This all started a few days ago at work. I don't always deal with customers but the ones I do, are usually not happy. The thing is over the years I have learned to care for a customer like a friend. I mean old habits die hard. These customers I talk to are transferred to me by other agents that couldn't reach a compromise with the customer for them to move on. One of the things they do is warn me about how bad or good the customer has been on the phone, which doesn't help me. It makes my heart sink into my stomach before I even get the customer on the phone. Now sometimes I get a customer that once I listen I can usually get them to schedule an appointment we can agree on a resolution or steps we are going to take to get to the resolution. Sometime between right now and tomorrow night. It just isn't realistic to believe that there are people sitting at the end of your street waiting for you to call.
So the incident that brought on this post was a customer that has had service issues and I acknowledged that. We had been out before but the first word out of his mouth was not the greeting any woman or female dog would want. It was not a conversation about resolutions or anything else that might have been constructive. I know this man SCREAMED at me for quite a while and I put him on hold which meets two points, one I can think and two I was trying to get him calm down so I can help fix the trouble. When I returned he continued to SCREAM at me again, for quite a while at one point told me I didn't care and I said, "If I didn't I would have already hung up." I did get him an appointment and it was for that afternoon. Even after that it wasn't enough and he SCREAMED more.
I did what I needed to do but the only thing that kept me listening to this man's abusive tirade was that I didn't want him to call back and treat someone else like that. I feared that it might happen anyway with the promises he made during the periods that he wasn't SCREAMING.
I have worked with customers of one sort or another my entire working life, everyone does. Not are they always customers as we are when we shop in Publix but sometimes customers as in another employee that works for the same company that you help resolve an issue to help them complete the job. At Eckerd I would fix someone's in-house email password so they could do their job but they were my customer or assisted with how to use the email service back when that was new. I have always thought that if a customer asks for help I should take them to the product they are looking for or help them as much as I can without doing their job for them.
The point of all this is expectations of customers who believe they are always right. Well like a child having a tantrum kicking and screaming on the floor in the front of the store, that is not going to get you a toy or a piece of candy and it shouldn't. Rewarding poor behavior will not get us anywhere. Acknowledging a problem, and a compromising resolution these are the things that are realistic. I know in my time doing customer service over the phone in other jobs, where I was truly trying to help them fix their problem. One call resolution was what we called it. That was you called in to get help and the person that answered the phone fixed the problem or scheduled an appointment. You the customer off the phone in 15 minutes or so and know that if the issue isn't fixed it will be whenever that tech gets out to fix whatever the problem is.
So why a few weeks ago did Brian call the phone company because the pole in front of our house had been switched out and there was a line hanging down draping across the driveway. It wasn't ours it was to our neighbor who doesn't live in the house year round, he was just trying to help and get the line fixed or cut down. He was on the phone more than an hour and was transferred 11 times and when he hung up they said it would be two weeks before someone could come out. Now how does a company think that that is effective customer service. I would have given up long before that and waited until I saw a utility truck on the street and gotten them to cut it or fix it. Ironically, that afternoon the power company was back out to remove the old pole and took care of the line. Not his line but the other company's. Not because it was his job but it was the right thing to do.
As an employee that has no bearing on what happens before or after I talk to techs or customers I do the best I can to assist them or point them in the direction of the best person or department to fix their issue.
FYI. There is no better satisfaction than a tech telling me how many other people and how many departments they have spoken to and a few well placed clicks of my keyboard and I have resolve their problem and that of the customer.
