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Basically Id start to answer she'd start to talk over the top of me to the point she was shouting - I warned her not to shout or ill hang up.
She kept shouting I hung up.
Now 3 weeks later I get a written complaint at work, I explain my side of what happened - firm not interested, only worried that ive upset a customer. They wont reprimand the customer and warn her that she may not behaviour in this manner again. I get it in the neck.
Now in my line of work if you dont define the acceptable parameters of behaviour youll get walked over or worse threatened or even attacked. This does happen, at this firm we are issued with a GPS tracking card featuring an internal recording device with an emergency push button to summon immediate help.
The good thing is although im working for them, im a contractor and can walk off site, this would place them in an awkward position even after serving a notice period, which I would give.
Now my point is - I do not consider given the circumstances of the work that my behaviour was wrong, indeed it was needed and that by me basically being told off, will only encourage the lady to increase her poor behaviour. Im fuming about it and will in the morning quit having already lined up more work from a previous employer.
So my question is to you all, given the dangerous nature of the job do you all think my behaviour was acceptable? Or do you think that I behaved rashly?
;)
So my question is to you all, given the dangerous nature of the job do you all think my behaviour was acceptable? Or do you think that I behaved rashly?
There are some people who are simply crazy and impossible to deal with. Would you get a letter of reprimand for being impolite to someone who turned out to be the Unabomber or was suffering from Alzheimers?
I had a job working with an internal user who was pretty crazy once. He yelled and swore at me, even when I was pregnant and working part time due to complications from my pregnancy. He would yell at me over things I had no control over, like the phone lines being down or problems he had with other departments that I didn't even manage.
Looking back, I realize he probably had something like Alzheimers disease, but the symptoms were not as well known back then. Eventually I would just get up and leave meetings where he would yell or swear. I didn't get reprimanded but my management did nothing to get him either removed from the project or to try to change his behavior. In hindsight I should have pressed the issue to have him replaced in some way. Legally I suspect I would have had grounds to sue over the vulgar language, had I been so inclined.
Some places are just so customer focused they don't know where to draw the line over an upset customer and a totally crazy and potentially dangerous one.
"Come on in, employee!
Whoa! Hold it, I said you can come in, not your buddy pride. He'll be waiting for you on your way out."
Oh yes this customer has no mental illness she was just being darn rude and out to provoke a fight.
[edited by: Essex_boy at 11:50 pm (utc) on Feb. 22, 2007]
Oh yes this customer has no mental illness she was just being darn rude and out to provoke a fight.
The reason I mentioned Alzheimers was that one of my friends, who also happens to be a nurse, had a relative develop it. The way she described her relatives behavior and the issues she had to deal with reminded me of the person I used to work with. But my point also was that there are a lot of crazy people out there and it is not reasonable for companies to expect even customer service people to take unreasonable amount of abuse. There are some people that simply can't be dealt with reasonably.
Anyway to answer your original question, I think only you can answer whether you behaved rashly, since we don't know the exact details or know what is expected of you at your job. But to me you always seem like one of the more polite and reasonable posters around here.
[edited by: Jane_Doe at 1:48 am (utc) on Feb. 23, 2007]
Perhaps things have changed in 30 years but it still seems like a good idea to me.
It is not always easy to think on the spot what to do when someone is getting really angry at you. It is good you had training on how to handle that situation, but not every company provides that kind of training or support for employees.
[edited by: Jane_Doe at 4:28 am (utc) on Feb. 23, 2007]
Sorry for being a little blunt..
But in Indian call centres ( dealing with the US and other English speaking customers), we have so called educated Americans and Europeans shouting/cussing/using vulgar language with girls/being impertinent/downright hostile on a regular basis.
I guess they have the 'Right' seeing that they are in a developed country dealing with 'morons'. Basic courtesy seems to be missing. I guess they all have some mental disease.. ;-)
If employees started to quit over such issues, we would all be out of a job...We got to deal with it and move on..
As an aside, my company's policy is to handle matters such as this as nicely as possible...then "blackball" the customer from doing future business with us. High maintenance customers are a waste of time and money.
It is rare that an individual complains about someone like me the problem is the industry I work in is run by 'right on' people in woolie jumpers.
As the employer, the boss today, I tend to be extremely arrogant in these situations and tell the customer exactly where they should take their business! I have made the decision I don't won't them as a customer and the competition is welcome to them!
As an Employee you have to be more careful unless you are a cash cow employee. 20+ years ago I was on the wrong end of customer service and had to be humble in all situations :(.
15 years ago my employer trusted me enough to make the right call.....a bad customer needs to be shown the right way, or the door! At that time I made enough sales to allow my employer to give me the length of rope to piss off some irrational customers!
It all comes down to your personal worth to the corporation. If you make the corporation a lot of money you get to be far more honest with irrational people than those that make the company nothing!
Unfortunately, I think your employer is right. If you are in a customer service role, then your job is to get past the anger felt by the caller, use techniques for calming them down and bring them back into a constructive conversation. You took it too personally, the anger they feel is not directed at you but at your employer, and you're just the convenient punching bag. The key is tone and empathy - manipulating those two aspects is a powerful tool.
Although I think your employer is right, that doesn't mean you're at fault - just that you haven't been given the tools necessary to fulfil the role. If your job entails dealing with aggressive callers, then try to get your employer to get you some professional training in handling such situations.
I think that the employer has an ethical (and legal health-and-safety) duty to protect their staff, not simply provide them as untrained "punch bags" for customers.
In other words, an employer that simply ignores the mental harm done by failing to support thier staff being abused, lays itself open to legal liabilities.
In the UK I believe that it is quite clear that courts/tribunals are sympathetic to claims of mental harm, though IANAL.
I have been founded/managed companies with a heavy customer-service element. Some customers' rudeness, laziness and stupidity drives me crazy (and I tend to be quite blunt explaining to customers what I think of their behaviour), so I hire CSR staff to handle the calls. And while I would not permit my CSR staff to be rude to customers, I would also back up the CSR staff in the face of abuse by customers. There is a balance to be had. I would consider going all the way to court in either extreme to underline the message that abusive behaviour is NOT a penalty-free ride to wherever the abuser wants to go; it is a bad behaviour that has to be unlearned.
OP: you might point out the health-and-safety aspects of this issue to your 'employer', and if they still ignore you, call up your local H&SE branch to arrange a snap inspection/audit (possibly after you've left) with a view to protecting equally-abused co-workers.
Rgds
Damon
We sell domestic appliances and our biggest customer is QVC UK. We are a small business so we deal with customer service calls ourselves. QVC customers include some very stupid and very offensive people seemingly in a higher proportion than in the population at large. Our strategy with these difficult customers is to be really nice to them (charmingly disarming) and do whatever is necessary to turn them into a nice loyal customer again. The cost of this is small when you consider that there are very few of these nutters out there and the positve PR from them telling their friends; "those guys really sorted my problem out quickly and to my satisfaction" is much better than the negative pr you get from them telling everyone you just don't care.
As has been already said you can't afford to have pride - you just have to think about the bottom line.
I note the comment about Indian call centres. I feel really sorry for the guys that work there, I am sure that they are told that the English are just dying to change their utilities supplier/telephone company/car insurance/household insurance, and yes they love a phonecall about 8:00 in the evening just when they are sitting down to their evening meal.
I'm never rude to them but I am firm, "No I don't want to save money by changing suppliers. I am happy with my present arrangement, please delete me from your database. Goodbye." Then I hang up.
I think Indians realize that by the time they get a disgruntled caller with a complaint about a broken $2,000 Dell, for example, the customer has already wasted a ton of valuable time going thru an utterly frustrating phone tree and reading manuals that everyone agrees could be much improved.
Hey, Mr. 3rd-World, get mad at Dell, not me!
you might point out the health-and-safety aspects of this issue to your 'employer'
Actually I can't think of a job with FEWER dangers than handling customer complaints by phone. I'm sure a jury of cops, construction workers, soldiers, healthcare workers, sports referees, etc will be shedding tears for your "anguish."
Heck, the judge has a vastly more dangerous and stressful job, too.
In my eyes thats the way it should be customers have no right to shout to an employee no matter how angry they are.
Actually I can't think of a job with FEWER dangers than handling customer complaints by phone
You shouldn't discount the effect from stress when working in such an environment. Yes it is safe in a physical sense, but it can still be damaging to employee health in the medium to long-term.
Yes, you can have a policy to hang up on the person, but don't forget that if you do that, you've lost them as a customer. The ones that complain the loudest are often very good customers, and often loyal customers. If they didn't care, they wouldn't complain, they would just move on.
A customer complaint is an opportunity. Handle it well, and you can increase loyalty and confidence in your company. It is worth your while to get past the initial angry reaction of the customer, bring them into a constructive discussion, work to solve their problem and address their complaint.
Here's an interesting article about customer service I read a few days back:
[joelonsoftware.com...]
The article is mostly a not-too-subtle subliminal advert for the company in question :) but the concepts themselves are well-defined (in particular, see the "Practice puppetry" section).
- the people you deal with on the phone are the "dregs of humanity" (you plainly despise them)
- your superiors are "'right on' people in woolie jumpers", which you seem to infer means they are by definition not capable of much
- people who buy from QVC are "Wayne and Wanyette types"
Could it be that you are just not in the right job? Perhaps you are temperamentally unsuited to dealing with the public, especially in what sound like pretty fraught situations? It isn't something that everyone can do easily or comfortably
Being a CSR is definitely not everyone's cup of tea: not mine for a start.
But even angry customers should remember that you are human too. (When I am cross and have to call up to complain, if I find myself losing it then I remind the CSR and myself explicitly that it is the company that is incurring my wrath not the CSR person.)
Our local train company and London Underground now has signs up saying that if you abuse their staff then you'll be prosecuted. Damn right too. If you abused a stranger on the street you'd be in trouble, so why should you be less so for doing it to someone who can't easily walk away because it's their job.
Stress kills people. Shortens their lives with strokes and heart attacks and alcohol or drug abuse. Some people commit suicide. Abusing people is not acceptable, even if you are a customer and you are angry with the person's employer.
One of my happiest moments was telling a particularly idle and rude customer that if they could not be bothered to do the slightest thing to help themselves (or be polite) then we couldn't be bothered to have them as a customer. I was personally something like GBP30/month better off for having gotten rid of them...
1) Clearly if you stress easily you should avoid CSR roles.
2) You are doing very well if you can ignore your feelings and overcome the customer's anger and get them somewhere positive.
3) But if the customer is abusive and your employers are unsupportive then THEY are in the wrong.
4) CSR generally hears less from the happy sane customers than from the angry sociopathic cranks. And some businesses will attract more cranks. Discount TV shopping quite possibly attracts a higher-than-usual proportion of the feckless with antisocial tendencies spending their social security money and lacking other outlets to vent their frustration or the will or insight to improve themselves.
Rgds
Damon
So my question is to you all, given the dangerous nature of the job do you all think my behaviour was acceptable? Or do you think that I behaved rashly?
You reacted to the situation with the best means available to you, so there's really no right or wrong answer to this question. As far as damage control with your employer, as has been said your position should be that you were not adequately trained to manage such a customer and it should fall on their shoulders to establish acceptable company policies to deal with these situations.
Some people just naturally have a way of diffusing an angry customer, or if it comes to it, telling them to pound sand in such a way that the customer walks away thinking that pounding sand was their idea. :-) It's definately a talent, not all of which is learned. As has been said, if you can't manage this sort of customer, perhaps you should pursue another line of work that captializes on what you are good at.
Personally I'm with percentages - I am in the position that if someone is being unreasonable, it is well worth returning their money for the privilege of putting them in their place, when deserved.
Unfortunately, as an employee you're not in that position. Live and learn, I guess.
dregs of humanity - Well yes they are. In the last two years Ive dealt with couple who murdered their handicapped son because he was too much effort to look after. Police couldnt prove which one had done it so they got off scot free.
<snip extreme examples of dregs>
Dregs, mate. Only term for them.
I have now quit, in one week ill be free.
Thanks all for your comments its been an interesting mix.
[edited by: lawman at 3:23 pm (utc) on Feb. 24, 2007]
She never imparts details but has provided some general ideas of the kind of insanity she must face day to day - both my wife and I agree, we could never do this. It takes a special type of person to deal with people, to go through a day providing rights and services to someone who probably doesn't deserve it.
You are right in moving on, like many of us this is not the job for you. Look at it as another turn in your life to guide you in the direction you must go, to find what you ARE good at.
We really do not ALL have to be good at EVERTHING, as rocknbil says.
Hope the end result is that you get a better job.
And do consider reporting your (ex) employers to H&SE if you think your co-workers need the support. Don't let poor management get away with bad behaviour without penalty, and don't let your fellow staff suffer.
Those who cannot or will not do the right thing for its own sake need to be trained instead, like dogs. (IMHO)
Rgds
Damon
