Mistakes and Sin (My call center experience III)

2015.9.18: Mistakes and Sin (My call center experience III)

S: 12:43am

E: 1:35am

I am writing in regards to yesterday’s call center experience.

I realize that there are some battles that I cannot win.  That there will be battles, calls, that no matter how hard I try, I still fail.  What can I do in those times?  Why has God placed me in a situation where there can be no victory?  I have not sinned, I made a mistake.  But, at that time, no, I didn’t make a mistake.  The customer I talked to seemed to be demon-possessed.  And I did, after the call, pray for him, prophyicied on behalf of him.  I declared that he will be a leader in the Christian church.  That he will be a disciple, a leader.  But now, looking back, I see that love and kindness is not enough.  Nothing I do or give is ever enough. 

So, from now on, I will seek to understand the issue.  I don’t care how mean or power-hungry that customer can be.  I will seek to understand the issue.  If the customer can’t explain his or her issue very well and gets angry, I will still seek to understand.  Seek first to understand, then be understood, right?  Well, in the call center world, that doesn’t really happen.  What is more likely to happen is the customer hangs up on you. 

There is nothing that I can do but there is everything that God can do.  I worry so much on my calls, it is stressing me out.  I worry about my CSAT (customer satisfication).  My supervisor and everyone it seems, stresses so much about that.  But, you know what?  That CSAT is based on people.  “Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”  I don’t want people to judge me; I want God to judge me.  Then, there is my stuttering.  No matter how relaxed I am, or seem to be, as soon as I get a call, I stutter, for seemingly no appreant reason.  I can’t help it.  Sometimes I make drastic hand motions to help.  And it is affecting my performance with my customers.  My fault in making customers dislike me has nothing to do with my sins.  No, I love my customers, I care for them, I can feel their hurt and their pain.  But, it has to do with my weaknesses.  I stutter, and customers already want to speak with someone else.  I try my best to understand their issue but I have difficulty because the customers during my questioning attacks me for trying to understand them.  And, in the end, I still don’t understand them.  Well, better to be mocked trying to do the right thing than to continue and be clueless. 

So, what can I do?  When I try so hard to speak clearly, to not stutter.  What can I do when I worry so much on when my next call will be?  I always try to follow the call flow so if that customer gives me a bad score, I might be able to challenge it.  But the challenging process, I can already say, is not justice.  Customers can give me 1’s straight across but if I don’t meet 80% of the requirements, I deserve a 1.  In the customer care environment, the customer is god. 

I am here embittered.  I’m at a loss of what to do.  Sure, I can take revenge and mess up their accounts, but I fear God.  I love them and they hate me.  I try to understand them and they dislike me. 

Indeed, there is nothing that I can do, but there is many things God can do.  I belive that God is the judge.  If the customer curses me or mocks me or gives me a bad survey, I believe that God will give me justice.  I pray that that customer can get to know God and be one with Him. 

I try to take every call with a humble spirit.  But it doesn’t work all the time.  With a loving spirit, but love does fail.  I want to cry, seriously.  I want to hug them and tell them why do they hate me.  Why am I working in a job where I can’t win? 

I try to be like a robot but I can’t because I stutter.  And I can’t be a robot anyways because I love and care too much.  I thank God that there are customers that are very friendly and also very vurlenble that needed my help.  I find that I do best, that I help custoemrs the best when they have a willing and humble spirit.  Custoemrs that have pride or think they know it all, or have a spirit of anger and hate, those customers tend not to have issues resolved.  I do, I believe, have a better track record of helping those customers and I do resolve many of their issues, but then there are those who get upset because you don’t understand them, no matter how hard you try. 

There are some calls when the call just went so badly that I wanted to evangelize.  I wanted to tell the customers that Jesus loves them and that God has a future and a hope for them.  I wanted to follow the God flow.  Lol. 

Some people may all me arrogant.  But I’m not, when I realize and know the supernatural power of Christ. 

In a negative environment and a negative atmosphere, curses are everywhere.  Customers say curses at you all the time.  They use you and they curse you.  Sure, it may not be your fault, it may be the previous representative’s fault, but many times, the customers don’t care.  They declare curese on you anyways.  I have to cancel and nullify those curses and replace them with God’s blessings. 

Do I need this job?  No, I don’t need this job but I want a job.  I’m not in absolute poverty, yet.  And, in the name of Jesus, I will be prosperous, for God has a future and a hope for me. 

I have the American and, more importantly, the Israeli flag in my workspace because power comes from the God of Israel.  Actually, the God of the nations.  And I have signposts that declare that “love comes from God” and “power comes from God.” 

Jesus, what I can I do?  What can I bring?  To so faithful a friend, to so loving a king.  I need to find more ways to give encouragement to my customers, to bring God into the conversation.

I remember one conversation, I told the customer that God will take care of them, and the timing was appropriate.  I told her I will pray for her son, who is 2 years old, and is suffering from a terrible disease.  She is so stressed out.  I tried to encourage her. 

For those mean and unrelenting and unforgiving customers, maybe I should deliver them.  I don’t care if I get fired.  I already tried twice to quit but the management won’t let me because according to their stats, I am a top performer. 

So what can I do when these unwinnable calls come?  When I am unable to speak due to my suttering and the customers ride over me?  I will take solace that God is the judge.  I will also make a double-effort to live a pure life.  I will also make a double effort to live a humble life, to be humble towards God and men. 

It’s okay if I make a mistake.  I just must not sin. 

It’s okay to make mistakes, just don’t sin. 

Sadly, in this world, people rate mistakes much more gravely than sin.  In fact, many people celebrate sin.  But, I am not of this world.  I belong to God’s world.  In God’s world, I can make mistakes, because I am failble, but I must not sin, and if I do, then I will confess and repent.  My intentions must be pure.

For definition’s sake, to me, a mistake is an error caused with the right intentions or without wrong intentions.  It can be lack of knowledge, or lack of skill or ability.  I can make a mistake speaking but that doesn’t mean I carry sin in my heart, I just have the human weakness of stuttering.  Now sin, on the other hand, is a mistake or error caused by the wrong intentions.  Differing weights and differing measures, but the LORD tests the heart. 

God will be the judge.

I hope I make many mistakes because the more mistakes I make, with the right intentions, the more I will grow.  I don’t care about mistakes.  What I do care about, and what God cares, is whether I sin or not. 

So, when I answer calls, I don’t care if I’m going to stutter or not.  I don’t care about my weaknesses.  What I do care about is where I love them, whether I love the person on the phone with me or not.  Whether I have the love of God or not.  Even if the customer hates me and hangs up on me because of my mistakes, God will take care of me.  I rather have customers hang up on me due to my mistakes instead of my sins.  I will do my best and let God do the rest. 

Don’t worry so much about your life, Steven.  And in life, I have made many mistakes, and many of them are attributable to sin, but the more I seek God, the more I will be healed.

Mistakes ineviablily comes from sin.  Without sin, if there is no sin in the world, there will be no mistakes, absent intentions or not. 

So Steven, you will make mistakes, but just do your best not to sin.  It’s ok to make mistakes, God will take care of you, just don’t sin.  If I don’t sin, I win.  

My Call Center Experience II

2015.12.4: My Call Center Experience II

12:10am – 1:14am

I have much to write, but I don’t have a lot of time nor probably the energy to write.  So, to make this count, I want to first write about my call center experience so far.

I have been working at Cox Communications through Xerox about three months now.  I learned a lot and I have many stores to share.

But the one story I want to share is a customer I talk to today.  The very last call.

Today was a busy day at the call center.  For some reason, probably because of winter storms and outages, I was getting almost none stop calls.  I have to use my 20 minutes of break time spaced out in 5.5 hours wisely.  I also get a 30-minute lunch. 

I was finishing helping a customer with cable issues when my supervisor told me if I can take one more call.  Overtime is a common occurrence at my job, so does leaving early when no customers call.  So I agreed.  I really wanted to just go home and relax and spend time with God but I decided to make the sacrifice to make one more call.

And what a call that was.

Before I go into it, let me share with you some difficulties that I face when making calls, and my strengths as well.  I think my chief weakness talking to customers is my speaking skill.  Despite speaking for all my life, I still stutter horribly when talking on the phone.  My stuttering is less when talking to people face-to-face and still less when talking to people I know and trust.  But every time I hear a beep on the phone, for some reason, my tongue just can’t say the word.  My brain knows what to say, but I just can’t say it.  Then sometimes my mind gets distracted and it makes the delay and stuttering worse.  “T-t-th-[slient th]-T-Thank you for calling Cox Communications.”  “My name is S-s-s-teven.”  “H-[slient ow]-How can I help you?”  Each one of those stuttering roadblocks is a barrier and for each call, I sometimes are able to bypass on those roadblocks, but almost never am I able to overcome all of them. 

I think to myself that “Love comes from God” and “Power comes from God.”  Part of the reason why I stutter is due to fear, due to insecurity, due to a fear of rejection.  I have very little power in my introduction because I was afraid; I was afraid of the unknown.  Right now, at my workspace, I have both an American flag on one side and an Israeli flag on the other.  Looking that these flags gives me strength and hope.  I plan to further decorate my workspace by putting WordArt “Love comes from God” on my left side and “Power comes from God” on the other.  Other agents put pictures of their family, or Cox Communications resources, but I will instead focus on inspiration. 

When talking to people on the phone, I feel like that is how Jesus felt during his life of ministry.  He gets persecuted, rejected, attacked, verbally abused, and so forth and that is what many customers do to us, and to me.  I practice humility and I have a genuine desire to help them.  But, back to Jesus, I would rather get attacked and abused for the sake of the gospel than for the sake of cable.  Nevertheless, working at a call center is a very good experience.  I am able to improve my speaking skills, to develop my small talk skills, my selling skills.  It has helped me in my life.  And I plan to use it for His Kingdom in the near future. 

Football is not my passion.  Oh no, I think I just said a bad word.  On Saturdays and Sundays, I got many football calls.  TV isn’t working so they can’t watch football.  How can I build rapport with them?  For all my customers, I follow my call flow which includes asking the customer how they are doing and showing empathy.  Like in the Army, I feel it is necessary to at least study a bit on what is going on in the football world so I won’t be seen as an outcast.

About five customers so far, during my three months, asked me if I was a robot after I finished my introductory phase mentioned earlier in the stuttering section.  I replied “No, I’m not a robot.  I’m a real person.  My name is Steven.” 

I’ve got a customer asking me if I can be their personal agent, since I resolved and helped them so well.  I told him no, that the structure of the call center doesn’t allow it.

I only have one customer, I think, that tried to use my stuttering to discriminate me.  That customer told me “I already want to talk to someone else.”  But I empathized with her and was able to resolve and program her remote as well.  During the whole time, she was demanding, demeaning, and mean to me.  I don’t know if I even got a “thank you” or maybe it was a hollow one.  Many times, customers not only use me, but just use me, without showing any gratitude, respect, or appreciation.  Many times, it is a thankless job. 

To work at a call center, I have to be at my best.  I try to give every customer my best and it is very demanding of me.  It is very mentally demanding and for the salary that I earn, I know I can get a better-paying job without spending so much of my energy, brainpower, and willpower.  It is a very stressful job.  Back in nesting, we took two 15-minute breaks.  But for me, I couldn’t do that.  I take mini-breaks between every call. 

In a way, I feel customers will treat me nicer and better if everyone had the same genuine spirit of helpfulness like me.  But no, I am wrong.  I’m not here to brag.  I have many weaknesses although few are of my choosing (add: I also need to continue to renew my mind, to avoid thinking evil thoughts and to focus on what’s important, in this case, the issue, when talking to customers).  I am good at troubleshooting, at working with the computer system, with typing.  Those technical aspects are my strengths.  And showing love to customers and to be genuine and to help them.  However, it leaves me exhausted. 

There are many more experiences and stories that I can write but I either don’t have time or don’t remember as of now.  Maybe by reading my call center experiences, one can already have some experience working as a customer service representative.  :) 

My last call, the call I volunteered, was crazy and intense.  To make the long story short, the customer demanded me to fix her cable TV instantly.  I checked the diagnostics and found that her area has an outage.  I told her what I can do.  I told her the technician’s name and estimated repair time.  I empathized with her.  I listened to her.  She was cussing and maybe even fussing.  She blamed the company and me (since I’m a part of it), about other representatives telling her that she needed miniboxes to get service, which was completely untrue as she already have cable boxes.  She added that Cox did the minibox trick to get more of her and other customer’s money.  I educated her on the reason why a customer would want a minibox.  I educated her on both analog and digital signals, on what kind of channels she would get.  And throughout all this time, she went back to the present issue of her TV not working and demanded me to fix the issue now.  I kept repeating to her, with love and kindness, the truth.  I told her honestly is the best policy and I don’t want to lie to her.  I repeated the technician’s name and the estimated repair time.  Then she would talk about other bad Cox experience issues like her bill or having to constantly call us.  I empathized on all her concerns.  I told her I also care about saving money and shared with her my experience.  This call was hurting my handle time and I was pressured by others.  I asked “permission to hang up” but my supervisor said no.  I mean if I do have permission, I will gently do so, like when Joseph was planning to divorce Mary before he knew the truth.  So I stayed with her and informed her again the estimated repair time.  She told me she will stay on the phone with me until the issue is fixed, which will be in another hour, at this point of the call.  But, throughout this entire call, I was at peace.  I was actually a little happy.  I felt her pain.  Towards the middle and the end of the call, she started to say “sorry” but then went back to attacking.  Then she told me that she is, actually, a nice person.  I believed her.  Listening to her, I felt she was wronged, deceived, and that she was made to be mean to us, but I felt in her heart, like me, that she was a nice person.  My supervisor’s desk was next to mine today, due to computer issues and seating rearrangements.  Other agents and supervisors were around, and perhaps trying to listen to my share of the conversation.  I told her at one point that I can’t do the impossible, that only God can do the impossible.  I thought about evangelizing but I knew that I would be in trouble if I do.  I thought about reading that Inner and Healing Deliverance book to her while we waited.  I tried to ask what she enjoyed doing and her hobbies and interests and she told me that her interest is for me to “get her cable working.”  I followed the organizations call flow.  In calls like these, it is imperative that I follow the call flow with building rapport, empathizing, educating, and so forth so if I get a bad survey from her, I can challenge it (if I reach 80% or higher from quality control).  In the end, she calmed down enough when I reassured her that our technical support is open 24/7 and that she can call us back in half an hour.  She finally agreed and the call was over.  My supervisor complimented me on my patience and gentleness. 

So, working at a call center is very intense and stressful, at least for me.  If every day working on the phones is like this (and many days it is), I would, honestly, rather quit or leave.  I already informed my supervisor about my intentions but he wanted me to stay, telling me that the team needs me.  But, my mentor told me that I deserve a better job, a job with less stress and with higher pay.  I already have a bachelor’s degree, so why am I working at a call center?  It was because I gave up too easily, my fear of rejection, and my perceived desperation for a job, that I chose it.  But God will give me grace and I am going to look for a better job.  Today was a victory but I really hope God won’t grant me such a victory again.  He will, and I have to persevere.