Customer-facing jobs can have an element of satisfaction to them but equally they are emotionally taxing. If you work in retail, hospitality, a healthcare reception or call centre it might be the case that on most days people are stressed, angry, frightened and sometimes sobbing.
Customer-facing teams handle challenging conversations with confidence, professionalism and care – but they do take it all home at the end of the day. Mental health training would provide best practice guidelines for responding to customer issues and considering personal wellbeing.
Mental Health Training for Customer Service Teams
Clients do not call only when their mood is good. They can be under financial stress, experiencing bereavement or a relationship breakdown; struggling with substance abuse or dealing with mental health disorders. Emotions can run rampant — and staff left to take the fall even when it is not “mental health” related.
Training creates common methods of approach between teams, making responses more predictable and employees less isolated. For information on Mental Health Training Courses, visit https://www.tidaltraining.co.uk/mental-health-training-courses/
Practical Takeaways for Teams
Good mental health training for those at the sharp-end include:-
Learning to recognise the signs of distress (panic, agitation or confusion and withdrawal or rapid mood changes)
Ways to diffuse conflict during conversation and promote calm
Words That Heal And Words To Avoid
Being firm, but polite (“I would love to be able to help you with this issue and I can do Y, but I am sorry, X cannot be done”)
Dealing with abuse and call cutting / supervisor involvement
What aids in disclosures if people bring up self-harm, suicidal ideation or feelings of being unsafe.
Referral to appropriate support ie (internal teams, Safeguarding leads), emergency services and local resources.
The goal is not to make staff into counsellors. It is helping them stay in their swim lane – using only the tools and tactics they should be, as well.
Plain structure for hard conversations
A clear structure can make this easier for many teams.
Validate: “I can hear how difficult this has been”.
Identify the issue: ask one or two polite questions to determine what is required.
Suggest alternatives: – specify what you can or cannot do in the moment – what will occur on next steps.
Provide guidance: make the behaviour rules and repercussions clear.
They can refer those risky or out of their remit cases to line management and escalate.
Protecting staff wellbeing
As importantly, how staff support themselves: making time after a hard interaction, attending debriefs and recording incidents properly – knowing when to ask for help. This decreases burnout and increases the resilience of teams.