Meeting new people is often a pleasant experience for many, as they get to learn something new from everyone they come across. But when you have to deal with people and their grievances every day as a part of your job, it doesn’t always feel pleasurable. This is exactly what customer service professionals have to do throughout their day.
Customer service and support is such a demanding career mainly because not many customer calls are made to offer appreciation. They think of reaching out only when they have a complaint to file or an issue to be resolved. This requires customer service professionals to be armed with knowledge as well as patience to successfully be able to provide customers their desired answers.
One of the most revolutionary technologies that helped businesses to up their customer service game is VoIP technology. It seamlessly integrates with your customer service software platforms and allows you to update customer information in real-time. This helps customer service professionals to view all their details when they reach out for an issue.
For equipping their business with a top-notch VoIP service, most businesses compare RingCentral vs Vonage as these are the most popular options providing a seamless way of connecting with customers. Based on your business’ specific needs, you can pick the one whose features benefit you the most.
With this article we aim to help customer service (CS) professionals handle their stress better while maintaining their calm during customer calls:
- Manage your time well:
For Customer Service managers, productively utilizing their time is crucial for the overall success of the company. At the same time, they must emphasize good time management in their team and provide them good tools to maximize their work efficiency.
For instance, consider Skype and Google Voice; both are cheap yet excellent Vonage alternatives and are quite easy to use. Since they are uncomplicated and CS professionals can quickly learn how to use them, it saves a lot of time and creates a buffer to deal with any unexpected issues.
- Engage in physical activities:
CS professionals may have a sedentary lifestyle, which means they are always on their desks and hardly get to do any physical activity while working. Regular exercise is one of the best ways of keeping oneself active.
Engaging in some form of physical activity post work like jogging, muscle-strengthening, dancing, etc is a great way of relieving stress as it pumps up your endorphins. You can also play a sport as it triggers chemicals that help you feel recharged.
- Don’t take customer frustration personally:
This is probably one piece of advice that’s very common but very hard to follow. When customers call and show their frustration about an issue, it’s easy to believe that it’s directed towards you and get negatively impacted by it.
Since customers talk from a place of discomfort, it is important to remember that it is because of their experience and not because of you. Never take any statement personally, no matter how upsetting it is since it was only spoken due to the given circumstance.
- Practice active listening:
One of the main reasons CS professionals have to deal with stress is because a customer feels unsatisfied and keeps on exaggerating the issue while triggering them in the process. Sometimes, CS professionals may even not be able to understand their unmet expectations.
This brings to light the need for active listening from the very beginning of the call. It helps in two ways – firstly it demonstrates that you are considerate about whatever the customer’s concern is, and secondly it allows you to understand the issue well and respond to it in the best possible way.
- Take short breaks between calls:
Constantly talking to customers sitting in front of a screen can often lead to headaches, neck pain and eye strains. It is important to take short breaks in between to unplug from the routine and walk away from your desk.
Even a 10-minute walk to get some fresh air can re-energize you and reduce the chances of you losing your temper with a customer. Use this time to catch up with a coworker and engage in some light conversation outside of work.
- Listen to music:
Probably the easiest way to disconnect and uplift your mood is to listen to some music in between the calls. This doesn’t cause any distraction and instantly changes your mood.
When you hum along to a song, it helps you forget the stress and staves off fatigue. You can build playlists for such situations and immediately start listening to the songs from that playlist when you realize you are feeling stressed.
Conclusion:
Modern and reliable systems like RingBlaze have features that make it easy to serve customers better while increasing the productivity of CS professionals. When CS professionals learn to manage their stress, no matter how challenging it gets, they can provide a level of service that not only keeps the customers happy but also improves the company’s reputation.
About the Author
Dennis Vu is the CEO and Co-founder of Ringblaze, a virtual business phone system company that helps teams to better serve their customers, anywhere.
