When I am at work, I sit next to the woman who takes all customer complaints for the whole company. She took a call from a customer at least fifteen minutes ago and I haven’t heard her say one word yet. I liked to imagine the other side of the call, the side I can’t hear. I like to try to imagine the most outrageous things that an irate customer could say. I bet the things in my imagination are not even half as good as the real thing.
She is still sitting there silent. Is the customer screaming at her, or perhaps just reading her a 14 page long list of complaints. Maybe she is happy and can’t stop talking about the merits and great qualities of this company. Oh no, I just heard, “well if it important to you, then it is important to us. We want to hear your concerns.” Yikes, that can’t be good; and after all of this silence. It is making me nervous.
Working in customer service takes a certain type of patience. I remember the first time I got an irate customer call. I was working for a large bookstore and I picked up the phone to stop its incessant ringing when I was greeted by an angry voice. I can’t really remember what the customer was yelling at me about, but by the end of it I was flustered and close to tears. “Why does he hate me so much?” I thought. That was my first lesson in customer service. What seems like such a personal interaction because emotions are involved is actually not personal at all; you just happen to be the person on the other end of the problem and got lucky enough to answer the phone.
I felt pretty confident after I figured that out, although there were still scary times. Like almost getting assaulted by the drunk in the music department singing obscene lyrics in front of the kids section, or the time that the bipolar customer starting pulling out his hair and then smashed the front door on his way out. Most of the time customers just want to be heard, they just want to vent.
That must be what is happening on the phone in the cube next to me. It sounds like she is just trying to vent. Now my cube neighbor is waving her arms in the arm, and shooting the phone the middle finger. And yet her voice remains so level and patient as she consoles and reassures that we will do all that we can to please her. Amazing. It takes a certain kind of person.
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3 comments:
#$^$% customer service!
That particular call was a lady who kept repeating herself, apologizing, then repeating herself all over again.
Complaint: corn syrup in the coffee creamer. It took 30 minutes to tell me that!
Dear god, do I NOT miss that crap.
Yes it takes a certain temperament to succeed in that line of work. I enjoyed it when I thought of it as a kind of "pastoral" listening and kept my emotional distance.
When I'm upset with a company and call customer service I usually preface my remarks with "I'm not angry with you so don't take this personally." Sometimes the person on the other end actually laughs!
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