5 Best practices in dealing with an irate customer

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential. 

Winston Churchill 

When i was a newbie in this world of night shifts and graveyard shifts, i almost got a nervous breakdown with the so called irate customers (btw, Wordweb's definition of irate is - "feeling or showing extreme anger"). These customers are exceedingly suckers of composure and mental peace, dislocating your concentration and goodvibes for the day.

Yet, i realized that it's only a matter of time, dealing with these callers, could actually be turned into a gratifying experience while on a call. Providing a sincere service mixed with love  is kind of a challenge, a would-never-happen kind of thought, but actually, it could happen. These 5 best practices which i've learned through the years have their magical effects. Which, in the end, i get to have a great, if not, a personalized rapport with them throughout the end of the call.

1. Let them vent out

- the easiest way to get their attention is to listen earnestly. Match it with your verbal nods and echoing agreements like "Okay, yeah, Aha,". Soon enough they will get conscious with their blabbering and their discourses of complaints.

2. 'wag mong sabayan (Don't ride on with the heat of their anger)

- it's almost always tempting to bitch back with sarcastic and sardonic mockery and remarks, most esp if the customers are saying below the belt words and saying out loud with profanities already.  Bear in mind though, that it's their way of letting out their frustration and madness. View it as nothing personal, focus on the reasons of their complaints. If you took the bait, you'll end up as a loser.

3.  Acknowledge and restate their issue/s

- Feel the right time and pacing when to voice out  your winning delivery of speech. This is so critical that i normally take the cue when i feel that they've vented out almost over, where almost all the beans has been spilt... Intro your conversation by restating their issues based from their choice of words and don't forget to acknowledge their complaints. Nothing's more peaceful if it's crystal clear than to see a muddled water.

4. State your plan and the solution to their problem

- Saying no for them is definitely the worse! I mean it literally and figuratively. There are times that, what they want can't really be delivered due to company policies and all. But hey, Options.. options... options are the best weapon for these circumstances. Give options to them if you can't solve the problem. They'd end up grateful to you even more.

5. Proactively escalate to your next level of support

- We have to accept the realness of what it can bring by extreme anger, if you really feel with a 99.9% sureness that you can no longer control or handle the call. (cuz you're having a bad day and your accent has been insulted 5 times)... Better pass the phone to your supervisor. Trust me, it's not a cowardly act.

In my tenure, i take pride whenever i have de-escalated an irate customer. The sense of fulfillment is lovely, to look back at the end of the shift that you ended up laughing with a customer whose opening answer is "can i speak to your supervisor?" or someone who blurted "what the f*ck!!!" while on a call. These customers who were turned from dissats to satisfied callers are considered laurels added to your hat; if you've done once before, i'm certain that you can do more.

Share your best practices too in dealing a ballistic one...

~mAc

Supplication

allow me to write and be lost in Your embrace
to kiss away my dreary soul, my fears and cares
where this tired heart has braved enough tears
where the only consolation now is Your saving grace

lift me and blow away the gusts of grey
that to sing would vanquish the tiniest speckle of doubt
and those marred heartaches that may seem endless
would be Yours to take away with clout

when i get to stumble and seem helpless
and  the crows of vain and darkness would seep
i beg You to come... quick and with mercy
to feel your compassion and love for me

servant as lowly as i have been
humbled, with nothing but my faith and hope
i offer you my thanks and praises of exultation
for Your moving guidance and eloquence in things

when the time will come for me to part
i beg, that may i be in my faith steadfast
when death shall be on my footsteps
allow me to fullfill my duty as i surrender to You
my borrowed life...

mac

Red Sand cum Hidden Valley (2009)

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well. 

Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

(going back in the year 2009....)

Red Sand and Hidden Valley are just neighbors as once told by my friend Alfred. I took these photos via my lost N6500s and a Sony Cam from Bernard (i forgot the model) which left me awestruck as i've come face to face with Riyadh's most famous spot amongst Filipinos during Eid Holidays and cold seasons.

The sun was glaring at us but the breeze is one hell of an icy coldness. It's not what you think like the sands are doing a free float swooshing to the left and right; the sands were like tamed barrenness of the lost composition of epic war stories, leaving the eyes free of jagged particles of sand making the experience a delight.

This place vastly composes of an oceanic view of sands, that when you set off your both feet on its waves dissolves your footprints in an emulation of nothingness.

On top of the highest peak of the sand dunes shows off this innate magnificency of the arabian desert: arid land with no vegetation yet full of speaking character of nature.

Off we go to Hidden Valley...

It was a lifeless stature of rocks, with spattered cactus and desert shrubs, desolate and bleak on its visual aspect but magnanimous in imparting the astounding profoundness.

I have always been indulging with the sensation brought by being unto great heights. Awfully inlove esp when it comes to nature and earth trekking and mountain climbing and all. Yes! the pic above has appeased my hunger for true wide-eyed view of rocks, made me gasping to reach further for the peak, wanting more, climbing steeply to advance for a higher level; but in the end, this experience bequeathed me the courage to stay calm and focus as i descended slowly to the ground. I felt horrible,   filled with fear and apprehension in going down for i was alone (none of my friends dared to follow) when i went up, but for goodness sake, there are strangers and adventurers of my same page whom i clinged onto support and collective belongingness as i've moved downward on the slope.

This view is overlooking the exit of the Hidden Valley. It's time to go home and leave the footprints of time as the winds smoothly vanish them.





~mAc

7 Facts about Multi-tasking in a Call Center

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. 

Bill Gates 

One of the most wanted qualities of a call center agent is the ability to multi-task. I once heard a conversation from a seat opposite me in a jeepney going to Quiapo Manila, a couple in their mid - twenties as i perceived from their faces.

girl: swerte naman ni Florie, natanggap siya sa callcenter, alam mo kung magkano basic nia?

boy: magkano? 

girl: 24 thousand! tapos, meron pa daw mga allowances, at kung wala daw silang absent, may non taxable na 3 thou sa sweldo monthly.

boy: hah!!! anlaki ah, basic palang.. eh ang ginagawa lang naman nila yata eh mag nga-nga-ngawa sa telepono at mag inglis....

girl: oo nga eh, kung sana fluent lang ako mag english, mag-aaply din ako! Sabi nila madali lang daw mag call center.... an laki na ng sahod, madali pa ang hanap-buhay.. san kapa?

I was suddenly alerted by their flow of conversation. My nearly falling drool due to sleepiness from my shift that time was regained back in control. I nearly want to blurt out my opinion but i held back. 

For those who have never experienced having a friend, or with a family member who is a call center guy or girl, they mostly believe and imagine that belonging to that industry is a chickenfeed - an easy job that seems convenient, taskless and boring; if i may add, low-kind-of-level job.

Little did they know that this is no easy job at all. The little things we do like answering the phone, talking to the customer while doing the documentation, keeping the call with no dead- air while searching for tools, executing empathy despite a bad day and all, learning to digest what the customer is blabbering while your boss/sup is trying to chat with you because of an urgent matter; if you sum all these, it requires special skills, wisdom and virtues to execute it. All these are just mere ingredients of the multi-task brouhaha of a call boy/girl.

These are the  Facts that you must know about multi-tasking in the call center world:


1. Multi-tasking is a pain in the ass

- first times are really the hardest. So better get your feet wet during the calls labs or transition stage. You can't beat getting a sup call + teardown issue + and a return escalation from your sup esp on your first live call on the floor.

2. . Multi-tasking is not a birthright attitude, it takes practice to enhance and ultimately be good at it.

- i knew someone who can do Facebooking, blogging and talking to the customer and seldom he gets an escalation call, yet he has the lowest Average Handle Time (AHT) in their team.  Figure it out! he never dropped a call though. 

3. Multi-tasking can affect the quality of the call

- if you badly multi-task, your QA results are awful, if you do the reverse, you'll get high CE and high-rated QA scores.

4 . Multi-tasking increases productivity

- it's the main reason why AHT was never lost among the Need to Meet Metrics of all time. I dare say, it's always included in the top five to watch out for SLAs.

5. Multi-tasking can lower down Average Handle Time (AHT)

- if your boss has an impending failed Performance Planning for you due to high AHT, concentrate on how to multi-task the superb and high-quality way. Maybe you have to unload some of your unnecessary chats, every 5 minute refresh on facebook and twitter, or you might be playing Farnville and Mafia Wars and all, then you're doomed!

6. Multi-tasking can sharpen your memory

- it does possibly connect to short term memory, that sometimes, you get to be an Obsessive Compulsive (OC), on how you handle the call, you tend to be so suave in every detail.

7. . Multi-tasking can be a habit

- imagining the route and path you're gonna take while driving and conversing with your wife who's asking your opinion what could be the best arrangement to place the new tv in your freshly furnished house is somewhat distracting. But the mere fact that you can drive while listening to a Harry Potter Audio book and planning for a dinner date is wayyy easy - that is because, the habit of driving has been so innate with you that you act it out so automatically.


Multi-tasking therefore is a complex process that you have to acquire, it doesn't happen overnight, constant and consistent practice would lead to enormous benefits on your stats and grades as an individual.

In the long run, you may even be able to go to the restroom while on call (lol), or could even have a laugh with your seat mate while checking out some Youtube vid as you talk to the customer. It's a matter of how far you've gone to in perfecting and mastering the art of multi-tasking, without sacrificing the quality and sustaining the excellent degree of your call.




~mAc

iOS 4.2.1

All the buzz about this latest, boldest software update from Apple re iOS comes in for quite sometime after all the delays and pending availability of download. 

Fortunately, it was officially downloadable last November 22nd 10amPST. 

Qualifiers:

- iPhone (3G, 3GS, 4)

- iPod Touch (2nd, 3rd, 4th gen)

- iPad

If you haven't done so, go ahead and update your iTunes first to ver.10.1. Then connect your device with iTunes open and click check for update.

After finishing my update, i was dissat because it's as if nothing has changed on my 3GS, no kidding, there isn't a significant change that i can obviously notice. Worse, all my music were unsyncED. So i have to reconnect to iTunes and sync my music library.

Good thing my iBooks portfolio left unscathed and all my apps were kicking alive. Another injury to the damage is, when i learnt that Find my Iphone is only available for the iPhone 4.

Yep! no need for a paid subscription of MobileMe to avail this service - Find My Iphone. So, for all those who are using an Iphone 4 and the latest 4th gen iPod, you can DL the app from the APP STORE and configure your MobileMe account.

The most beneficial part for this iOS update is simply the Ipad. 

- multi tasking

- folders

- wifi enhancement

- over-all aestethic

Those feats have all been inherited by the iPhone and iPod touch back in the release of iOS 4.1 so i was a bit disappointed, nevertheless i found it useful (but not enough) to have the Airprint and AirPlay capabilities on my device. Yet, i don't have printers that are airprint capable or appleTv to use the airPlay streaming. (but according to lifehacker, you can tweak those features if you are really into it - such as enabling AirPrint for Windows)

I'm happy to say that this sw update will enhance the speed issue (as per TUAW)  from the iPhone 3G, which was apparent in the iOS 4.1.

One more thing to add, you can now customize your SMS ringer alert (impressively, it's only available for the iPhone 4).

Seems like Apple has gotten into so much obsessiveness re marketing strategy for consumers to inevitably leave their old devices and buy the latest ones on the counter.

~mAc