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You've read it from the title. We'll talk about the unspoken words from a call centre agent, particularly to their customers. Sadly, call centre agents are not allowed to vent out their frustrations to their customers about the customers themselves because it's not allowed to do so. If they do it, they might get penalized or get sanctioned. That is why I made this blog to the customers in behalf of the call center agents.
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Call centre agents also experience a lot of insult and swearing from their customers so I think this is the right time to air out the voices of the agents. Customers have their frustrations and so do call centre agents. This is also the right time for customers to know how agents actually feel regarding certain situations.
Below are the unspoken words from a call center agent:
Unspoken words #1: We're just agents.
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Maam/Sir, it's not our fault if the phone, internet, application, ATM card, and other services that we are providing you that you are using is not working properly. It's also not our fault if it's broken or not. Because our job is just to help and provide you with the best resolution to your problem. If your ATM card has been debited by an unauthorized transaction, it's not also our fault. What do you think of us? THIEVES? We're just agents. Agents. We're sitting there in front of the monitor to help and assist you and we had no idea about your problem before you even called us, so why shout at us all of a sudden?
Unspoken words #2: Why don't you listen to us?
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We always do our best to assist you, reach out to you, and give you advice but you don't listen to us. You always keep on nagging (and nagging) about your problem with the service that our company is providing and when we try to advise you, you always interrupt and say your problem again (and again and again). You always interrupt and complain when we try to start to advise. How can we help you if you don't want us to help you? Where's the logic?
Unspoken words #3: We're not idiots.
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Just because we were not able to help you and were not able to follow your instruction as what you requested, that doesn't mean that we're idiots. Some of us have already experienced this kind of mockery even we before became agents so you're not the worst mocker in the world. But why would you call us idiots? Is it because some of us speak in Broken English? And you're the perfect speaker in English? Remember, some of us have extraordinary talents in singing and dancing so don't call us idiots!
Unspoken words #4: You don't care at all about us.
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I sometimes think customers can be so selfish. However, this is not true to all customers. It's just that there are customers who think that they can stomp on the agents anytime they want and who think they can do anything that they want to the point of hurting the agent assisting them. To those type of customers, Sir/Maam, we're not your dolls, we are agents. And we can quit the job anytime we want just to show it to your face that we can easily abandon you. And to think that it's only you who we need to serve? Excuse me, there are still other customers who treat us better so we better focus on those customers rather than you. You should also know that you're paying us but if you have no agent to assist you, your money is still of no use, so you should still treat us with respect no matter how much you think we are in a lower position than you are.
Unspoken words #5: We don't know English?
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To those of you, customers, who tell us that we don't know English just because we were not able to get what you said to us for the first time, is it wrong to ask if you could say again what you said just because your voice is inaudible on our line? Why don't you fix your line or try to make your voice louder? Because we're not honestly super agents. We can't undertstand you if your voice is in a low volume. And, we know English, although some of us say it in a broken way with minor lapses in the usage of grammar, but we still know English because our call centre company chose us to be part of their team because if we don't know English, they wouldn't have accepted us. Where is your logic? Right?
And don't think that you're intelligent just because you can speak English fluently because to speak English fluently is not the only way to prove intelligence. Remember, not all people who speak English well are successful and not all people who don't speak English well are not successful.
Unspoken words #6: Who gave you the right to insult us?
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You're just listening to our voice when we're assisting you, and you don't know how we actually look like. You call us stupid? You're just adding more burden to us. Some of us possess physical deformities so how dare you call us stupid just because the service of our company is disappointing you? Yes, you can get angry at us but why call us names? If we can just open our eyes and lash out back at you, we could have done that, big time, but we can't because we have Quality Analysts. Oh you don't know Quality Analysts? So, just close your mouth and quit saying that we're just sitting in front of the monitor because you don't know anything about us.
Unspoken words #7: It's not true that we have kept you waiting for long.
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When anyone of us would be able to pick up the phone after 20 minutes of you waiting on the line, we apologize for that. Then you would tell us that we're just sitting in front of the monitor and we answered you late. Wait Maam/Sir, that's the moment when you're wrong. It's not true that we're just sitting in front of the monitor. Then you complained that you've been waiting for 20 minutes. Maam/Sir, it should have been our break from work one hour ago but we were not able to go on break because too many customers were waiting on the line and many of them before were irate and you'd be the next irate customer. You're just adding to our burden. Our customers before already lashed out at us and even you will? You can't even imagine the hardships and burden we had gone through. And some of us were actually supposed to be on our rest day but we are not able to because the company asked us to go to work so we're doing you a favour, but why would you shout at us like we're the biggest criminals in the world? We're not supposed to catch all your insults because we're on rest day, but we are because we are serving you on purpose. So you don't know that? I have one more lesson for you. Always be cautious when demeaning an agent, because you never know if he's on a rest day.
If only call centre agents are able say this to their customers:
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Despite it all, difficult customers are still customers, that's why:
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These are the unspoken words from a call center agent. I hope as a customer, you were enlightened by a call centre agent's work life.
