The holiday shopping season is officially in full swing. As someone who has worked in customer service in one form or another for most of my adult life I have a few suggestions on how to make your experiences with my fellow customer service professionals easier for everyone.
#1 Be respectful. There is a big difference between “You guys messed up my bill” and “I have a question about my bill”. We understand that you are upset but guess what? We did not personally print up your bill and until we actually look at it we don’t know if there is anything wrong with it or not. What we do know is that you are no longer going to get any benefit of the doubt from us if you come in treating us like idiots and/or criminals. We try harder to help nice people.
#2 Don’t ask for a manager right off the bat until you have a REALLY unusual situation. Many companies give their level one reps plenty of tools to solve common problems and even give credits. You do not look like an important person by demanding a manager before giving us a chance- you look like an unreasonable one. Which leads me to….
#3 Don’t claim you are going to get us fired. You may get to talk to one of the supervisors and you may even get exactly what you asked for from that person but you are not going to single- handedly get anyone fired. What’s worse, if you make claims about us that are untrue our supervisor will know it right away AND you undermine your credibility with them therefore making them less likely to believe anything else you say.
#4 Do not claim to be close person friends with the President/ CEO/ etc of our company. It does not scare us because we don’t believe you. Ever. If you truly knew them that well you would be calling them, not us.
#5 Remember that if you cause a big scene we will talk about you after you leave/ hang up. Also, most call centers log all calls and we will read those logs the next time you call in so if you have a history of being rude, unreasonable, etc we will know.
Happy interacting!