XI
Dedicated to the wonderful people I have worked with.
It’s time to
clear up a certain myth once and for all. Let me ask you a question: How often
do you call a customer service hotline in order to solve a problem? Once a
month? Three times a year? Every now and then?
I don’t
blame you. To be very honest with you, there is not a single person who wants to call customer services. I do recall my last own
experience with a hotline back in Austria which ended in a small explosion on
my part. Let’s not forget the particularly nasty queue that one must endure for
about 10 minutes before having even explained one’s problem. Just imagine a
smoky woman’s voice purring the same sentence all over again: “Unfortunately, all our customer service
agents are busy. Please hold the line – we will be with you in a moment.”
I don’t get
irritated by the fact that EVERY agent is ALWAYS busy but by the fact that my
ears are exposed to the crappiest music that has ever been created. While I am
listening I am usually thinking about ways of killing the musical programmer
and I then decide for the best option, which is, naturally, to push him or her
from the roof of St Paul’s Cathedral.
When I have
finally reached the customer service, I am transferred from one department to
the next, just to find out that the responsible person has (regrettably) gone
on holiday. What is worse, I am then consoled that the system has “apparently
made a mistake” and the agent would “quickly” look at the issue. Hours later, I
am asking myself whether the agent will have returned from his or her walk to
the kitchen or will have finished the discussion about yesterday’s champion’s
league match soon.
Oh! Don’t
tell me you’ve had similar experiences?
Those
stories seem actually familiar to you?
You feel like
a victim of these hotlines; however, you are dependent on them?
Well, there
you go, sit down and listen to the confessions of an actual call girl. In this
article, I will present to you the other side of the coin and unfold the
unvarnished truth about the work of a customer service advisor. You think you
already know what’s going on?
I can
assure you that you have not got the tiniest clue. Dive with me into the world
of the most extreme emotions; of the regular ups and downs that reach from London Dungeon to the top of the Shard. I will open your eyes and change
your attitude about call centres forever.
Let’s first
clarify which people work in call centres. In fact, it is a special microcosm.
People who work here have come from various backgrounds. Some of them are in a
transition period because they have to somehow finance their degree or because
they have moved to a different city or, the most common one, because they have
just graduated. Anyway, there is no other way for them than getting the first
job that comes along in order to gain some time and money to find something
better. Most of them will indeed move on.
Some of them
will, however, become like spiders that stick to their webs as they either get used
to work or they simply can’t find anything more challenging. No wonder in these economically difficult times.
There are
rumours that a few people work in a call centre voluntarily and fully believe
in what they are doing. Honestly, I have never met anyone that weird, but I
guess you can find all kinds of people on this planet.
You will now
ask yourself the question: what do I need in order to work in a call centre?
Let me quickly rephrase that question: What do I need in order to survive in a call centre?
I’ll give
you some bullet points to explain what I mean:
- 1 Being tough. Sorry, you won’t get very far if you are a fragile and sensitive person. If you are, however, only someone who takes things kind of personally, you will definitely grow from the experience. The rule everybody here knows is that customers will always speak their mind. Why shouldn’t they? They feel extremely safe on the other end of the line as there is a great distance between them and the advisor.
- 2 Coffee. I have never had so much coffee in my life, not even when studying. In fact, I have adapted to the obligatory cappuccino a day in order to bring myself in a relatively acceptable mood. This is what obviously turns you into an addict and I presume I can speak for others when I say that a call centre does not help when you try to give up smoking.
- 3 Enough sleep. Fatigue is the advisor’s death. Your mood will deteriorate with every call and you’ll simply wish to die.
- 4 Humour! I will not believe anybody who claims that they have been on the phone for eight or more hours acting seriously and have not handed in their notice within two weeks. Just think about Tim and Dawn in the legendary British TV series “The Office” (and they didn’t even work in a call centre, but a normal office).
- 5 (Strongly connected to 4) Mates. Just being colleagues won’t help dealing with perpetually frustrating phases. If you become friends, however, it might be a long lasting friendship with the occasional binge in order to get over difficult times.
Right. This has been a small overview of customer service advisors who you
have probably dealt with before. Imagine your personal call girl/boy slouching
- pardon me - sitting in front of the computer, with their headsets on, just
waiting for you to make your complaint (and it will be a complaint in 99% of the time).
I don't think it's enough just to describe
what the customers are like when they call in. I tried to create a table in
order for you to understand what is going on; however, not even a graph would
give you a good impression of what customer advisors deal with in their
daily life.
Therefore, the only way is to show you what I mean. As I can’t
naturally record the conversations I have created some dialogues where you’ll
be able to see the great variety of customers’ characters.
This will be, however, enclosed in part 2 of my
article.
