March 10, 2009
For lack of a better title, I always entitle my blog entries regarding day-to-day events as such. For those of you who’ve read them you probably know that though they do start about what happened to me on that particular day, mostly what happened to me on my shift (because outside my shift I’m usually just sleeping and of course it’s a boring subject for a blog), these blogs actually digress into deeper thoughts. Or maybe the appropriate term would be life realizations. Or maybe life philosophies. Well, whatever.
Anyways, this blogging thing has become a habit so that after my shift, just before I go to sleep, I need to write about anything at all. Anything that struck my fancy. Blogging is my brand of sleeping pill. (Now, ain’t that line somewhat similar to “You’re my brand of heroine”, which fans of a certain popular saga would relate to?)
Anyways, today I’ve been talking almost non-stop for 5 days, 8 hour a day, and my voice is suffering. I was barely able to say the opening spiel properly on my first call and I had to press the mute button quite often just so I could clear my throat. Not to mention that I completely neglected small talk during the call to preserve my voice. And I got mostly irritated customers or rather frustrated ones and I wasn’t entirely able to restrain myself from being commanding and authoritative on them just to make them listen. I guess I must have sounded quite scary on the phone because I got them to mostly shut up and listen – irritated and frustrated as they maybe.
Of course this doesn’t help me in any way on my customer relation skills. My AHT was under control – I did have long calls but I also had a lot of short ones.
It was also the first time I experienced a customer who adamantly asked for the supervisor. She was very irate and she had to ask for my name for reasons I don’t know how it would help her. I mean I use my second name during calls and apart from the quality analyst no body else would care if she tells the next customer or the supervisor that so-and-so wouldn’t redirect her call. The supervisor actually told me to stay on the line with her and get her issue first. But she wouldn’t give it. And she wouldn’t even let me verify her email or her last name both of which were complicated. Now how could I pull out her account and verify if she is a legitimate customer within our support boundaries?
Then there was this customer, who really didn’t know anything about computers but was trying to do a lot of stuff on the computer. Now I was trying to navigate her but she keeps on interrupting and trying things on her own – it’s like she won’t cooperate – and my patience was really running low. I mean I almost have no voice and I don’t want to waste it on her. Anyways I left her to do something on her computer (I asked her to run a scan which will take about 2 hours) then I asked her to call back again. And who should take her second call? Well, no other than me! She was my longest call and her call back was even longer! Yet she was friendlier the second time around although she still sounded so frustrated. I guess that is just how she talks. And when I expressed my surprise that she got to me on her second call (I was making small talk), she also said she was surprised as well because she knew there were a lot of other agents. She said she guessed she got to me because I was really patient with her.
Then again there was a customer who said I had a very wonderful accent and asked me who I was. And I did get a customer who told me she can’t understand me because my English was so good.
Oh well, you do get a lot of different calls in this job and I guess I should always remember the advice of one of my trainers – always treat a call as if it is your first call of the day and never let a previous call affect your next call. And of course the treasured advice of a treasured person – never get tired of taking in calls.
Guess I have to keep those in mind. I thought they were easy to follow but now I know I was sorely mistaken.
Oh well, this is my job and I am grateful for it. Three more months, and I hope to get off the floor – to get off from taking calls – and finally be promoted to a supervisory position.
Now why am I writing about all these here? Don’t I have anybody to talk to?
Maybe yes. Maybe not.
All I know is blogging is my brand of sleeping pill. ☺
