How Does Dealing with Abusive Customers Cause Emotions to Run High

• From an emotional labor perspective, how does dealing with an abusive customer lead to stress and burnout?

In the case of dealing with an abusive customer, it could lead an employee to feel stress by having their felt emotions conceded by their displayed emotions and this could lead them to burn out if they have no solution. Most common stress relievers are exercising, talking to a friend or doctor, and good sleep. Furthermore, it should be an employee’s skill and ability to learn emotional intelligence while not taking their customers seriously while using their emotional intelligence to deal with abusive customers and realize it is their profession and career. Through developing this emotional intelligence when dealing with abusive customers an employee would strengthen themselves by having the protection while not being affected by customer’s negative emotions. They would be above the situation. This will eliminate burnouts and minimize stress. Since we are all humans and you cannot divorce emotions from ourselves as well as the workforce, we experience stress every now and then, no matter how thick our skin is. It is important then to know what helps you in relieving this stress. As a customer representative in case incident 1, their customers have never met them and have no knowledge of them. Customer representatives should first let their words go and deal with them professionally.

• If you were a recruiter for a customer-service call center, what personality types would you prefer to hire and why? In other words, what individual differences are likely to affect whether an employee can handle customer abuse on a day-to-day basis?

Finding the correct person for the right job position can be easier than it may appear on one condition, that the person who is applying for a customer service position is honest and truthful. If they were not, it would surely show in their work performance immediately. What I am getting as it is careers for ENFJ personality types. This is one of the sixteen personality types based on well-known research of Carl Jung, Katharine C. Briggs, and Isabel Briggs Myers to assess people’s personality types from extraverted to introvert on whether or not they are meant for a particular job (Consulting, 2006).

The categories for personality types are:

• Extraverted or Introverted
• Sensing or Intuitive
• Thinking or Feeling
• Judging or Perceiving

From these four categories, results into the sixteen personality types and ENFJ are “Mentors” of these personality types, which are extraverted, feeling, and judging. ENFJ individuals are suited for sales and customer service representatives. They also thrive on guiding others; they focus on people, not things, not machines, not ideas, but people. As leaders, they have phenomenal interpersonal skills, unique salesmanship abilities, charisma, and are very good at persuading and manipulating others” as Career Planner. com says (Careerplanner. COM, 2009). Therefore, as a recruiter having the applicants take the Myers- Briggs Type Indicator Test will indicate if they are qualified to withstand customer abuse on a day-to-day basis. Although this is just a questionnaire test, there are other factors involved in determining individual differences that affect how they handle customer abuse. Upbringing and shaping may have developed an individual to have the social skills to deal with abusive people, emotional intelligence and other job experiences may contribute to these differences as well.

• Emotional Intelligence is one’s ability to detect and to manage emotional cues and information. How might emotional intelligence play a role in responding to abusive customers? What facets of emotional intelligence might employees possess who are able to handle abusive customers?

Emotional Intelligence mentioned above in the first question discusses on the surface that dealing with abusive customers should use EI. Here I would like to elaborate further using the five dimensions found in research to explain how it plays a role in as well as what facets of EI might employees posses in responding to abusive customers. The role and facets in which emotional intelligence plays in dealing with abusive customers may first follow the fact of being aware of what you are feeling. As brought up earlier this is when you align your inner emotions and feelings with your displayed ones that are expected of you at work. In this sense, you are able to have the ability to manage your own emotions and impulses as to deal with abusive customers more readily (Robbins & Judge, 2007 p. 278). Within EI, one would also need the ability to persist in the face of setbacks and failures because we are all not perfect individuals, every customer service event may be dealing with different people taking a swing at you. A person may tend to get off track every now and then. Therefore, by firing back at them would be considered a failure and setback however, one must persist (Robbins & Judge, 2007 p. 278). The real intelligence here is having the ability to sense how the other is feeling. By showing ones, empathy to the customer, ones compassion and understanding, to help them, may create a better relationship out of that business transaction (Robbins & Judge, 2007 p. 278). This leads us to the fifth dimension social skills, in which to have the ability to handle the emotions of others. This dimension may not be able to be achieve were not for empathy since we must first understand and sense what perspective or attitude a person is coming from (Robbins & Judge, 2007 p. 278).