Sunday 28 September 2008

When Anger turns to Rage - The Difference

Phone Rage is on the increase in the world of business. So what's the difference between anger and rage?

“Anger is only a natural reaction; one of the mind's ways of reacting to things that it perceives to be wrong. While anger can sometimes lead people to do shocking things, it can also be an instinct to show people that something isn't right.”

Anger is a feeling that we all encounter from time to time, and frequently we experience it as a response to frustration, hurt, disappointment, and threats (real or imagined). It is often related to a perceived loss of control over factors affecting our integrity—our beliefs and how we feel about ourselves. In some cases, the anger has to do with the inability of others to meet our own unrealistic expectations.

The rational expression of anger in response to these concerns can offer several benefits. Most important is the mobilising of inner resources needed to overcome fear. When we feel angry, we have some confidence in responding to the danger or threat.

Fear leads to flight; anger sustains fight. While rational anger can be constructive in feeling competent to confront a threatening situation, we may react to the threat with more anger than is warranted. However, anger in itself is not necessarily a problem and can often be managed to resolution.

Rage is the accumulation of unexpressed anger and perceived disrespectful transactions that finally flow to the surface. When we become enraged, usually there is the belief that someone is deliberately attempting to incite us to become angry. Within this ego-bruised state, we are convinced that trying to be reasonable will prove to be ineffective, and therefore we will need to “even the score” or methodically disarm the offending party. It is when this rage surfaces that we become difficult to deal with.

“Sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.” ~ Author Unknown

It is important to make the differentiation between ‘rage’ and ‘anger’ as we might often encounter anger from a caller when they are dissatisfied, but when this anger becomes vehement, aggressive or even personally abusive we can consider it rage. Often, badly handled anger will turn to rage as the customer becomes more out of control.

This article is an excerpt from the Trainer Bubble training materials on 'Dealing with Phone Rage', which can be purchased from our website at www.trainerbubble.com

Friday 19 September 2008

The Future of the English Language

A little bit of a spelling test for everyone today...


Monday 8 September 2008

Call Centre Training - Listen to calls

We are often asked if we can provide recorded telephone calls for training purposes. Our customers like to listen in to telephone calls and then review them in the training session, which can be a fantastic way of reviewing customer perceptions and our own attitudes to calls.

We have always preferred not to provide such calls as we feel it is unfair to 'label' an organisation by one specific phone call to one individual. We encourage our customers to record their own calls if this is something they want to pursue.

It is actually very easy to record telephone calls and all you need is a standard recording device (tape recorder or even a microphone attached to your pc) and a speaker phone. You then make a basic call to a company requesting a brochure or enquiring about their service.

Of course, we always do what we can to help our customers and so we will soon be developing a set of 'fake' telephone calls, recorded by Trainer Bubble team members, which will be added to our free section at Trainer Bubble.

In the meantime, we have found a set of calls that were made to banks by thisismoney.co.uk the link is here. These should assist those customers that need help quickly.

We hope this helps.

Monday 1 September 2008

Social Proof - Influence through people power

The following video has a humorous edge. However, I think it provides a really interesting insight into the workings of the human mind and how we are influenced by 'social proof' i.e. when others do something, I must do it too.





This concept is discussed in our training material, 'The Power of Influence' Visit us at Trainer Bubble to find out more...everybody else already has!