In this clip at 4:30, according to the instructor the student is supposed to show assertive behaviour. In fact, she is being quite assertive at the beginning when she apologized and says it was unintentional but then she gets aggressive asking the guy to back off which is likely to infuriate the opponent instead of terminating the clash in a positive manner which was possible after she apologized.

There are other similar examples where the authors are missing the point. Here’s the definition of assertiveness from Wikipedia:

As a communication style and strategy, assertiveness is distinguished from aggression and passivity. How people deal with personal boundaries, their own and those of other people, helps to distinguish between these three concepts. Passive communicators do not defend their own personal boundaries and thus allow aggressive people to abuse or manipulate them. Passive communicators are also typically not likely to risk trying to influence anyone else. Aggressive people do not respect the personal boundaries of others and thus are liable to harm others while trying to influence them. A person communicates assertively by overcoming fear to speak his or her mind or trying to influence others, but doing so in a way that respects the personal boundaries of others. Assertive people are also willing to defend themselves against aggressive incursions.

In my opinion the part saying “respects the personal boundaries of others” is very crucial. Let’s analyse the example above: the woman apologized to the attacker while clearly explaining her viewpoint. If she was to continue this way they may have ended up going for a cup of coffee and having a good laugh. Instead, she became aggressive herself which in real life could lead to an escalation of a conflict.

A good example would be a granddad taking care of a five-year-old grandson in a classic Walt Disney movie. If you open the eyes of your imagination you’ll see a mutually respectful relationship in which granddad answers any questions patiently and completely while the five-year-old is genuinely interested in the answers.

Assertiveness is very closely related to diplomacy. The reason being diplomats tend to attempt to resolve conflicts by looking for solutions that suite both sides. They have to respect the viewpoint of the other side and be very careful of making any judgements. A very important term in diplomacy is WAR – worst accepted result. By realising your goals and limits you can negotiate efficiently making sure you are defending your own viewpoints successfully.

Many people forget assertiveness is not only about defending your rights but it’s mostly higher level of communication. Rather than being placed in between aggressiveness and passiveness it should be put above them to better illustrate its nature. By being assertive you defend your own rights and respect those of your opponent’s in order to facilitate a long-going and successful communication model in which reaching consensus in the future will be as likely as today or even easier to reach.

Patronising is similarly to aggressive behaviour confused with assertiveness. If you watch this interview by Matt Lauer with George Bush you’ll see how patronising Bush gets most of the time. Note how he points his finger at Matt when saying ‘we need to protect you and your familiy’. It is also involves quite a lot of aggressiveness in it. But take a look to see how Matt defends himself against Mr President which must have been a very difficult task. I did watch some other interviews with George Bush and it seems to be his style.

Seemingly unrelated situation to what we face in a call centre environment. But take a closer look at how Bush is being questioned in a polite and respectful way but overreacts and is unable to contain his emotions. Matt firmly stands ground although it’s obvious from the clip Bush is invading his private space trying to overwhelm and intimidate him with his gestures and the tone of voice. I have to say this is one of the most intense interviews I have ever seen. I can’t help to think this reminds me of some of the conversations I had with my customers via phone. What would you do to calm Bush down? Could you do better than Matt if you were in his shoes at that time?

I will be trying to convey the notion of assertiveness as I explained it above during my training and include some other aspects of  assertive communication such as tone of voice, speed, pauses and vocabulary. Unfortunately, I will not have a great deal of time to go into every detail but I’m hoping to trigger the agents thinking process to start experimenting with assertive behaviour on a daily basis on the phone and in their private lives.

I have to say it helped my personally a lot when I realized how easy it is to explain your views assertively and how much it helps to maintain my dignity and self-confidence.

The customer started off by saying how he we were stupid and made racist comments. I asked him to stop twice and eventually he just screamed at me to shut up. At this point I terminated the call.

All companies should have procedures to handle exceptionally abusive calls. Make sure to know exactly how it works and don’t be afraid to follow it when necessary. Then look him up on Facebook and enjoy!

I. It’s a game

With any customer on the phone it’s a game. Some people genuinely look for advice but there are a lot who will try to prove you wrong, especially if they’re angry about a delay. Treat it as a game of chess, don’t let the opponent provoke you or you’ll lose control of yourself and the call. Think of it as a game with yourself – once you have lost control the game’s over.

II. Let them speak

To me this was the most important tip I got from the colleague of mine. As an employee of the company that pays you, you have a limited number of tactics that you can use. One that you definitely cannot use is to try and outshout your customer. Don’t even try and raise your voice at an angry customer. They’ll shout even louder and get more aggressive. Instead, just let them speak. Don’t worry if it takes 20 minutes for them to finish their monologue. Sit there patiently, play an online game, gesture with your colleagues (no offensive ones though), put them on mute if you can and have a little laugh if you can. Once they have finished talking, let the silence speak. It still surprises me how powerful silence is after a 5 minute long rant. This definitely isn’t the reaction they expected. This is when they start to understand what just happened: you’re not letting them win this way and they’ll be asking if ‘you still there?’.

Brilliant! This is precisely the type of reaction that WE expected. Now, you can use all your energy that you still have left to say ‘yes madam, I was just letting you to finish’. If they start ranting again, let them talk as above. After all, it’s her who’s been wasting her time talking bollocks for the past 20 minutes. She’s doing this for free, you’re paid for every minute of your time. Relax.

Once you have determined the customer has shouted out all the valuable comments they had, you may start doing your job. It’s up to you if at this point you’ll try to help the customer in the politest way you can.

III. Have a good laugh

Once you have finished the call, remember to have a good laugh about how polite you were when handling this call. Don’t forget to look them up on Facebook and make fun of their silly face.

IV. Aggression is unacceptable

Neither at home or on the phone. Anyone bullying or harassing is committing a crime for which they can go to jail. Be sure to take advantage of this law as much as possible.

V. Handling threatening calls

Every now and then you’ll get a crazy punk saying they know where you work and are coming to get you. The funniest thing is, in most cases you’d have their full record right in front of your eyes. You may wish to consider suing him if he’s under 18 and you think his parents are rich. Just remember your employer may not be very happy about it.

VI. Handling email aggression

These are usually easiest to handle. Remember when they taught you about being empathetic and understanding your customer’s circumstances? Now’s the time to use this lore. The guy who sent you the email saying you have not read his question probably has a tiny penis, his girlfriend just left him and kids made fun on him at school. Again, look him up on Facebook, make fun of him in front of your colleagues. Any particularly handsome pictures may be distributed internally via email. Give it a day or two and then phone him. You will be very polite and detailed when talking to him on the phone because you had the time to prepare and you chose the time of the day when you are at your best. He’s not expecting your call and will be easy to handle. Don’t shout at him! He may be a very nice guy after all.

VII. Give it a day

One of the best email tactics for me. Any annoyed and angry customers can only be angry for a limited time. The angrier they were when writing the email the sooner it’ll go away. They just needed to let the steam off. Again, be empathetic, don’t give them a reason to be even more unhappy. Just leave it for a day or two and then decide if you want to email them back and call.

Is there anything you’d like to add? Feel free to add your comments.