When You Yell You Receive Nothing From Me
The life of a customer service rep
Having never worked in a call center in my life I figured I’d give it a shot when the opportunity presented itself. I had never known anyone who had worked in a call center so I did not have any judgements toward it. Looking back, that was the best thing I had going for me when I started this job.
I won’t divulge where I work as I have nothing negative to say about the company I work for. In fact, this company has proven to me to be a wonderful place to work.
What I do want to share are some experiences I have received from customers that use my companies services.
Experience 1:
You are going to fix this and no I will not wait on hold for you to transfer me. I have already been transferred a dozen times and YOU are going to fix my issues.
I love getting calls like this…now. During training one of my first calls was this situation. The customer was yelling at the top of his lungs about fixing a specific service he had with us. I always have to make sure that the person I am talking to is authorized on the account or else we are not going to make any progress. This was the start of a BEAUTIFUL conversation. The usual questions were asked. Name, address, etc! He wasn’t on this account and I had to break the news to him. It is now the screaming starts. The caller was able to get the account holder on the phone and we were in business. Let me just say…the screaming never stopped. He was in the background just going to town on me while his 94 year old mother chatted with me. At this point I am now on speaker phone. Speaker phone use is not appropriate when calling into a business and asking for help with ANYTHING! I couldn’t understand them very well and asking them to repeat themselves didn’t help the situation.
Let’s get back on track! He called in because his services were not working correctly. The department I work in is not a tech repair department. The system I use does not provide me with the tools necessary to fix issues remotely. So I was stuck. I had asked basic questions in case it was easy to fix, but of course…this wasn’t anywhere near easy.
I explained at this point I was going place him on a brief hold so I could transfer him to the tech repair department. Normally, customers will tell me thank you for helping them and they will politely wait on hold while I get them to the correct department. This guy was having none of it. I was told I was not allowed to transfer him and that I better fix his issues. I calmly informed him this was not an option. I should tell you that none of what he said to me was in a calm voice. It was all screamed at me along with more profanities than I am pretty certain I have ever heard. I have been called names before so it normally doesn’t bother me; however I have a real problem when people call me stupid. I might not be a top scholar or part of Mensa, but I am far from stupid.
The entire time I was on the call he never stopped yelling. He called me every name in the book. All the while I could only think of two things:
- Is this how this job is going to be everyday? And if so, do I really want to do this job?
- This guys 94 year old mother is sitting next to him listening to how he is speaking to a complete stranger and yet she says nothing to him.
I finally lost it and couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t yell at him. I didn’t hang up on him. I stood up and took my headset off and found help. Before help could get on the phone he had hung up the call. He was reported to the security department where they handled his mothers account and his bad attitude. I felt horrible for whomever might have received his call back, had he called back.
The moral of this story is:
When you call in to have something fixed don’t yell, don’t scream, and don’t call the person helping you any names other than their legal name. While we all are human and we understand people will get angry from time to time, you do not know who you are talking to and you do not know what they can and cannot help you with. Stay calm and act polite. Those are the keys to success when calling into a call center of any type.
We only want to help get your issues solved and move onto the next person. Time is money for everyone, even the customer, and the longer you spend arguing the more money we are going to cost you. So lighten up and let us do our jobs without hassle.