Customer Survey

You waited on the phone. It took you around forty five minutes before you finally spoke with someone.  By the time someone came to answer you. You were not in good mood anymore.

The person on the other end of the line tried to pacify you. Asked how he can be of help to you. But you kept ranting how long you waited on the phone. Reiterating the company has very poor service. With emphasis it, is not about the person on the phone but the poor service of the company.

Finally the agent was successful in attending to your concern. Issue was fixed. You received survey on your email. Your frustration for waiting on the line was still at the back of your mind. Time to get even, you answered the survey. The following day, the agent was coached by the team captain for the poor survey.

If you are a customer, be objective in answering survey.  You are not happy with the company. Fine, bombard the company with your comments that goes with the survey. But never put a poor  survey unless the person on the other end did not help you at all. Your survey goes to the person you spoke with, not to the company. 

Welcome Me Back World Wide Web

The days are passing by too fast. It is July now, half of 2017. Few more months, everybody will busy again shopping for Christmas presents.  So what have I been up to?

There are so many things that happened in the month of June. My brain is too busy to think of one topic to write. I have yet to mention, I was on training again last end of March as chat tech support.  I thought I know how to communicate though chat, having chatted before with some online friends. But I was wrong. Casual conversation is different from business conversation. One of my struggles is how to pacify an irate customer through chat. At least if I am speaking with customer through voice call. The customer on the other end of the line can hear the tone of my voice.

From April to May I struggled with dissatisfied, surveys.  Oh no, I did not make my customers upset. There are many ways customers would give dissatisfied ratings on a survey. One is they would wait on the queue for so long. Their time is precious like anyone else.  Sometimes some company procedures and policies they are not aware of. Services outage is another one.  Who would want to lose phone or internet connection just when the service is needed most. They would take the survey, not knowing the survey would fall on the agent they chatted  or spoke with.  Hopefully soon as June scores will be tallied. I hope to pass.

Yes, we do have monthly scores. In some call centers, if agent is not passing the monthly scores repeatedly.  The agent could be transferred to another department. Worst scenario the agent could be terminated from the job. In the company I am working. If we do not pass the yearly average we will not get salary increase. I am hoping for the best to pass this 2017 for another salary increase.  Some people may say working in a call center is easy. Call center companies do not require four year college degree. Not really. Try to apply and see for yourself. This is the kind of job where you will be technically and analytically challenged. 

Cooler Weather for January 2013

We are getting cooler weather in Manila, Philippines this month of January. The lowest temperature we had was 18 Degrees Celsius. On my day off from work, I would open the door to the terrace of my apartment and enjoy the cool breeze at night. The river close by is adding cooler temperature. I hope this kind of temperature would last long. But our weatherman says it could only last until around the month of March.

Our Health Department however had warned for possible ailments due to cold weather. Some of them could be common colds, flu, arthritic triggers and other sickness to be brought about by cooler temperature. My thanks to health authorities for the reminders, health conscious guys and gals should better watch out. I would say, no matter what kind of weather we have, we have to look after our health. After all, as the saying goes health is wealth.

Home Hobby

Whenever I am on day off from work I would slumped on my red couch to watch television for early morning or evening news. Mostly not good news, but at least I am updated with what is happening around Manila, the entire Philippines and other countries as well. 

My television is the first appliance I bought since I started working at the Call Center. I call it call center baby.I still do not have cable as I am still debating what provider to choose.  Well, I guess not a priority for now. It is alright, I have access to international news anyway through internet.

The Busy Month of May

May had been an extremely busy month for me. After my sister left I attended work related training. The training was not on schedule. I had to make some adjustments. The training was about the new scheme in our monthly score metric. Our score is measured monthly in terms of attendance, customer survey, monthly exam etc. Have I not mentioned working in Call Center is very challenging job? If you want to be part of the industry, be prepared to pass the monthly scoring or the bosses would call your attention. Worst scenario, they will advise you to try another industry. The positive way of saying, you resign. The training lasted for three weeks.

Mothers Day was allotted to my parents. I visited my parents on their resting place. My father joined the Creator May 11, 1999 mother was September 8, 2010. Mothers Day was May 13. The caretaker was just happy to see me. I gave him my monthly dues for taking care of my parents resting place. I seldom visit the place, only on special occasions. I hope father and mother could still hear me when I talk to them in my mind. We, their four children are fine, as well as their four beloved grandchildren. Hmmmm, runaway imagination, but who knows I made them happy by telling them so.

A Whole New World

Mid Feb this year the account I was into, announced they are closing their Manila Call Center. I felt sad for a while. It was the very first account I had, ever since I worked with a Call Center. Our office had the account for almost ten years. No one would ever thought after so many years we are going to lose the account. Luckily the company I am working for have several captive accounts. I was endorsed to other account. Passed the interview, started training 21^st of March.
 

My first account was an electric provider in the United States. I had work as a Customer Care agent for five years. A service agent, until I passed the Lead training for escalation. As a service agent I handle all types of calls. Be it an enrollment, billing and other residential electric inquiries from the customers. When the account announced they will close their Call Center in Manila. I thought maybe I would be endorsed to the account handling same customer care concern.

A New Beginning

Folks, there is another side of the story I have not told you yet. After my lead training for escalation agent was concluded in mid February this year. While my co trainees and I were in the process of getting ourselves used to answering escalated calls, we had a general assembly. At the general assembly or simply a general meeting we were informed the electric company that hired our Call Center will no longer renew their contract with Manila, Philippines Call Center. 

Did I worry about becoming jobless? To be honest, yes. However, all of us were given assurance by the Call Center we are working for, we are to be transferred to other account. Lucky for us, the Call Center we are working for has several accounts. Some of the accounts are in the process of hiring employees. I was first endorsed to a gaming account unfortunately I did not pass the tech exam. 

Stepping Forward

Today, I received congratulatory message I passed my interview and written examination in my application for Account Supervisor position. My training starts tonight until Friday this week. After the training I will be a member of Account Supervisor Group (ASG). As a member of ASG, I will be handling or getting escalated calls from front line Customer Care Representatives (CCR).

Before some of you get dizzy with what I am writing here. Let me explain to my new comer blogger friends. I work for a Call Center of an electric provider in one of the States in the United States. The electric provider has Call Centers in the US, Manila Philippines and some are located in Central Latin American countries. When a customer dials the customer hotline of the electric provider, whoever is the available CCR, gets the call. Meaning either the customer gets routed to Manila, in the US or in Latin American Call Centers.

Greener Pasture

My friend resigned from our office for shall we say a greener pasture with another Call Center. She is fondly called Mommy J by most of our officemates. Her name is Juliet, the ever loyal partner of Romeo. She had been with our Call Center for almost five years. I know it is not easy for her to go. I had invited her for lunch and we had a wonderful time together. Our officemates and I felt sad of her resigning but anyway we are still neighbors. She is just a text message away.

I had many fond memories of my friend but my unforgettable is us having breakfast at one of the restaurants one morning after work shift. I guess you would agree with me when you have someone you are comfortable being with. The two of you would never run out of stories to tell. After the sumptuous breakfast we gathered our things and went out of the restaurant. We were slowly itching away from the restaurant. Continuously laughing and sharing the stories I could not remember the topic, when suddenly Juliet said. "Hey! We forgot to pay!"

We rushed back in to the restaurant. We were met by a smiling waiter at the door. We immediately went to the lady cashier apologized for inadvertently going out forgetting to pay. We laughed and laughed until we were almost crying narrating to the lady cashier what happened. The lady cashier was thankful we remembered saying had we not came back. They will pay for what we ordered. Gosh! I just could not think of the humiliation, had the cashier sent someone after us. I guess she did not because we are regular customers of the restaurant.

To my friend Juliet, I will always remember all those happy days we had. Wishing you ALL the BEST at your new place of work!☺

Fright Night

We had a little celebration of Halloween at the office. It was last 29th of October night. Our Call Center has several captive accounts and our bosses had the idea of having a Halloween contest for all accounts. The team of our entry is about a murder that happened long, long time ago in the U.S. I did not read the script. I just saw a film clip being played while I had my headset on talking with a customer. During the dramatization when the judges were inside our office there was someone who screamed at the top of her lungs. The customer I was talking with asked me “What is happening? What is that screaming sound? I apologized to the customer saying we have a Halloween party at the office. 

Here are some photos I took from mycell phone. Sorry folks. I took these with less light. My brain was too busy to think of bringing my camera at work. The organizers of the contest had to turn off some lights while waiting for the judges. The dead tree looking thing is huge pillar wrapped with black plastic trash bags. Attached to the pillar that looked like dead branches are rolled newspapers painted with water soluble paint and water colors. The young lady in black blouse had black eye shadow make up all over her face. Both white lady and black lady were giggling when I took their photo from my cell phone. 

Kudos to our office managers and team captains who designed a simple less costly decoration for the contest! Win or lose they offered us some excitement for the night. 

Happy Halloween! ☻

Off to Work Today

Speaking of Christmas shopping, my apology to the daddies and mommies who do not want to think about the occasion yet, yes some of you are correct it is too early. However, the reason why I shop early is because of pre-Christmas discounted sales. I guess some of the malls in Manila are trying to dispose some of their stocks to replenish with new ones. Manufacturers instead of taking the items back. They sell the items at discounted price. I developed the technique of scouting for items that might go on sale. I checked on the original price of the items.

During mid night madness, it is how we call it here. Malls are open until twelve midnight during the sale. That is why it was called midnight madness. When the items go on sale I tried to check how much they are being marked down. I noticed mall owners had been wiser this time. They would only get few stocks and would reorder when needed. Before, I could buy books for as low as seventy percent mark down, now not all the books go on sale. If all of them do, only up to twenty percent off. Budgeting? Count me in, folks. Well, just being wise when it comes to spending.

Today, the 30^th of August is Philippines National Heroes Day, and therefore it is a holiday. No work for those that goes to the other offices at daytime. Not me, I got work. Call Centers do not have work Holiday. We do get additional pay though when we work on Philippines Holidays. I received a text message from our team captain at work that we have to render at least one hour overtime today. I replied okay, count me in. Hush! I do not want to frustrate him in exchange of my remaining vacation leave. I want him to approve the vacation leave at the latest next week. ☺

Let Them Hear You Smile

Being a customer care representative (CCR) in a Call Center, your best asset is your voice. I am not saying you need to have a well modulated voice. I agree, not all of us are gifted with a voice that could qualify for a disc jockey. In simple words, let the caller or the listener on the other end of the line feels welcome. That is by giving the best tone of your voice. Apologizing to customer for making them inconvenience only becomes meritorious if the CCR has the proper tone of the voice. The tone of the voice must suggest or gives a good impression to the listener that sincerity is well conveyed. 

Can they hear you smile?

I had written about my not so good experience with my internet provider in my earlier post. I had disconnects of service for several months at no fault of my own. I tediously waited on the long queue to get a tech support to attend to my concern.  Despite the long wait. I did not let up calling. I never changed my provider. My main reason, there is someone on the other line who is willing to listen anytime of the day I would call. The person may not be competent enough to resolve my concern at the time of my call. The sincerity of the voice of the person on the other line is enough to convince me. I will get my concern resolved soon.

Customers are calling not merely to complain but to verify if they are welcome by the company they do business with. I know how difficult it is to be the front liner of the company we are working for. Listening to the same mantra may not be very pleasant to hear. However, think about if you are the  one calling and the person on the other line sounds so unfriendly. Your possible reaction the next time you call is to sever your tie with the company. Look for another one you feel comfortable dealing with. And, you feel welcome, whenever you have concerns to be taken care of.

“Everyday can be great, because anybody can serve. You do not have to have a college degree to serve. You do not have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart and full of grace. A soul generated by love ♥ ”
Martin Luther King Jr.