Confessions of a Call Girl (Part 2)

XII

Dedicated to my truly beloved customers.

Here we go again.

To be very honest with you, I’ve been quite excited myself to write this part and I’ve been looking forward to it since I set foot in a call centre for the first time. As I promised, I’ve come up with a couple of situations customer service advisors have to deal with every day. Obviously, all names are changed and the dialogues are not exact reconstructions of the calls. Nevertheless, bear in mind that I've tried to stick to the truth as closely as possible.

First of all, you will need to get into the mood of a CS advisor in order to feel the emotions better. Try and imagine yourself in front of a computer, with your headset on, waiting for your first call at 7.30 a.m., with a coffee mug in your hand, but not for long - and there it is - at 7.31, there is a beep signalling a call and a squeaky recorded voice tells you in which language you have to make your opening. You have learnt to just go for it and to hope for the best.

Let’s start off with the type of customer who will freak you out for a moment because they will intrude on your comfort zone. Who knows, maybe this is the best strategy to get the attention of the CS advisor. "Mr Creeps" are customers with a strange sense of humour (and they are mostly male, without intending to be sexist) but they are also usually quite harmless. The best way to deal with Mr Creep is to ignore any weird suggestions or attempts to flirt. You ready? Here we go...

wtf?

“Hello, my name is Christine, how can I help you today?”

(The voice of the customer is dead serious, he says this quickly and without emotion) “Do you wanna fuck me?”

(Christine is in shock for a few seconds) “No, thank you.”

(The customer does not change his tone) “Well, you know, I am getting ads for erotic premium services on my phone and I want them to stop. Now.”

(Christine is relieved as this is not where she thought it was going – the customer just wanted attention) “Ah ok, now I understand. In this case I can't help you, unfortunately. If you provided a certain service with your phone number, you allowed the company to send you those adverts, which means that you need to check where you get the ads from and tell them to stop sending them.”

(The customer is silent for a few seconds, then says) “OK, I'll do that then. Good bye.”

(Christine, apparently even more relieved that the customer got rid of himself so quickly): “Have a good day, Sir, good bye.”

It's quite rare that calls end so quickly but sometimes you have your lucky day. Oh, your headset is beeping and there is another creepy customer for you:

he's back

“Hi there, my name is Martin, what can I do for you today?”

“Hello, my name is Georg Huber and I’m a great customer of yours.” (Customers often call themselves great in the hope that they will get something for free. Martin, an experienced CS advisor, will, however, successfully ignore this suggestion) “Hello, Mr Huber. How can I help you?”

“I wanna know how much I pay for calls to Austria?”

“With your tariff you will pay £££ per minute to landlines and £££ to mobile phones.”

(Mr Huber sounds delighted) “Alright, I’m always calling my father on his landline, that’s a good deal.”

(Martin now tries to connect with the customer which is part of the company policy. This could be an incentive for Mr Huber to call back in the future because he feels that the CS agents care about him) “Judging by your accent, you are Austrian yourself, is that right, Mr Huber?”

(Mr Huber sounds even more delighted and proud about his nationality) “Yes indeed.”

(Martin now sets the connection point) “I am from Austria too. Where exactly are you from?”

“I am from Braunau, do you know that?”

(Yes, here it is, the awkward moment. For those who are not familiar with WWII – Braunau is a village in Austria where Hitler was born. As Martin is an Austrian he is aware of this fact) “Erm, yes, who WOULDN’T know that?”

(Mr Huber sounds very proud) “That’s right. It’s our Fuhrer’s real capital! (giggling) But Herr Hitler preferred Linz, yes he did.”

(Martin is speechless for a few seconds. It’s not clear whether Mr Huber is joking and Martin now tries to get rid of the customer as quickly as possible) “Erm, right. Is that all, Mr H… erm… Mr Huber?”

(Mr Huber sounds indeed very content, having, in his opinion, spoken with a fellow fanatic) “Actually, yes…”

(Martin is happy and seizes the opportunity straight away) “OK, then thanks for calling. Bye.”

Let’s now turn to a slightly nicer aspect of customer service. I would like to point out that about 5 % of customers calling will actually put a smile on your face. Even though it is mostly seniors who sometimes just want to chat for a bit, there are some young nice people out there who will appreciate what you do for them and will treat you like a human person. 

This is when a CS advisor turns into some kind of Sigmund Freud and listens to adventurous stories of the past, heart-breaking dramas of today and might have to give tips for the unknown future. Sometimes we are also social workers, trying to console weeping and desperate customers. In a few cases I have been able to learn useful things from customers myself. Once I was even offered cheap accommodation in a gorgeous holiday town in Croatia (what a great way to fill your apartments!)

I've had a few customers who would get through to colleagues of mine and they would tell them to say hi to me personally; and rarely, some people would just call to tell us how they love our service! There are a lot of ways to describe those kinds of customers but I will, for now, call them "cutie pies". The following dialogue will show you only a short version of a nice conversation that could sometimes take up to an hour.

good old times

"Hello, I'm Maria, how can I make you smile today?"

(A fragile, insecure voice of an elderly woman says) "Oh hello, my name is Edith Ryan, I'm sorry to disturb you ... I have a small problem. Maybe you'll be able to help me?"

(Maria is happy about Mrs Ryan's comment about taking up her time and will ignore "the small problem" as there is never a "small problem" when customers call) "Of course I will try, Mrs Ryan."

(Mrs Ryan sounds relieved) "Thank you. I won't keep you very long, I promise. So, I've been trying to call my daughter in Brazil but I haven't been able to reach her since yesterday. I called her from the fixed phone and this worked but you know, it's really expensive."

"Right. I will have a look into it, Mrs Ryan. I can see your number on my display, could you please confirm your date of birth?"

(Mrs Ryan seems taken aback) "Oh! What do you need that for?"

"It's only because of the data protection law, so nobody else will get infomation about your account."

"Ah, I see. This is reasonable. I was born on the 12th November 1936. I'm an old bat, aren't I?" (laughs)

(Maria is laughing as well) "Oh no, Mrs Ryan. You only get wiser with age! Is the number *** the number of your daughter?"

(Mrs Ryan is surprised) "Yes! How did you know that?!"

"It's just that you call this number very often. What happens exactly when you call your daughter?"

"Well, there is a 'beep' and then a young man tells me something in French or some other exotic language I don't understand."

"Mhm, this sounds like we have to transfer this issue to our technical department and they will probably reroute the line. It may take up to 48 hours, unfortunately, before we get back to you, is that OK?"

"Of course, if the problem will be fixed and I can talk to my daughter again. Thank you very much, Ms ... what did you say was your name?"

"Maria."

"Oh, this is funny! My daughter's name is also Maria!"

"What a coincidence, Mrs Ryan. It is a beautiful name!” (giggling)

"Yes, indeed. My daughter Maria has been living in Brasilia, that is, the capital of Brazil, for 25 years! You know, we talk at least for an hour every week so I'm glad your tariff is so cheap. We didn't have this when I was young, oh no!"

"That must have been difficult, Mrs Ryan."

"Yes, but it was also nice to send letters and ... oh, how much I longed to receive my sweetheart's responses, ha ha!"

(Maria is touched) "How lovely. Well, I guess today the pace of life has become faster."

"Yes, you're taking the words right out of my mouth. And... But I'm sorry, Maria, I'm stealing your precious time. You have better things to do than listening to me reminiscing about the past."

"Not at all, it was my pleasure, Mrs Ryan. I will call you back when I get a response from the technicians."

"Wonderful, my dear. I just wanted to say that you are a very competent young lady. Have a successful day, Maria."

(Maria is now in heaven) "Thank you so much, Mrs Ryan, have a lovely day yourself. Bye!"

There is a wide variety of customers, especially in a call centre that sells SIM cards for cheap international calls. There will be 80-year-old veterans who know more about IT than you do, who work with tablets and "of course I've got an email address". On the other hand you'll get completely naive customers who will ask you to install internet on their phone but don't even know what MB means. There is another type of customer who'll stick to you like cling film as they call back every other day. Usually they can already be recognized by their significant piercing voice. "Cling films" are usually to be dealt with in a certain way and you get more experienced with time. I was always sorry for the poor devils who just started working in the call centre - who don't know yet that Mr X only wants to top up a SIM card of one of his three wives and that Ms Y needs to shout at you for about five minutes before you are allowed to speak. But I guess learning through trial and error is the same in every job, right?

This is the end of the second part. I have the impression that this one has been quite a positive one; however, I'm not finished yet. You will not be spared the dungeons I was talking about in my first article; in other words: the hell of customer service. Bear with me, for the third and last part will follow soon.