A New Training Session: Dealing With Anger & Hostility

By Dean B. Wisecarver

Over the last year or so, we’ve had several requests from utilities in our program for material or training on anger and hostility. Some requests were focused on the issue of workplace violence, but most were focused on helping customer service representatives and outside servicemen become more adept at dealing with angry or upset consumers.

Our new offering is a 2-hour training session called Dealing With Anger & Hostility. It covers the professionally recognized concepts for de-escalating situations where a customer is clearly angry and your employee has to deal with him/her effectively. It explains the relationship between anger and underlying fears and shows how simple anger, if allowed to escalate, can quickly turn to violence. It offers effective sensory controls (verbal and body language) that you can use to stop the escalation early on, and cognitive controls that lead to identifying and addressing the real problems that created the anger initially.

These concepts are widely applicable to any confrontational situation, so during the session we touch also on dealing with angry people over the telephone, employee-to-employee anger, supervisor to employee anger, and even non-work related situations. This approach makes the session broader in scope than just good customer service and, thus, more interesting and valuable to those who participate.

This session, like all of the sessions we offer to you and other utilities insured in our national program, is available to you as a value-added service and generally at no cost to your company beyond your people’s time and the use of your facilities.

To see a sample listing of topics we offer, just click on the Training tab above. (Use your browser’s back button to return to this newsletter.) If you are interested in having us do a session at your company, or if you would like additional information about our offerings or how to take advantage of them, just Click Here to contact us.