Quote From a Contact Center Agent

Here is the account of one of our call center agents. She also happens to be one of my friends. Those who would like an insider’s view would benefit in reading this.

“Working in a Philippine call center is hard. You have to wake up in the middle of the night and sleep during the day. As a contact center agent, I have to be kind of perky. That was a directive from the top. But it can be so hard to keep your spirits up in this kind of environment. You think you know, but you have no idea.

I hate to be thought of as the Kurt Cobain of the Philippine call center industry, but really, I can’t see a light at the end of this career. I imagine this whole building as a hellish machine. You get in every night and you become part of a torture chamber which sucks the juice from your pain. The whole industry is powered by thousands of little gerbil called contact center agents.

The thing is, aside from the ungodly hours, we have to deal with so many irate customers. These customers call customer service because they have a problem with their product or service. They will often shout at us repeatedly. We will try to calm them down and help them while they attack our dignity by calling us stupid idiots and other more degrading dirty cuss words even sailors would wince at. Everyone thinks of going to a Philippine call center as a stepping stone. I will not be here forever.”

So, how would you uplift the spirits of this kind of employee? When handling a contact center, one would inevitably come across these cases. This is why I think it’s important for us to establish warm personal relationships with these people which are essentially the company’s most important asset.