Case Study Is About How Can One Abusive Customers Cause Emotions to Run High. Essays

Case Study Is About How Can One Abusive Customers Cause Emotions to Run High. Essays Case Study Is About How Can One Abusive Customers Cause Emotions to Run High. Paper Case Study Is About How Can One Abusive Customers Cause Emotions to Run High. Paper This case study is about how can one abusive customers cause emotions to run high. As the times improve with technology, we now have automated telephone system for customer service centre. But with this system, it creates a labyrinth for customers. Longer waiting time and thus its more difficult to speak to an actual human being. How mad can a customer get? Customer could rant and rave over some small issues and there’s an even vulgarity involved. There might be customers who can be racist towards the officer. Employees have no choice but to swallow down the hatred. Ad many companies require customer-service employees to display positive emotions at all times to maintain satisfied customers. But they cant expect it to just stop there. It could cause emotional instability to the employees. They are bringing home the negative feedback and emotion, might lead to a dispute within the family due to all the stress. Employees who are frustrated by the inability to do anything about abusive customers and the mood being caused can have psychology effect on them. Inasmuch as there are no ways of releasing the stress for them. Although some companies train their representatives on how to defuse a customers anger and to avoid being abuse personally but the effort isnt enough. If the training helps, employees who work on the phone would not have frequent absent or are more prone to illness and are more likely to make stress-related disability claims than other employees. Thus, emotions can run high and the effects can be damaging. The customer comes first has been heard by many. But companies should give attorney to employees on to deciding when it is appropriate to put customers second. This could help on reducing the stress level the employees have. 3. Questions and Answer 1. From an emotional labor perspective, how does dealing with an abusive customer lead to stress and burnout? Dealing with an abusive customer leads to stress and burnout, directly in proportion to the amount of time and level of hostility taken in the phone call. Even with using coping strategies such, it is difficult to not take such calls personally. In the long term, such negative emotion would have been accumulated until one cannot take it and explode suddenly. Emotional labor is a form of emotional regulation wherein workers are expected to display certain emotions as part of their job, and to promote organizational goals. The intended effects of these emotional displays are on other, targeted people, who can be clients, customers, subordinates or co-workers. It is an employee’s expression of organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions at work. Employees can display fake emotion by acting. Such acting can take two forms: 1) Surface acting which involves hiding one’s inner feelings and refrain emotional expressions. ) Deep acting wherein they modify one’s true inner feelings to match the emotion expressions the organisation requires. This can be very mentally torturing and cause them to be stressful. Having to bottle up certain emotions in the name of customer service can cause a person to blow up later. Even with â€Å"thick skin,† stress will affect immunity and psychological well-being. This is not healthy for that person or for others around them. Stress is a complex issue and no two individuals will be affected in the same way by either work requirements or the work environment. In practice, it can be helpful to think of stress in terms of a simple ‘bucket’ model: The bucket model suggests that stress and fatigue result when a person’s reservoir of personal resilience is drained faster than it is replenished. The bucket model shows, there’s no point in ‘filling the bucket’ if stressors keep draining it quickly. Control of stressors is frequently needed in order to prevent stress building up. 2. 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? It takes a very strong person to take day to day abuse by customers. Employers need to size up just how much abuse their employees need to take from a customer. A motto which people normally heard the customer is always right does not apply in every case. Finding the right personality for that job is not easy as there are many considerations to be taken of. I would avoid type A and competitive personalities as they tend to be more impatient, moving rapidly, spurring emotions and anger. The personality of the person that could fit such a position is someone calming; laid back; has a good sense of humor; and feels that if they have an extremely difficult situation that the Manager or Supervisor is there to deal with an unruly customer. Dealing with abusive customers takes team work in the company. Management has to decide what customers are worth having them come back for their services and not tolerate irate customers that nothing but trouble each and every time they walk through the door. 3. Emotional intelligence is one’s ability to detect and manage emotional cues and information. How might emotional intelligence play a role in responding to abusive customers? What facets of emotional intelligence might employees who are able to handle abusive customers possess? The higher the emotional intelligence, the more ability is readily available to compartmentalize job function and personal emotions. Emotional intelligence (EI) describes the ability, capacity, skill or, in the case of the trait EI model, a self-perceived grand ability to identify, assess, manage and control the emotions of ones self, of others, and of groups Emotional intelligence is composed of 5 dimensions: . Self-awareness – the ability to aware of one’s emotions ii. Self-management – the ability to manage your own emotions and impulse iii. Self-motivation – the ability to persist in the face of setbacks and failures iv. Empathy – the ability to sense how others are feeling v. Social skills – the ability to handle the emotions of others Those people, who ca n detect emotions in others, control their own emotions, and handle social interactions well have a powerful leg up in the business world. People who have high level of EI perform well in their job. The ability to deal patiently with their problems and complaints, and to remain courteous even when our customers are difficult or angry, is very important. One has to be a patient, professional, and polite â€Å"people person†- even when dealing with unhappy customers and able to work with emotionally and mentally challenged people. 4. Article 2 5. Summary 6. Question Answer 2. What mistakes do you think each party made? Mr. Korman made the mistake of assuming Ms. Abdala would agree with the salary cut and went ahead and ordered stationary and business cards for her, when he hadn’t even talked to her about the reduced salary. She had accepted the job based on certain conditions; salary being one of those. Since Mr. Korman breeched their agreement by cutting her salary after an agreement had been reached, she has a right to rethink acceptance of a job offer. However, she should have done it in a more professional manner; in person to his face and explain that she accepted the job based on certain agreed upon conditions, salary being one of them and that it was poor form on his part to cut her salary and assume that she would be accepting of that. Her method of informing Mr. Korman of her change of mind was unprofessional and discourteous, given the time and effort already invested by Mr. Korman. The situation should be done by a formal letter rather than an email. The tone of her email was also rude. She should simply have declined the position, not implied that it was underpaid. Forwarding it to a colleague was a breach of etiquette on Mr. Kormans part, but I would stop short of calling it unethical, since Ms. Abdala chose to use email to convey her message. However, he did not have her consent to forward her emails sent to him to other people, especially those from outside of his office. I unequivocally think it was wrong to forward this email to anyone. It turned an annoying wart of an interchange into a triage situation. One has to be very careful what you put in writing! Bla, bla, bla? Choosing phrases like this can damage ones reputation beyond repair. Ill also say his first response to her email was both professional and restrained. Neither of these people was particularly ethical or intelligent. 3. Do you think this exchange will damage Abdala’s career? Korman’s firm? Yes, this exchange will damage both Abdala’s career as well as Korman’s firm. They have I think both of them handled this poorly; Korman for not putting the offer in writing then changing the terms of that offer, and Abdala for responding so immaturely. I can’t believe that both these people are in the legal profession, considering that not only is their spelling atrocious, but their conduct is totally unprofessional in any field. I believe nobody would ever deal with an employer or employee in this way! . Amazingly, Abdala is not concerned in the least with how the outing of her attitude, poor communications style, and either lack of spelling acumen or mixing of metaphors will impact her employability as an attorney. Nor is she concerned that this has now been forwarded to several thousand people, at last count, and posted around the world. In fact, she is quoted as saying â€Å"I’m not upset at all. I’m enjoying the notoriety. † Both parties appear to be very unprofessional, extremely dim and informal. I believe that Ms. Abdala should have found a better way of backing out of her agreement. I believe her comments and actions were immature from start to finish. I also believe Mr. Korman should not have forwarded the emails; there is no question he knew the damage they could inflict on Ms. Abdalas [questionable] reputation. Therefore, we can only surmise he indeed did hope to damage that reputation. 4. What does this exchange tell you about the limitations of e-mails? There is always a limitation of e-mails. Thats when the exchange, by Korman and Abdala, began whipping through cyberspace, landing in e-mail in-boxes around the city and country, and, eventually, across the Atlantic. In short order, it has become yet another cautionary tale that you should definitely not put in an e-mail anything you wouldnt want the rest of the world to read. Things to consider before venting in email: Would I say this to this person’s face? Am I putting the receiver in awkward position? How would I feel if I got this email message? Usually, by the time you consider the above questions you will be calm enough to write your message with a different approach. Catching someone by surprise in a flaming message is a quick way to alienate your reader mainly because they will react wit h anger or embarrassment. When it appears that a dialogue has turned into a conflict, it is best to suggest an end to the swapping of email and for you to talk or meet in person. If you receive a flaming email try to respond in a short and simple response. If that does not appease the flamer than make contact with him or her outside the virtual realm. 7. Referencing Shellenbarger, S. (2004, February 5). Domino Effect: The Unintended Results of Telling Off Customer-Service Staff. Wall Street Journal. p. D1. Robbins, S. P. (2010). Person International Edition: Essentials of Organisational Behaviour (10th Edition). Karr, k. (2009, June 23). Retrieved from mood. ws/ (2003). Healthy Work: Managing Stress in the Workplace Act. New Zealand. Retrieved from osh. govt. nz/order/catalogue/stress/managestress. pdf Kurtzig, A. (2003). Retrieved from justanswer. com/business/ Anne. (2006, February 23). The Story Of Annes Life. Retrieved from theinternetpatrol. com/when-emails-haunt-you-the-saga-of-william-korman-and-diana-abdala/ (2006, February 27). Retrieved from http://nogovernmentcheese. blogspot. com/2006_02_01_archive. html Goodwin, C. (2011). Retrieved from http://midlifecareerstrategy. com/blog/archives/22