What do we all have in common? We want job satisfaction. We want to earn our pay doing something we enjoy and having a good time doing it. If you question people who have quit call centres, they often say the same thing “I met a lot of good people, made a lot of friends, but the job was horrible!” Many people find taking calls to be painful and frustrating. Do you spend your workday dreading each call? Do you feel anxious whenever you push the auto-in button? We hear a lot about moments of truth for the customer, but what about for the agent? Are the moments you spend on the phone excellent, mediocre, or miserable?

It is very easy to lose focus in this job. Between process, procedure, problems, and programs, we tend to forget what our role is. We get lost and irritated, angry and depressed, and we tend to put ourselves down: I’m only a phone agent; I just take calls; a monkey could do my job! We all think that way from time to time. What you need to keep in mind is what your job actually is.

We are specialists. We are specifically trained to provide help and support to our customers. When every caller picks up the phone, they are asking for help. They made a choice to call us, a choice to reach out for assistance, to dial that particular number which will get them through to us. They need us to assist them in some way and we are the only ones who can do so. And we are not only specialists in our technical areas, we are also a friendly voice, a caring soul, someone to rely on in a time of need.

At least, we can be.

We can also be mean, nasty, unforgiving and obnoxious. It depends on how we are viewing our job.

From the moment we answer the call, we have determined how easy or difficult the interaction will be. A terse `hello’ says “wadda YOU want?” A muttered request for a phone number translates as “I don’t really want to talk to you, please go away.” And a bright and sparkly `HI!’ means “I’m here, you’re here, let’s have a blast figuring this out!” Humans react to tone of voice. Positive tone makes us feel welcome. Negative tone makes us bristle.

This doesn’t just impact the customer. Our tone can sway our own reactions. The more bored you sound, the more bored you will get. The more you hate your calls, the more your callers will be angry, and the worse your calls will get. We push ourselves into bad moods and start loathing our work. Each moment slides further down the scale until every minute becomes misery for us.

We can change that by focusing on our moods and our role in customer service. The latter is easy: just remember that the customer called you. You are the one who has the information. You know more about issue resolution than the caller. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be calling. Treat every situation like a new chance to prove how good you are!

As for our moments: forget about process and policy, programs and problems. Ignore all the things which can frustrate you. Focus instead on what is really important: enjoying every moment. We can process 50 calls a day, or we can chat with 50 people. The choice is ours.

This is not rocket science. working in a contact centre is no different to any other job if you enjoy or dislike what you do.
We always hear about the attrition in contact centres and not the retention, I know dozens of people who have been on the phones for many years and love every second of it.
CC's and negative views seem to go hand in hand. Too many people managing contact centres have never worked in them and the strategy always seem to be contact avoidance. Never forget who it is that pays the salaries!
Unlike most other jobs, same size and scale, CC advisers are monitored to within a second, How many? When? How long? I personally think it is this qualitative element of the role that affects people negatively. That and the stigma now attached with working in a CC courtesy of the press.

I absolutley agree with everything you said.

This particular piece is directed at those who do not like their jobs because they don't like talking to customers. A quick stroll of my, and I expect, your, production floor will reveal that the most commonly heard complaint is "this customer's a moron!" or equivalent. This, I believe, is the result of poor training for agents with respect to communications skills and lack of agent recognition.

Agents are frequently released to the floor knowing very little about their jobs. They are intimidated by the concept of talking to customers, they feel like they don't know what they are doing, and the lack of recognition or, in fact, demotivation, from management causes them to lose focus on the reasons why the job can be great. The point of this piece it to address things which ARE in the agents' control.