Customers in 2011

Customer Service. A necessary evil.

Marni and I work for a company that operates online. The company is highly tech savvy behind the scenes, and very user-friendly for our customers to navigate through the website to complete their purchases.

The only time a customer will call is if they have a problem. Therefore, we have the pleasure of, for the most part, only getting phone calls from extremely unhappy customers.

Here are a few assumptions we've learned that our customers have about us:

1. We are incompetent.

2. We are 18 years old.

3. We are in India.

4. We won't be able to help them,
so they might as well come out
the gate kicking and screaming.

We've been cussed at, yelled at, insulted, hung up on, and so on.

You get the idea - Customer service is not for the faint of heart.

However.... something happened when the ball dropped at midnight on January 1st... something strange, something mystifying, something.... good. When we returned to work on Monday, January 3rd, there was a shift in the way customers talked to us. It was unmistakable. It was quite simply... too good to be true.

For the first time, maybe in the history of mankind, the customers were NICE to us lowly customer service representatives. They were happy, laughing, and smiling (you could hear it). It's like everything in the world was right in 2011. Birds were chirping, dogs were wagging their tails, and children were frolicking in meadows under the radiant sun.

...

Here's what customers were saying to us:

"Let NOTHING stop you from having a great day, Marni!!!"

We can't believe it!

"You made my day, Emily!!!"

"Oh my gosh! I can not thank you enough! Have an INCREDIBLE new year!!!"

"I hope you have the HAPPIEST NEW YEAR of all!!!!"

"Now put a smile on your face!"

[Marni laughs]

"There ya go!!! hahahahaha!"

It was amazing. We couldn't believe it! We actually looked forward to the phones ringing...just to discover what sweet words would tickle our ears next!

Unfortunately, this was very short-lived. After just one week, our customers are back to their old selves. We're not blaming them. It's the nature of the biz. We are all programmed to hate customer service...probably because by the time we've gotten to the place where we need their assistance, we're already frustrated...sometimes hopping mad.

So, it was fun while it lasted.

We'll end with this.... be nice to customer service. We're really not that bad!