Contentious Conversations in the Contact Center - Learning from Other Professions
Mike got dirty for all of us
Mike Rowe became famous for his show Dirty Jobs, in which he would travel the United States and beyond to showcase the challenging environments in which people had to work. Viewers could watch Mike engage in such activities as artificially inseminating cattle (Episode 81), training to become a forensic medical examiner (Episode 139), working in a steel mill (Episode 72), making glass (Episode 115), painting bridges (Episode 59), and all other manner of challenging tasks. I must admit it makes for good television to watch a photogenic guy muck it up with workers of the world who are by and large discounted as just ‘manual labor.’ By watching Mike struggle with the work, the larger upshot is the celebration of blue-collar labor as knowledge work, as well as the celebration of vocational education and skills.
I don’t believe Mike Rowe ever tried to sit down in a call center. And I don’t know if this would be considered a ‘dirty job’ in the traditional sense. After all, the job is fairly clean from an environmental point of view. Rather than a reindeer farm (Episode 118), Mike would perhaps find a ‘cubical farm’, with neatly lined rows of monitors and headsets all arranged in neat geometric patterns. I’m sure the floors are vacuumed, the trash receptacles emptied, and the air conditioned.
This does not get at what lies beneath, and that involves contentious conversations and challenging calls. In attending the CallMiner LISTEN2019 conference, I was able to interact with a variety of people who work in environments in which such calls are a routine matter of business. Day in and day out, workers handle hundreds of calls that require them to make connections, show empathy de-escalate conflicts, and arrive at resolutions. This is not exactly being a salt miner, but I’m sure it can feel like you rarely see the sun.
When people learned I study conversation for a living, a common question was, “How do you recommend handling difficult conversations?” As sociologists (or at least THIS sociologist) will often say, “It depends.” It is not possible to provide general conversational prescriptions without some additional context. We always rely on context to help us understand what to say or do next. However, this does not mean we cannot look for inspiration for what approaches we can take from other ‘dirty jobs’ where contentious conversations are the norm.
One example that came to mind is policing. Police officers have to continuously deal with a variety of contentious conversations. It is part and parcel of the job. Rather than fighting aggression with aggression, Dr. George Thompson recommended a different approach based on his education as a Professor of English and his work as a police officer. He wrote the book Verbal Judo to train police officers to deflect aggression, as a judo practitioner would deflect an oncoming physical attack. For instance, rather than saying “CALM DOWN!”, police may be encouraged to say something like, “I can see why you’re upset. I’m going to help you. Let’s figure this out.” First, the person is validated in his or her emotion. Second, the person is reassured that help will be coming. Third, alignment is created by saying they will figure it out together. The book is full of other tips that can be used toward any type of contentious conversation.
Dr. Paul Weston will see you now
Another example of a job with contentious conversations is being a therapist. I’m fortunate enough to be married to a therapist (which can come in handy). Many of her clients are looking for validation of their perspectives. In a situation where a patient is angry, validation can help calm them down. “Validating negative emotion, including anger, helps the other person to calm down. It also make them feel heard and understood in a way that build trust and closeness, even when dealing with difficult emotions” (NEABPD, 2012). Therapists also use a variety of techniques for dealing with people who have skewed perspectives, or a biased worldview. Does this sound like people who might call your company?
In my training program “Conscious Conversations and Deliberate Dialogue,” I go through more techniques taken from other professions aimed at dealing with contentious communications. Pairing this detailed conversation analytic approach with a speech analytics platform like CallMiner can provide better recommendations for how your associates can engage productively and proactively in these kinds of interactions. Rather than reinvent the conversational wheel, learning from other kinds of work, coupled with a greater understanding of your own workers’ dialogues, will provide the strategies needed to empower workers in their most challenging tasks.