[QUOTE=Otto]
You know, a couple of years ago I posted a thread in MPSIMS about some aspect or other of my customer service job that I really enjoyed. It sank like a stone and IIRC got zero replies. Everybody pisses and moans and declares me unfit when I start a thread about something irritating at work while completely ignoring the positive threads. Maybe everyone here doing the bitching ought to consider that this says more about them than it does about me.
[/QUOTE]
No, the fact that you bitch and moan about the most miniscule of irritations is what makes people think you are unfit for customer service.
So a customer gives you a piece of information that you don’t need. So you have to prompt them for their number. Big fucking deal.
You know what happened at my work today? We had just closed and were straightening up when we discovered that somebody had sprayed diarrhea all over the outside of the toilet and left without cleaning it up or telling anybody that there was a problem. That, my friend, is worth getting annoyed about. But none of us were really that annoyed. Customers suck sometimes. Oh well.
You know what happened yesterday? The customers were getting on my nerves. It was my first day back from vacation, and I had had a stressful morning. There were a zillion noisy kids in the store. The phone kept ringing. Everybody wanted everything wrapped. People kept asking me over and over and over how much things cost, even though there was a price tag right on the item. My coworker was taking care of some stuff so he wasn’t around to help. Yes, I was irritated. But I knew that it was MY PROBLEM!! I didn’t blame the customers. They were just acting like typical customers–mostly nice, but sometimes clueless or thoughtless or socially handicapped. I groused to my coworker about it a little, and he sympathized, and all was well.
The vast vast majority of potentially annoying stuff that customers do just rolls off my back. If it does get to me, I know that the problem is with me, and not with them. Sometimes, I do get angry with a customer, but that is because the person has done something outrageous. I can’t imagine getting angry or annoyed with people for the ordinary everyday crap that they do.
Sometimes I have to ask them twice or three times to sign the charge slip. Oh well.
Sometimes they give me confusing and contradictory explanations about how they want things wrapped. I ask them to clarify. No problem.
Sometimes they tell me their whole life story and the whole life story of whoever they’re buying a gift for, and they do it while I have other people waiting on line and eleven other things to do. I just do the best I can to keep things brief and move right along.
And sometimes, if I need to ask for a phone number, they say something like “can I give you my cell number?” And I say “Sure. What is it?” See, that’s all you have to say.
Oh, I don’t know why I’m bothering to write all this. Otto is just going to dig his heels in and insist that the problem is that some people interperet a phrase in a way other than the Absolutely Correct Way According to Otto.
