The life of a call center agent has always been so tough. Whatever you may call them- Customer Care Associate, Customer Service Representative Technical Support Engineer, Technical Support Representative and the like, has always been, again, a wirlwind job. Those who are working for an international account who are on graveyard shifts, might be the hardest.
A lot of people may ask, why are you in that industry when you are a graduate of Engineering? (Yes, I am a Technical Support Representative on a local telco account)Reason? That I cannot even answer. But, let us not go into details of it. The point here is, how subscribers treat agents and how agents do that when they are the callers then.
Wondering what’s my point? Here it is.
For us, agents, we are the anger absorver of every subscriber. Siting an example just like on the account I work—a client calls the hotline, complaining that he/she cannot connect to the internet. Then agent would do checking, found that the reason is something to do with the serving site. And then, the client would go. “sh!t, bullsh!t, or maybe in Filipino – T@ng!n@ naman! Ano bang ginagawa niyo ha? Kailangan namin ng internet!” What kind of service are you giving us!” Worst thing would be when they would tell you that you are not doing your job. Or, when they would complain you after telling them about SLA’s of the maintainance in every serving sites. (SLA’s are the maximum time they would wait for their connection to be restored)
š¦
Sigh, such hurting words.
Almost every day there would be one (or even more than one) that would shout on you and would complain. But, as agents, you can’t complain. You just have to listen and even forget your ego and pride.
But the saddest part here is when fellow agents (working from other companies and accounts) would call hotlines for local accounts. Why I am saying it’s sad? Because the people that you thought would understand were those who wouldn’t.
Why? Because I’ve encountered it. A lot of times.
I once have talked to a man, speaking in english, and with such an annoying slang. During the conversation he said he is an agent also. He is so irate, complaining about the connection he can’t use. And when I told him about the maintainance activity on the serving site, he went more irate and is also saying bad words then. Even looking for a supervisor.
I don’t want to go on the rest of the story. But I think you know what happened right? I know most of the agents on our account have experienced my experience as well. It didn’t happened just once. It happened several times.
So that’s just my simple point here. The people you thought would understand, are the people that would even say more bad things about you. And since I am working on a local account, eto ang mas simpleng punto. “Sila na mga taong katulad ng trabaho mo, sila na nararanasan kung ano ang nararanasan mo, sila na namumura din ng subscribers tulad mo, sila na akala mong makakaintindi, sila pa ang mas aapak sayo.”
But life must go on. Sabi nga, sa buhay ng mga agents, lahat ng mura at masasakit na salita, dapat pasok sa isang tenga, labas sa kabilang tenga.
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