|
SHUN IT OUT....
LIFE IN A CALL CENTER
Jeez, Paul English is getting crazy with this IVR stuff. I was tying to have a relaxing
Sunday, complete with extra spicy Bloodies and the New York Times, and what do I stumble across? An article about him on page
three. I remember a time when no one even knew what a call center was; now you can't even have a weekend off without reading
about it.
Anyway, the piece in the Times was about English's new website gethuman.com. He has amped up his IVR "cheat sheet" thing with a website described as "a consumer movement
created to change the face of customer service. This free website is powered by over one million consumers, and the site is
run by volunteers who demand high quality customer service." You can even buy gethuman bumper stickers, t-shirts, mouse pads,
hats, coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets, sweatshirts and teddy bears.
Anyway, what is gethuman? How do you pronounce
it? Is it geth-u-man? Or is it ge-thuman? Just kidding. It's Get Human, it just looks funny when it's all jammed together.
As
much as I rail against a lot of call center "stuff", like scripts, and "retention" etc., I just can't get behind this Gethuman.
It seems, on one hand, to be all about his hatred for IVRs, but then he includes a place to rate your customer service experience
with any company you choose to. So is it poor customer service from phone agents that he has issue with, just IVRs, or both?
I can't really tell, because the sweeping phrases like "consumer movement", "change the face of customer service", and "volunteers
who demand high quality customer service" all sound like he has an issue the whole shebang.
He's quoted in the Times
article as saying "I am anti-arrogance. Why do the executives who run these call center think they can decide when I deserve
to speak to a human being and when I don't." In the company rating section, he says "We would like to reward the
companies you rate as having the best customer service, and to punish the companies with the worst customer service."
Yikes! This guy has an axe to grind. 'Punish' the companies that get bad anonymous ratings? That sounds a little like the
arrogance that he says he's against.
Anyway, we here at Call Center Steel Cage Death Match will be keeping our eyes
on this latest development because this could get out of hand. The million-strong Gethuman-ites might start to get
crazy ideas - I'm thinking some type of militia thing where they show up at your call center door with flaming torches and
pitchforks and baseball bats to beat your IVR into pieces and string up the call center manager. Yeah, we'll be watching this.
Just to be safe though I think I'll get a couple of those gethuman bumper stickers and teddy bears. And thank God I don't
have an IVR!
The title of this post may be lost on some folks - it (the title) is meant to get a little laugh
(as are all my titles), but not at the expense of it subject(s), as its subjects are actual call center reps who
work hard and take a lot of crap. It's also a bit long, so set the snooze button for 30 minutes.
I had the brilliantly
stupid idea of presenting real call center agents I know and their front-line perspective. I asked several of the reps who
work in a certain inbound call center if I could take their picture and if they would provide a sentence that goes to the
heart of their call center experience. I got one taker on the proposition.
The photo is of Robo (not her real name,
but a sobriquet of her own choosing. Full sobriquet: Robo Von Cop). I hired Robo over a year ago. Before working here, she
worked on a vegetable farm. Here is Robo's one-sentence distillation of her call center experience: "Working in a call center
is like watching your neighbor's kids - you have to listen to them whine; clean up their shit; and they think they can get
away with anything."
About Robo: She has a rather tough exterior that is belied by the gentle nature that she displays
with customers. She curses and swears a blue streak in the office, but is never baited into arguing or acting unprofessional
with customers. Despite the conclusions you might draw from her quote, Robo is successful as a call center rep. Why is that?
What experiences in Robo's past prepared her to be good at this? Was it working in a call center? She never did. Picking vegetables?
No, although some of our customers definitely qualify as vegetables.
I believe that the answer is that, in an inbound
call center environment, it takes all kinds.
It is Robo's basic nature which allows her to succeed in the
unique way she does. And I can point to another rep in the call center who is the 'Yin' to Robo's 'Yang' (please forgive the
analogy, but it is apt), and who has her own gifts and talents that contribute to our center's success in other ways.
Did I know this when I hired them? No. I had no budget for pre-screening software (I'm still using ICMI's TurtleSpeed for
god's sake); all I had to go on when I hired all of them was "gut feeling", which has both succeeded and failed me
in the past.
This leads me to my philosophical definition of the metaphysical nature of the Inbound Call Center. My
definition is comprised of a brief description of what I believe to be the two (yin & yang again) basic natures/components
of inbound centers:
1: The True and Basic Nature of the Inbound Call Center Rep
Experience
Of all the components comprising the inbound call center and customer service (I'm going to
stick to that outmoded phrase Customer Service) nothing is of greater importance than the human interaction. It all
boils down to two people talking to each other.
So, the crux of the job, from the reps perspective (and this, I believe,
is the most important thing for a call center manager to meditate upon), is that the conversation is always one-sided and
has one aim: one person (the customer) is always talking about their needs to the rep with the expectation of having
the rep take care of/fix/listen to/address/give satisfaction/delight etc etc. to the customer.
This is not bad or undesirable
or unreasonable. But the true challenge of an inbound call center agent is being able to deal with this call after call. Some
may read this and think, "Duh!" (pardon the expression, but it's a close cousin to "mental", an old Jr. High favorite of mine,
along with "Boss!", "Wicked!" and "Avaya CMS reporting sucks!"), but it is as basic a tenet as the Buddha's that 'Life in
call centers is suffering.' It is this aspect that should guide the hiring decisions in inbound centers (i.e. can you somehow
make an assessment regarding the candidate's capacity for fielding pleas for help, or in Robo's words "cleaning up their shit"
all day long). Robo is a good example of the Yin side of this equation: while her assessment of the job of inbound call center
rep is less than sanguine, it does not color her customer interactions at all.
2:
The True and Basic Nature of Your Experience and Responsibility
When
I say "Your" I mean "Customer", since we are all customers, and, in the yin and yang model of inbound call
centers, you (I mean you who are reading this right now) are either, or, OR both.
Technology will not replace
humans' need and desire to speak to one of their own kind - i.e. not a machine - no matter how misogynist a person may get.
We're a relatively new specie - the dinosaurs walked where our strip malls are for 130 million years - us hominids have only
been developing for 2 million. The upshot is that we need each other to help each other in our daily transactions.
We
want to make a phone call, or send an email, and have a genuine human interaction in which a genuine human helps us out. We
don't want to hear a script or hear a rehearsed lecture about company policy. We don't want a Venn diagram. We want the Yin
to our Yang. We want the circle, the 'whole' that the Yin/Yang symbolizes. We want to sit across the table from someone like
Robo, who genuinely try to do their best for the customer.
But I believe, contrary to the 'have it your way' consumer
culture that has become standard, that we (customers) have a responsibility to behave in the same manner that we expect from
those who answer our calls. Making unreasonable demands, treating a call center rep poorly, using degrading and abusive language
is not right or acceptable. Sometimes, the customer, contrary to 'have it your way' culture, is not right. You can
read about the fallout from these kinds of customer interactions in several call center blogs where the recounting of customer
interactions take on an adversarial flavor.
In short, both the rep and the customer contribute something to a successful
customer contact/interaction etc. Well, here ends my first installment, and probably my last, of Profiles In Courage, unless
I get another volunteer.
Proclamation 1017 STATE OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY
article XII National Economy and Patrimony
in times of national emergency, when the public interest
so requires, the state may, during the emergency and under reasonable terms prescribed by it, temporarily take over or direct
the operation of any privately owned public utility or business affected with public interest.
* the conspiracy between junior officers, opposition leaders,
and commnunist of the Philippines to destabilize the government.
*the suspension of the privilege of writ of habeas corpus
to all suspected rebels.
*the killing of the freedom of speech.
*the killing of social human rights.
This would be my very first time to shun... well i have to tell you this particular
incident that made a gap between me and one of you my dear classmates...
its so hard for me to get mad or angry for a person, because im not use to it...
but this time maybe, i was really upset and i have reached my limitations with
it... i dont want to name names but maybe, you know really what happens...
first, was the unexpected behavior of this person... i know that this person is so
private but he likes to tell stories in accordance with his own life... but with sometimes moody personality to the extent
of stepping on other peoples live is a hit below the belt...
secondly, the behavior of not talking respectfully, or should i say not watching
the words he says... i am not a sensitive, or an emotional person but to received such a word or a nod that is unethical
is a foul for me...
lastly, i didnt like his awkward personality... by this point in time he should be
thinking maturely... or he should be the one to be a model for us... what does he think?? he had alzheimer's or down syndrome...?
i condemn such personality, and characteristic that hurts people... yes it is ok to
crack a joke... but cracking too much joke is bad... to you... whoever you are... i am not angry with you... and i have forgiven
you in all the things that you did... what i am pointing right know is for you to change your awkward attitude... let God
persuade you... and you will see the difference of having friends that laugh with good jokes rather than bad...
Cordially,
Redji Pastoral
Guys please share your shun outs or reactions on particular person this will help
him/her to change their character, to become a more and better person... this would help them... dont worry your name will
not be posted on.... send in your shun outs to my friendster redji_07@yahoo.com
STUDENT COUNCIL ELECTION...
Yes your right... election na ng student council ngayon... maraming mga
partido ang nangangahas na hingin ang suporta ng mga iskolar ng bayan... naririyan ang SAMASA Alliance... Nariyan ang KILOS
at siempre di mawawala ang independent parties tulad ng SIKAT iilan lang sila na tumatakbo sa mga posisyong iiwan ng
mga reigning student officers...
well kung ako ang tatanungin, sasalain kung mabuti ang mga kakandidato
sa eleksyong ito... tulad ng inaasahan ng marami hinahanap pa rin nila ang sangkap ng isang mabuting pinuno...
taglay ba ito ng SAMASA..., sa tingin ko hindi... dahil ang tumatakbong
pangulo ng samasa ay walang kadisidisiplina sa sarili... ang KILOS kaya... dinaan lamang sa dami ng fans ng kandidato... o
ang SIKAT kaya na halos magtaray habang iniinterogate ng mga estudyante...
sino kaya ang hahawak ng posisyon ng magtataguyod sa interes ng mga
kabataan...? meron kaya silang maisip na plataporma para sa ikaaayos ng paaralan... o puro panlabas na interes ang pagtutuunan...
sarili muna bago iba...! un lang ang panawagan ko sa mga magsisipagtakbo lalo na sa CENTRAL STUDENT COUNCIL na sana kapakanan
at kaayusan ng eskuwelahan ang pagtuunan ng pansin... malutas lamang nila ang problemang ito... tiyak na maganda ang kalalabasan
nito... at dahil dito labis silang susuportahan ng mga mag aaral...
kapakanan ng PUP ang pinaguusapan dito, kapakanan ng mga mag-aaral
at hindi kapakanan ng kung sino sino lang diyan para sa mga lilisang lider
salamat sa paglilingkod, ngunit di ninyo nakuha ang nais ng marami... puro kayo walk out sa klase... ang kailangan namin...
magandang aura ng PUP hindi walang kuwentang Rally na di naman mapakikinabangan ng lahat... pera ng estudyante yung ginagastos
niyo... dalhin niyo naman para sa amin... hindi sa kung ano anong rally paraphernalia
http://redji007.tripod.com/
|
