I finished high school not too long ago and when I graduated, I hadn’t fully decided on what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve taken the last couple years to work, save money, and decide which direction I was going to go. I came to the conclusion the other day when I needed to call a company’s customer service about an issue I was having with a recent purchase I had made of one of their products. I had dreaded the call and had worried how it was going to go. However, the customer service agent was great.
It wasn’t exactly a light bulb moment for me, but it was close. I had never really considered a career in customer service, but I decided to look into it. I am an easy-going person and keep my cool in stressful situations, which seems like a must in that line of work. What I found was that there were different avenues that I could go. There are customer service jobs within companies or at call centers, like KPI Connect, and each had its pros and cons (as with most choices).
As I dug deeper into my two options, I saw that working for a call center versus within a company would be the better choice. The reason for that is because I found that a lot of people who work customer service within a company have a higher rate of burnout. The stress level seemed to be higher as the company had only so much money towards customer service and didn’t always have the right equipment or enough staff to handle all the calls. The nice thing about working directly in a company’s customer service is that you were only dealing with that company.
When I looked at call centers, they already are set up with the right equipment, have ongoing training, you can specialize in a specific customer service avenue, less chance of burnout, and it was set up properly (not just stuck in the corner). So, I took the chance and took the training to be able to work in a call center.
The training was extensive, and I learned a lot about how to handle different situations and scenarios that I would be faced with when dealing with customers who may be ranging from pleasant to totally irate. I went through many courses about how to identify what customers may be needing and how to provide alternatives or solutions to the problem. Record keeping, memorization skills, up-selling, organization and proper communication were all things that my training provided and more.
When I started out, I honestly didn’t realize how much work goes into becoming a great customer service agent. However, I am glad that I was able to find my niche in this world and I enjoy using my skills at a call center that provides great customer service for businesses that need a customer service department, but don’t necessarily have the resources.
