Have you ever tried getting someone on the phone for say, any reason whatsoever, only to drown in a sea of avoidance? And that is only if you are actually able to speak with a person and not another electronic bot.
I used to love customer service as part of my job as a Finance Counselor for a major online university. The other counselors dreaded verbally confronting their “clients”(students) over their outstanding balances.
Not me.
I loved speaking with students in debt, having been one myself at one time.
Unlike many of my coworkers, I never raised my voice in anger nor did I show any signs of frustration.
Why?
They didn’t owe ME any money; I was just asking if they would be so kind as to address their outstanding obligation to the university.
I knew they had no intention of addressing the matter any further than lying to me about it. I didn’t give a damn whether they paid or not.
One of my stock quips was “if this was the university of Mark, you would be attending here tuition-free.”
And I meant that.
Educators are underpaid to begin with, and their Continuing Education classes go on year-round.
The fact that I pretty much stayed stoned for the duration of my work shift with constant trips to the parking garage also contributed to my calm.
The irony of my unbeknownst-to-me effective collection system was that I showed the highest rate of repayment for my outstanding accounts.
I just gave them their dignity and spoke to them like people, and not delinquent account holders. I just told them to stall the hounds by making small payments—one as low as five dollars. The results were that my phone call talk time increased and people did not avoid my calls after we had the understanding that, in spite of all else, it was a part of my job.
After all that, I was totally blown away when, at the company picnic, I was awarded Counselor of the Year.
Best ever retirement job.
I would later be promoted to Academic Advisor and spent most of my day on the telephone helping students, teachers, and administrators with their academic requirements for certifications and licensures and progression through to graduation if they were enrolled in a degree program.
I met some friends that I still have to this day.
And I guess the lack of customer service is something that becomes hyper-obvious when you were raised in a service industry and you see it has become conspicuous by its absence.
That’s why it has become “refreshing” when I encounter exceptional customer service.
I once visited a steakhouse just before the dinner hour and ordered a nice thick Porterhouse steak which I ordered medium-rare. The bartender had just arrived for her shift and was cooling down glasses and stocking ice. There was one waitress holding a few menus and looking expectantly at the door.
She would be waiting like that for about twenty minutes.
Meanwhile, my steak came back a perfect, and I mean perfect medium rare so I asked the waitress to call the cook out.
I gave the kid a ten-spot as a tip and I thanked him for not only cooking my steak just right, but doing so at the slowest time in the kitchen. Those who have ever worked in a busy top-flight kitchen know it is way easier to stay focused on work when the tickets are rolling in than when there is one ticket on the wheel.
Stay well.
