics show that one third of all customer service agents miss an average of five working days per year due to stress.

Many customer service training programs offer tips on how to alleviate stress on the job ranging from meditation to keeping a laugh diary.  The truth is, however, that the best way to avoid customer service stress is to provide good customer service.

Most of the time, customers who complain have good reason to do so.  But whether the complaint is angry or reasonable, it’s your job to respond by overlooking the personality and the emotion and focus on the person with the problem.

Your response to a customer complaint -- whether written or over the phone – needs to be sympathetic and understanding, but also must reflect the level of accountability that your organization actually bears.  You probably have policies that you can follow to help you express your accountability and provide a solution.  You should also have guidelines in place for dealing with complaints that might not be justified, such as when your customers’ expectations go beyond your level of accountability.  To prevent making promises you can’t keep, you’ll need to be careful about accepting liability and even, sometimes, apologizing when your organization may not be at fault.
 

Providing good customer service also means openly telling your customer what you can do and will do and avoiding what you cannot do.  Positive service solutions like this help to soothe your customers’ frustrations, even when their expectations cannot be fully met.

To be good at customer service requires passion for finding solutions that help people.  By the time your task is through, your customer will no longer have reason to complain.  A full day of responding to customer complaints successfully means that you’ve done your part in maintaining their loyalty and keeping your company in business.

And that’s no reason to be stressed.  In fact, that ought to let you sleep pretty well tonight.