5. Put into words an emotionally-intelligent response. What are the exact words you need to say to implement your strategy? 

Like anything, learning to respond effectively to an emotionally charged client takes a little time, but as your awareness grows to the aforementioned steps, it will become easier and easier to calm the emotionally charged clients every time one calls—be they statements from the angry, anxious, disappointed, fearful or irrationally exuberant.

Here is an example of how the steps might work with one of the most frequent emotional states that cause clients to call you: anger. Note the rationale for each statement.

When clients are angry, they believe they have been wronged, and their communication is filled with blaming accusations. Fear often accompanies anger—the client perceives there is a threat to his or her financial solvency.   Emotional perspectives driven by anger and fear prompt the client to call and say something along the lines of “What’s going on? All I see is you losing me money!”

“Well, I’m angry too, and believe it or not, I’m even angrier than you that your portfolio is down. (The words “angry too” validate the clients emotions by implying that you know the client is angry and thus begin to reduce the client’s anger level.) Why? Because my job is to make you money, not lose you money. (Clarifying and stating positive intentions also reduce anger and imply that you are on the same team with the same goal—make the client money.) Can you imagine if my intent was to lose you money? I think I could lose everything! (This statement could be effective because it uses humor to exaggerate that your intentions are not to lose the client money. However, its effectiveness will be a function of your style and the quality of your client relationship.) All right, listen, how about if we take a look at where we are—sometimes a team loses and makes no changes—and see the actions we might take. (The strategy behind this statement is to make the relationship cooperative, thus reducing the tendency to blame in the future. Promoting shared responsibility and a problem-solving oriented relationship is the goal. It also moves the focus to being rational, not emotional. Note the instruction to the client to listen.) Also, while you are down X-percent that is still below industry average, so you might want to keep that in mind. (This statement puts the performance in a realistic perspective. Anger often creates exaggerated negative perceptions about the reality of the situation. By putting the performance in perspective, anger is dissipated, and a realistic appraisal of the performance can be achieved which still might be anger provoking but manageable because it is at a more appropriate level in the context of the situation. Obviously, this can only be used if the client is outperforming the industry loss average.) So let’s get started, and see what we need to do to generate interest!” (This positive action-oriented statement creates motivation and helps make the client relationship productive.)

To get the hang of responding effectively to an emotionally charged client, script out a response to the emotionally charged client who calls and says, “My account is down 20 percent! What should I do?”  Ready your response by going through these steps:

·      Identify the client’s emotions

·      What is the message of the emotions?

·      What do you want your response to accomplish?

·      What are the words you need to execute your strategy?

 

Hank Weisinger, Ph.D., is trained in clinical, counseling and organizational psychology. Weisinger is the author of several successful books and has conducted executive development workshops for dozens of Fortune 500 companies. To find out more about his workshops, click here: https://courses.hendrieweisingerphd.com/courses/demo-performing-under-pressure-the-eworkshop-experience/

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