Now that I’ve gotten to where I am, a lot of people come to me and ask for advice, and the most common question is, “What steps should I take to be a successful customer service agent?” And the first thing I do is ask them back, do you mean someone who likes to do a little customer service on the side once in a while? Or do you mean a real, full-time, support-yourself type of customer service agent? Because there’s nothing wrong with the former. A lot of people enjoy it as a hobby. They get an outlet for serving customers once in a while and that’s great. That’s great.
But if the person wants to pursue customer service with real earnest intent, the conversation gets more serious. “You have to really want it,” I tell them. Of course they all say they do, that they really want it.
There’s a difference, I find, between people who are really cut out for life as a customer service agent and those who will be dilettantes forever. The real customer service agents out there…you can always tell who they are, because they absolutely have do it. They’re driven by this deep, unaccountable need. In some sense they’re unable to do anything else. If there aren’t customers around, they’ll talk to their cat, or the wall, and ask them to confirm their address or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Another question I get is, “how do I get started?” News flash! You don’t have to ask anyone’s permission. You give yourself permission. There’s a customer service agent inside you waiting to talk to customers right now, and if you don’t listen to that voice, that urgent voice inside of you–the voice that, when you’re sitting on the bus next to a sad-looking man, wants to ask him if he’s tried turning his cable box off and then turning it back on again–then how are you going to live with yourself? What are you going to tell your grandkids about your life?
Next question. “What school should I go to? What classes should I take?” These often seem like tough decisions at first. There’s all these new exciting fields being developed–customer service for children, customer service for robots–and teaching them all is a whole industry these days. There’s an old joke that says you can make more money teaching customer service than you can actually doing customer service. Not that there’s anything wrong with teaching, of course. Teaching is great. It’s really great.
I do caution against specializing too early, though, before you’ve found where you really sit with your calling. Try sticking to the basics instead. Customer service is best approached with the kind of informed, yet open mind that only the traditional liberal education can develop. At first, everyone wonders why they need to know about Chaucer to do customer service. Then, years later, when they’re in the thick of a long, complex customer service call, it all comes back, and they understand why they learned it. Why it was so important.
Then there are the workshops, like the famous El Segundo Customer Service Workshop. Every so often a debate flares up about them: “They’re just training all of our customer service agents to talk alike!” the critics will say. I understand where the concern comes from. We’ve all experienced those overly workshopped calls, where you can tell the agent has hemmed and hawed for a long time over the best way to pronounce “BankAmericard®” while failing utterly to capture any sort of fundamental truth of the human condition. Still, I would say there is value to the workshop experience in the sense that it forces the developing customer service agent to come to terms with their own voice. Too many young people are in love with themselves, in love with the sound of their own voice, and the workshop is where they can hear it played back to them– literally, like recorded and then played back. Isn’t that always a trip, how different your voice sound recorded?
Anyway, you can’t expect the workshops to give you some magic formula or trick. There’s no shortcut for greatness. So when someone tells me they’ve been working hard but are still struggling to achieve their dream of becoming a customer serviceagent, I say to them, when’s the last time you upsold someone on overdraft protection for their checking account? Last week? Last month? Are you servicing customers right now? No? Well, why not? Don’t even answer that question. You’ve got to stop… making… excuses. Get over yourself and just do it. Serve customers every day, serve customers on good days, on bad days, even if you can only answer forty or fifty calls. That’s still something. No customers around? No telephone? Answer calls in your head. If you’ve read my autobiography, you’ll remember that’s how I got started, rocking myself to sleep whispering “before we begin, I’d like to remind you that the call may be recorded for quality purposes,” over and over. Just do that and guess what? Before you know it, you are a real customer service agent. The trappings of the position that everyone loves to fetishize–the headset, the keycard dangling from a lanyard–those come naturally later. Don’t worry about them for now. Just focus on doing good work and those things will come. Trust me on this.
We’re getting to the end, here, so I’ll really level with you all. There’s so much talk about the right way to do customer service, the best way to do it… how all the famous people do it. So many theories and, frankly, bullshit flying around.
But the truth is, in the end it will always come down to just three things: you, the customer, and the service.
Later on you’ll gain the accolades and the awards, and those are nice, but they’re nothing special. Nah. They’re nothing compared to the real rewards: self-knowledge, wisdom, and above all, the journey. The journey of the customer service agent.
Tags: business, customer service, humor, jobs, matthew s burns, work
When you can’t get a song out of your head, it’s because your inner customer service voice has put you on hold. But your call is very important to her.
It’s been my experience that many people think they are super good at customer service whether they are looking to enter customer service or change positions within. It has also been my experience that this is a bullshit misconception.
The day that I don’t have to work a service job anymore will be the greatest day in my life.
Breaking into customer service these days is all about whether you have a family with the money to back you up while you spruce up your resume with unpaid customer service internships. If you don’t, you’ll probably have to fall back on something dependable that pays the bills, like arts or entertainment.
DO WHAT YOU LOVE, RICH WHITE PERSON!
I fully believe that this kind of dedication to garbage, bullshit jobs will be expected in the near future, as the robots take more and more of our jobs. I’ve already been expected to express so much stupid enthusiasm about so many dumb, dumb jobs. Why do I want to put labels on things for 8 hours a day? BECAUSE IT’S MY GOD DAMN LIFE’S PASSION WHY DO YOU THINK?
I know this is a joke piece, but I actually do have a part-time customer service job that I do partly because I enjoy it (the other part is compensation). Of course, that doesn’t mean it never drives me crazy, but when you only have to do it a couple of days a month, you can appreciate the simplicity of a routine call and the satisfaction of a job well done.
I have been trying for years to break into a customer service job, but to no avail. I thought that I could work my way up from the bottom, but here I am 7 years later at the same company in the same dead-end managerial position.
I feel like I’ve more than demonstrated that I have what it takes to succeed. I mean, sometimes when I’m running a meeting, my subordinates will have concerns. They’re kind of like customers, right? And I’ll reassure them that everything is fine and then we’ll move on with my agenda.
But I guess that’s not enough for the higher-ups – they don’t think I have what it takes! Do you know how many actual customers I deal with on a daily basis? Zero. How can I prove that I’m capable of working with customers if I never get the chance to work with customers?
And that’s really all I’m asking for: a chance. Put me in the game, coach, and I promise I’ll do you proud.
"'It's something they use in coal-mining, father!' You're all bloody fancy talk since you left London."
I cannot overstate the importance of Chaucer to customer service.
Just when I was starting to think people didn't quote Python anymore.
I’m currently in the finishing stages of a PhD in a discipline for which I’ve long since lost all passion. I’ve known for years now that a career in academia will not be for me. I don’t know what comes next, then.
I’m finding all my career priorities have shifted. Creativity, challenge, fulfillment? PSHAW! I can get those in other ways (volunteering, video games, and drinking). When it comes to a job, I want do do moderately enjoyable work for an organization whose goals and processes I don’t consider evil, but I want to be able to leave it behind at the end of the day. I don’t need a lot of money. I do want to have nice co-workers. And…. I like customer service.
There; I’ve said it. I like making small talk with strangers, helping them in some not particularly significant way but hopefully making their day a little more pleasant. I actually think I want a customer service job. When I tell people this, they either look at me like I’ve grown another head, or they get very, very sad. Life: I’m doing it wrong, apparently.
Except for the finishing a PhD part, this description fits me to a T. I work two low-level customer service jobs and people refuse to believe me when I tell them I like it that way just fine. I have flexible schedules, enough money to live on, zero stress when I leave at the end of the day, and enough mental and physical energy to pursue my real passions on my time off. People are always telling me I’m too smart for my jobs or I could be doing so much more with my life and I just want to say, “what, like you are? But all you do when we are together is complain about how much you hate your job/boss/coworkers/stress, while I (mostly!) enjoy my work and get to leave it “at the office” and have a completely fun and fulfilling life outside of my work.
I genuinely enjoy my jobs most of the time. Like you, engaging in small talk with regular customers and trying to bring a little bit of pleasantness to each person’s day is fun and rewarding for me in its own humble way. I don’t mind at all that I don’t have a big fancy title or an “important” job, because with those things come a whole lot of stress and headaches and aggravation that I just don’t have the temperament to handle (I know, I tried and gave myself a nervous breakdown at age 30).
If that’s doing life wrong, then frankly, I don’t want to be right!
Hi, Cath, are you me? I finished my PhD a few years ago, did a postdoc for a couple of years…and then ditched the whole thing.
My first job post-academia? I sold midrange to middle-aged ladies at the mall, at a big chain that is currently going out of business. It was kind of aces. I actually really liked the problem-solving aspects of the thing–woman comes in wailing, “I CAN’T FIND ANY PANTS!” And I would help her find pants. Fulfillment!
People who help find pants that fit are doing God’s work. Don’t let anyone tell you any differently.
I'm currently in the finishing stages of a PhD in a discipline for which I've long since lost all passion. I've known for years now that a career in academia will not be for me. I don't know what comes next, then.
I'm finding all my career priorities have shifted. Creativity, challenge, fulfillment? PSHAW! I can get those in other ways (volunteering, video games, and drinking). When it comes to a job, I want do do moderately enjoyable work for an organization whose goals and processes I don't consider evil, but I want to be able to leave it behind at the end of the day. I don't need a lot of money. I do want to have nice co-workers. And…. I like customer service.
There; I've said it. I like making small talk with strangers, helping them in some not particularly significant way but hopefully making their day a little more pleasant. I actually think I want a customer service job. When I tell people this, they either look at me like I've grown another head, or they get very, very sad. Life: I'm doing it wrong, apparently.
Except for the finishing a PhD part, this description fits me to a T. I work two low-level customer service jobs and people refuse to believe me when I tell them I like it that way just fine. I have flexible schedules, enough money to live on, zero stress when I leave at the end of the day, and enough mental and physical energy to pursue my real passions on my time off. People are always telling me I'm too smart for my jobs or I could be doing so much more with my life and I just want to say, "what, like you are? But all you do when we are together is complain about how much you hate your job/boss/coworkers/stress, while I (mostly!) enjoy my work and get to leave it "at the office" and have a completely fun and fulfilling life outside of my work.
I genuinely enjoy my jobs most of the time. Like you, engaging in small talk with regular customers and trying to bring a little bit of pleasantness to each person's day is fun and rewarding for me in its own humble way. I don't mind at all that I don't have a big fancy title or an "important" job, because with those things come a whole lot of stress and headaches and aggravation that I just don't have the temperament to handle (I know, I tried and gave myself a nervous breakdown at age 30).
If that's doing life wrong, then frankly, I don't want to be right!
People who help find pants that fit are doing God's work. Don't let anyone tell you any differently.