Does this situation sound familiar?

You are a manager of a call centre; your reps speak to the same clients between 5-10 times a day, they are experienced reps who have built a great rapport with each customer.

You have a customer service program in place which is very thorough in training all the major soft skill elements such as questioning, building rapport, listening, call flow, fact finding etc.

Yet despite the training, encouragement and focus, your reps still find it very difficult to deal with customers when they are angry or frustrated.

Any situation where a person is angry or frustrated involves conflict. Generally speaking people don’t like conflict. In fact many people go out of their way to avoid dealing with conflict if they can.

Your reps may not be handling complaint calls well because their own emotions are getting in the way. People need to be taught how to recognise their own emotions, and then recognise the emotions in the other person. Otherwise they can't move to a position where they can manage their own emotions and that of the other person.

This is where Emotional Intelligence can play a big part to improve customer service. If a rep is stuck in an anxious state because they are afraid of conflict, they can’t move to a position of managing the call effectively.

Emotional Intelligence allows people to identify, assess, and manage their emotions and that of others. Once your reps have these skills then the traditional tools taught on how to manage complaints will be applied and customer service will improve.