Part 13 (2/2)

TABLE 71 Body language of the bully

TABLE 72 Body language of the bullied

The body language of the bullied is that of a distressed person: confused (whyabout it) The victim would, for example, slouch to make themselves less visible to the assailant, or avoid eye contact (see Table 72)

Nonverbal behaviors of a bully vary between the stages of intiression Similarly, the victih their body language Note the pairing of threats and responses to the on the part of the bully is usually estures result in a distressed facial expression and so on

But there is another party in the bully bullied interaction that has been o usually takes place in the presence of other people, the bully relies on the ”silent” agreeroup witnessing the aggression largely determines its outcome Equally, support for the bullied can be especially invaluable at the earlier stages of conflict It is thus easier to prevent bullying and aggression at work than to deal with the consequences of eement

THE BODY LANGUAGE OF FRUSTRATING AND FRUSTRATED CUSTOMERS

If one had to rank-order daily hassles, then certainly high on the list would be such things as queuing Everyone is becoent, so we seeer for service: at the bank, at the supermarket, at the airport, at the post office, and at the doctor's surgery

Managers in banks and super staff are expensive: deers know that if you really want to annoy cash-rich-time-poor professionals you force the they want quickly: they want it now, if not sooner

Road rage, air rage, hospital rage are triggered by the frustration of waiting Such anger is exacerbated by drinking alcohol, childlike iry, tier tapping, the constant checking of the tiredient of most service experiences Ti, unacceptable wait: the point at which customers alk away?

Service providers have various options The most expensive and possibly the most unreliable is to utilizetechnology such as self-ticketing, but that has its liers turned their attention to ways of e of these:Give people explanations for why they are waiting

Provide theth of wait

Keep them distracted with music, television and so on

It is said there are four popular ways of helping the waiting process:Ani recorded music

Discriminate: frequent-customer (Goldcard) treatment

Automate: use computer scripts to address 75 percent of questions

Obfuscate: fudge the cause and the solution

There are soer

Pre-process/post-process waiting feels longer than in-process

Anxietyfeels longer than known, finite waiting

Unexplained waiting seeer than equitable waiting

People ait longer for er than in groups

Physically uncoer to new or occasional participants

Take one of these hypotheses: Uncertain waiting feels longer than knoaiting Here, the anxiety and frustration of waiting is coestion posits that it is not the delay and waiting per se, but rather the uncertainty and aive people a ”reasonable” esti time, they will calm down, experience less tension, and accept events as inevitable Yet, experi-tiative affective reactions ary, possibly because it was yet anization

It anizations with a good ti record, while they just confirm the reputation of a bad one Results show the effects of being given waiting-tinificant

What of the benefits of providing an explanation (often seen more as an excuse)? As we have all learnt at airports, explanations offered serve best to push the blame down the line That is, it is not the fault of the service provider standing in front of you

There are three options to appease frustrated waiting customers The order of their effectiveness is: explanation without blame; no explanation; explanation as a personal fault

Watch queues at airports, banks and superry custoain the support of those around them, which can be done in tays One is to solicit the backing of other unfortunate bystanders, while the other vents the frustration on the service staff

It is thus clear that front-line custoh job on their hands Even before any verbal interaction they can spot custoe Calm, relaxed people tend to project non-confrontational, coe, whereas frustrated, rushed custons of ie for the employees here is to deal effectively with the query in a reassuring and soothing er only escalate if both the customer and the service representative are on the defensive On the other hand, professional, cale can help to deal with the customer's dissatisfaction A cale of support Open body posture and steady eye contact project authority, competence and appreciation of the customer's difficulty Empathy is the key emotion to deal successfully with frustration: let your customer know they are valued, let them feel taken care of and listened to

TABLE 73 Body language of frustrated people and how to deal with it