A few days ago, former banking customer support employee and Reddit user Realistic_Sorbet2826 recounted a particularly memorable phone conversation she had with one of the clients.
In a post on r/MaliciousCompliance, the woman recalled the interaction with an irate lady who, after failing to provide a necessary information update for her account, demanded “never to be called again.”
Unable to get another word in, the Redditor agreed. But little did the lady know, her hostile behavior would immediately backfire.
Call center employees have to have nerves of steel
Image credits: asierromero / freepik (not the actual photo)
And this story is the perfect example why
Image credits: Antoni Shkraba / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Realistic_Sorbet2826
Poor customer behavior doesn’t automatically mean they’re a bad person
Such outbursts are often driven by legitimate underlying forces.
Generally, people are pretty inflexible. But Reena B Patel, a San Diego-based psychologist and behavior analyst, says routines getting altered can unnerve us and spike agitation.
“When things are slightly off, or don’t happen the way we expect, it causes natural anxiety,” she explains.
A long line at the coffee shop, for example, might have a domino effect, threatening the rest of the day.
It may seem like no big deal, “and people may not realize that’s what they’re stressed about,” says Patel. “But internally, that’s what’s happening. You walk into a restaurant for breakfast thinking you’ll get seated in 15 minutes and instead, you’re waiting 45; now, your whole routine is shifting, and the stress is building up.”
This, according to Patel, creates a powder keg that doesn’t need much to blow – as pressure accumulates, some minor inconvenience can prove the final straw.
While we don’t have all the details, the fact that the woman answered her phone while she was out in public, likely preoccupied or rushing, may have intensified her frustration.
However, when you’re contacted by someone who is managing your financials, it’s probably best to pay attention.
Tom Blok from the online customer service management portal complain.biz, says the idea in these difficult situations “is to shift the customer’s mindset from simply expressing dissatisfaction to thinking constructively about what they want as an outcome.”
“By thinking about a solution, customers often realize the practicality or impracticality of their demands, which leads to more realistic and achievable resolutions.”
But this woman didn’t even allow the author of the post to finish her sentence.
In part, service workers also become targets for people’s pent-up bitterness because they often do not have a lot of power.
Therefore, people can feel superior to them, and it’s much easier to punch down. “Even though we shouldn’t look at one occupation being higher in terms of a hierarchy than another, you naturally can fall into that trap and assume that [they’re beneath you],” says Patel.
Which definitely contributes to the fact that 47 percent of call center employees plan to leave their job within 18 months.
Many of those who came across the story found the situation to be questionable
Ultimately, it received all sorts of reactions
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