Wednesday, March 16, 2011

A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down....


One of the hardest parts about my job is giving customers bad news. When a request for a credit comes back denied or a channel disappears, you have to remember to remain tactful when dealing with these people. I have come to find that it’s not what you say that’s the problem; it’s how you say it. When I first started working at the call centre I was a complete pushover and would apply credits or give in to anyone who raised their voice to me. Sometimes you have to say no though, and there really isn’t anything else you can do. Over the years I’ve gotten a lot better at breaking news gently to people, but what’s going through my head and coming out of my mouth are two completely different things.

For example,

“You need to learn how to pay your bill on time” will translate to “We have an automatic withdrawal program that will automatically take out your payment on the due date, that way you know your payment has been made”

“You wouldn’t have had 6 months of overcharges on your bill if you’d bothered to look at it once in a while” translates into “I’m sorry that you were overcharged, that’s why we print itemized statements for you and give you 30 days to dispute them, in order to ensure you’re never billed for services you don’t have”

And my personal favourite

“Go ahead and switch to our competitor, they’re going to shut you off when you don’t pay them as well” translates into “I apologize for the inconvenience, however, it is common practice among all utilities to interrupt service for nonpayment”

People don’t like to hear bad news, but when said in a way that shows you really do care about their situation, it makes it easier to get the bad news across. This article outlines the key factors to keep in mind when delivering bad news to people.

10 comments:

  1. I used to work in a call centre a while ago and can remember the disconnect between what you had to say and what you wanted to. This made me laugh, thanks Aisling!

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  2. Oh I have heard these lines a few times in my day lol

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  3. First of all, I would like to say how awesome your blog is! I love hearing the other side of the story. I've always wondered what they say about people after they hang up. I've had some bad experiences with people who transferred me 3 times and then gave me the wrong number to call so I had to call back and hold until someone could finally help me. Thank god you know what good customer service is.

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  4. Thanks for making this blog!! I was talking with some of my co-workers that it would be nice to have an space to express our "frustration" as agents because we can not say the customers what they deserve!!!. If you call in the day basis to the customer service of your bank, phone company.. please be gentile with the agent who is helping you, otherwise that person would not do anything to resolve your problem. You can raise your voice as much as you can, simply the agent will put the volume down and will start talking with the person besides him/her, without putting the minimun interest to help you. Golden rule, Never ever be rude with the agent in the call centre!!

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  5. Your point about it not being about what you say, but how you say it is a good life lesson. You can say anything to somebody as long as you say it in the right way. I can only imagine how aggravated you must get dealing with customers all day, and that it would be extremely difficult to always remember to be calm and polite.

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  6. This kind of reminds me about the movie Drag Me to Hell, not that something like that would ever happen in real life. I love your quotes at the end though, I work at Zellers and hate it when we get Walmart shoppers who just complain the whole time that they are in the store, I feel like saying just that to them.

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  7. I love reading your blog. But I can't imagine how hard it must be for you to deal with frustrating customers all day long. I don't think I would be able to have the patience that you seem to have.

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  8. I agree with learning to choose your words more carefully. I learned quickly that I needed to learn this skill when I first started dating.

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  9. The joys of dealing with the public ... some of whom want to blame everybody except themselves for the problems they have brought on themselves. I love the gap between what you're probably thinking and what you have to actually say to them.

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  10. I love your blog Aisling. Not only is it humorous, but you actually do make great points. Choosing your words and making sure that you are saying the right things will serve me very well in my career. I wish I could have an opportunity to improve on this because I will definitely need to put this to use in my future.

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