Organisations providing services to customers experiencing hardship can often find themselves unexpectedly, and quite accidentally in the position of supporting people who are emotional, stressed or sometimes, combative.
Trauma Informed Customer Service helps people in customer facing roles to do this with compassion, humanity and self-regulation.
Here are a couple of techniques for organisations to understand so they can help to manage challenging customer interactions and ensure potential impacts for employees and customers are reduced as much as possible.
7 Trauma Informed Customer Service Techniques to Manage Challenging Customer Interactions
- Maintain your calm – centre yourself before and between each interaction. Try to engage your senses and your thoughts – What is something calming or restorative you can see, hear or think about?
- Give yourself grace – Remind yourself that you are a good person, doing your job and trying to help a person in hardship.
- Start from a place of welcome and kindness – be welcoming and friendly from your first eye contact and first words of interaction
- Be prepared – have a script so that you know what you are going to say if you are challenged.
- Practice Rational Compassion – acknowledge that it is tough right now and talk about what you can do for the customer. Be practical about the help or service you can offer but don’t be pushed or pulled into stepping outside of what is allowed. Be compassionate and rational.
- Re-frame your experience – If you have had a tough time interacting with a stressed customer, change your thinking about the interaction so that you reduce your own stress and anger. Avoid thinking “what a jerk” and instead think” wow, I wonder has happened in their life to make them act that way?”
- Care for you – self care will help you to recover from difficult interactions as you nurture yourself and create distance from the event. It will also help you to build your resilience so you are better able to meet all of life’s challenges. Work out what things in your life bring you calm, energy, joy, a sense of meaning and a sense of connection and do more of these!
Trauma Informed Customer Service for Challenging Times
Trauma Informed lessons in the context of customer service can lead to less stress and greater understanding for front line staff in all types of
industry. Applied in a business setting, Trauma Informed Customer Service supports the development and maintenance of trusting relationships and helps to protect staff against burnout.
Trauma Informed Customer Service can support your staff to manage challenges and provide the best service and care to their customers and themselves.
Trauma Informed lessons applied in the context of customer service can lead to less stress and greater understanding for frontline staff in all types of industry.
Applied in a business setting, Trauma Informed Customer Service supports the development and maintenance of trusting relationships and helps to protect staff against burnout.
In challenging times, Trauma Informed Customer Service might be just what your staff, your customers and your organisation needs.
Find out more about the Ability Options Trauma Informed Training.
