Inbound Telemarketing

Inbound telemarketing specializes in handling incoming customer traffic. For instance, operators specialize in order taking, help desk support, tech support, and 24-hour customer service. Inbound telemarketers interact with dozens, if not hundreds, of separate clients per day, and they must be quick witted and emotionally astute to direct client traffic and to defuse emergency situations.

Telemarketing can be a rough business for the emotionally underprepared. Oftentimes, telemarketers get into the business without really understanding what the process involves. Successful telemarketers are able to compartmentalize their personalities, so that the insults and frustrations clients hurl over the phone lines don't impact them directly or psychologically.

How to Handle the Stresses of Inbound Telemarketing

It's hard not to take client problems personally. After all, if you are an empathetic human being, you can't help but feel for the person on the other end. However, in order to maintain your emotional equilibrium, you must distance yourself from your callers to an extent. In many ways (although to a lesser extent), inbound telemarketers utilize the same emotional defenses which hospital emergency clinicians employ when treating sick or dying patients.

The key to withstanding the barrage of emotions and anxieties you experience from your callers is to develop effective emotional self-controls. If you've been traumatized by a particularly negative call experience, take a break and calm yourself down. Don't allow negative psychic energy from preventing you from doing your job or from enjoying other activities in your life.