This was during the time I was a call center agent. I had come into a shift not in the best of moods and I proceeded to take my first call. The customer was a middle-aged man named Robert who was having some problems with his account. So, I took it upon myself to guide him through the process of fixing the same mess he created. Although there was an impulse within me to lose my cool, I stayed with him and it took almost an hour to fix his account. Mostly because he had no idea of what he was doing and he wasn't able to follow my instructions well.

Feeling somewhat relieved that the issue had been solved, Robert thanked me for my patience and went on to say "I see a promotion coming your way soon and great things for your future. You are going places!". He then asked for my supervisor and told him what a wonderful job I did and how satisfied he was of the service he had received. All of that from a person I wanted to slam the phone down on.

What did that teach me? First, it taught me not to let my mood affect the way I treated my customers and the next thing was that giving your customers your best will define your success in a customer-oriented career. It's a simple fact that if you love interacting with customers then become a customer service representative. If not, then find something else to do with your life!

Robert never struck me as the type of customer who would praise me or appreciate anything I did. I actually fought the impulse to get rid of him (during the call) since I felt it was a waste of time helping him. What he said did come true. Instead of a simple kudos, it sounded more like a prediction because month after that, I became a trainer. As for going places, I sure did and a few years later, I moved on to become an operations manager.  

To be successful you must always take into account that your customers always come first. When you are in customer service, you are technically an actor because no matter how irritating some customers are, you still have to put on your best face and help them with their concerns. I am sorry but there is no other way around it.

True leaders will always do what's best for their external customers (actual customers) and their internal customers (the people they work with). If you can't please either then maybe it's time to consider other avenues of employment.

I hope that I can share my other customer service experiences to you in future blogs.