Manning the phones is just SOOOOO much fun!

My final week of training is over, and we finished the week being let loose on to an unsuspecting public. We ran free without tethers! (except for the supervisor hovering in the background, ready to leap to our rescue, should we ever need it). The day went quite smoothly, especially considering some of the difficult situations we had come across during our "buddy" shifts.

Things like, distressed women who's husbands had just walked out on them, breaking down
and needing support. This is all part of what we do, but to be honest, I was glad I was not the one talking to her at the time. The CSR who was "buddying" me was dealing with the call, and thank God for that. I will take this moment to explain myself, before I get anyone upset.

I have a lot of customer service skills, and I think I am fairly compassionate. If someone is in distress, I like to think that I would be inclined, and able, to help out. To be able to do this, though, I need to be confident in my surroundings. I need to know what resources are available to me, and what avenues of action I can take without being told that I am going too far (lets face it, many organisations that are in a customer service industry don't really want their CSRs helping people). When you are new to an organisation, it can be very difficult for you to figure out where the boundaries lie. Now, as it turns out, my current employer has facilities and strategies in place to deal with this type of situation, and my "buddy" effectively showed me how it works. I am just glad that I was not on the call, simply because I did not know what was the right thing to do. I knew what the right thing was from a personal viewpoint, but not from the viewpoint of my new employer. Now, though, I do (and I will say that from a government department's point of view, the response it suprisingly good).

Another side point about the "buddy" sessions is that just about every single person in my office has their own way of doing things. I would think that people who work for a government department that is regulated by a swag of legislation would be required to do things all pretty much the same way. BZZZZT! WRONG! So many corners are cut, and all of them are different corners cut by different people. I find it unbelievable. Maybe after I have been here for years, I will be of the same persuasion, but right now, I don't see how some of the CSRs can be sure that they are offering the best service to fit with the customer's needs, if they don't get all the information that they can (and are officially required to gather). So you get shown one way to do it one day, and another, very different way the next. If their intention is to make you decide on your own, completely different way of doing things, then they have succeeded. I have decided to follow my own instincts, and follow procedures as they are meant to be followed. I know it may sound boring and unimaginative, but I have worked in too many situations where things can get very pear-shapped, very quickly if you don't get all the correct information when you can.

Anyway, towards the end of our solo flight day, the Hippie (mentioned in previous post) looked over the cubicle partition at me and asked how I was going, to which I replied: "To be honest, I'm over it already." She replied back with: "I know what you mean." We both found that we pretty much felt we had mastered the phone calls, and we wanted to be out dealing with customers face to face. Well, I guess we can dream. I know that we have at least a couple of weeks on the phones, and we have been told that our department does not reward initiative. So I guess we won't be able to show off our great customer service skills for some time.

Oh well....welcome to the Public Service.

DPS