By Leonard Citron, M.A.
Thank you for calling, you are through to customer service, before I transfer your inquiry, I need to ask you some questions for security. Hmm. Here we go with the ridiculous questions. You know the type… “Can you tell me the name of your mother’s brother’s pet?” What’s the fourth digit of your memorable date? I’m fumbling, scanning my brain, trying to work out what number it was I had given them in the first place. To no avail. Frustration builds. Finally, once they have identified me based on these obscure questions, finally, they ask me “how can I help?” I start my story again, for the third time…
Recently, I had a situation with a well-known brand, infamous for its customer support capabilities. During the exchange, I had to repeat the same thing over and over, and over, again. Each time, the person on the other end of the phone seemed to understand less about what it was that I was asking. Finally, I asked to be transferred to a supervisor. You know what’s coming next. ‘Please hold while I put you through’. As they transfer the call, the line goes dead.
I feel it in my chest first, slowly, spreading down into my arms, and my jaw tightens. I have gone from naught to sixty with anger and frustration in under 5.6 seconds. Oh, and by the way, this is the second attempt at calling the same Call Center. Research indicates that you are six times more likely to have heart problems if you are an angry person. So, not only am I only aggravating myself, I am also potentially physically harming myself. Great. This just isn’t working for me anymore.
You can expect customer service to be good, it’s not an unfair expectation. But you can’t always expect that people will live up to those expectations. Adjusting your expectation, accepting (and preparing for) the fact that the telephone conversation could be challenging, helps you be more calm, and puts you in a better position to achieve what you need to during the call, while also saving you the stress.
We have to accept that there are going to be things in life that frustrate us. I wish this wasn’t the case, but it is. We all have our triggers. Half of the battle is identifying the trigger. What are you thinking that make you feels like that? Before we act on that frustration, it helps to seek perspective, and consider consequences. Ask yourself if that trigger is worth the anger, the passion, and the frustration? Does the upside outweigh the down?
Once you have acknowledged and prepared for your trigger, the good news is that you can manage it, by changing how you think about it. Identify the demand that you are putting on the situation. In this case, I was demanding that this customer “service” meet my every need, every time. Here is where perspective is one of your greatest weapons. Call center staff can be paid for the amount of calls they take, they are not always incentivized in the right areas (i.e., the client). They are forced to read a script and not allowed to deviate or think outside the box. They also have to deal with us- angry customers, over and over again.
Armed with a clear understanding of what you are thinking, you assess whether it is the most rational way to look at a problem. Would there be a way that would not cause you such angst and distress? What’s normally found is that we have very inflexible expectations. I admit that in some situations, where we know the situation has a remote chance of change, we need to lower our expectations, or have a more flexible why of thinking. That you’d like something but there is no law in the land that commands that you absolutely must have it.
Now before I even dial customer service, I accept I may have to repeat myself a few times and I’m prepared for it not to go as smoothly as I like. I am mindful not to rise to the trigger. This makes the whole experience less stressful, and when you do get that helpful person it’s an added bonus. I bet some of you are thinking I must be mad but try it – you may be surprised at how it makes call center hell into call center heaven.