Don’t Let Email Apnea Come in the Way of Your Customer Services

Posted by Amal A.
1
Feb 14, 2014
999 Views
Image Does your heart start beating when you open an email? Does your breathing become shallower and do you get a sinking feeling in your chest? If yes, then you are suffering from email apnea, the email stress. Customer service representatives are the most common victims of this unique kind of phobia, which is understandable, as they have to face bulk of customer emails every day. Some of these emails are hate mails, some are complaint mails, and some are full of questions. Handling these mails and answering them in a way to ensure customer satisfaction can be very stressful and nerve wrecking. So if you are a CSR and heart starts racing every time you open up the email box, do not worry, your problem is officially recognized and there are ways in which this stress can be dealt with.

What is email apnea?

According to Linda Stone, the researcher who discovered this form of stress, holding your breath and feeling nervous is very common amongst the masses and 80% of the population faces this problem. Being a customer service representative, you have to realize that stress is a natural part of your job. Many researchers, other than Linda stone, have also concluded that sitting on a computer all day can cause stress. And besides, you have other worries like trying to make sure customer satisfaction in the best possible way. So, if you are facing this problem, the first thing you need doing is to realize that you have a serious problem which is now officially recognized by the medical world. CSRs are not the only victims of email apnea; many entrepreneurs also suffer from this problem, especially the owners of small scale businesses.

How to deal with email apnea?

One way to handle your stress is to take it slow. Give yourself a break and do not try opening up all the emails at one time. Most of the time email stress results from working continuously on a computer, so give yourself a break. Instead of opening up a bulk of emails together, try answering one or two, take a five minutes break and then continue. Working continuously can play a really important role is escalating your stress. You can start doing some other tasks in between answering the mails, in order to get your mind off the haunting emails.

The best way to deal with your email stress is to do some breathing exercises before opening your mail box or during checking the mails. Breathing exercises will instantly calm you down and lower your blood pressure. With calm mind you can think clearly and handle the emails effectively. There are many breathing exercises which can calm you down. The simplest breathing exercise is: take in a deep breath, filling your lungs completely, hold it for a while and then slowly release your breath.

If you are an entrepreneur, the best way to deal with email phobia is to hire the best possible customer service. One way to do so is to integrate live chat support on your website to give your customers a chance to have a direct conversation with you.
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