New here, working in first call center

[bunnyboy]

Here are a few lessons:
5) Drink heavily and then blow up 7-11's for fun. Really, it is quite fun and helps relieve quite a bit of stress.

Hey now, don't blow up 7-11s, blow up dolls or something more valuable.

I could come up with more, but I have a 7-11 to torch and a bottle of Jack to consume..........

Hopefully neither of mine.

[hobbitt97]

nervous breakdown

do phone work for 20 yrs, have a nervous breakdown and go on permanent disability. worked for me.

[Jack]

I'm glad it did. I'll just work on my 401(k). :P

[MaggieTheCat]

well, i'll be honest with you, either you'll find ways of coping with the angry customers and you won't mind the job, or it will wind you up so much that you quit.

Unfortunately thats how call centre jobs go, and its why they have such a large staff turnover.

This, unfortunately, is true in my call center experience. I did the hiring for a rather large call center of a pet supply catalog. We had some agents who were great, able to deal with problem customers without any issues at all, and had worked for the company 12+ years. Then we got some people who wouldn't even make it past the first week of training before they got frustrated and gave up. Most people would do okay at first, stick around for a few months, and then quite before reaching the 6 month mark. We did have a rather high turnover rate, and this was for a pet supply company. Probably one of the least stressful call centers you'll encounter.

I don't say this to scare you off, but just to make you realize: Call center work is not for everyone. In fact, it's not for most people. If you are not someone cut out for it, don't force it on yourself any longer than you have to, because you will be miserable. There were some agents at my last job who were obviously not cut out to be call center agents, but they stuck with it for whatever reason and they were unhappy. You could tell just by talking to them, or listening to their side of a call. We did have to let some people go because of quality purposes -- they were miserable and it reflected so much into their calls that they were saying and doing inappropriate things (like disconnecting customers without a valid reason, or arguing with other agents when agents would try to make a proper transfer.)

I don't have any advice as to how to cope other than what's been said already. There is some good advice here and definitely try some of it. But if you are still feeling this way after trying various coping methods, then you may want to at least start looking around for something else. It's brutal work in its own way, and it's not worth crying every day over.

[emax4]

i know this is an older post but I wanted to give my two cents as well.

I worked in a call center for 4 years and it has its ups and downs, more of the latter than the former. It could depend on what business it's for. I worked for a satellite provider, so we would get people irate about their service turned off, billing issues, people scamming us out of adult PPVs, etc. If you're at a call center for puppies brought to children on velvet pillows, you're not going to get that many irate calls.

Having said that, I do not recommend working for any type of business, call center or otherwise, that lets its employees abuse (ok, exaggerating there) its customers. I make that known on interviews for similar positions. I would draw cartoons a lot, and not only did it make me feel better, but the management got a hold of them and got a kick out of them too. Some were poking fun of Quality Assurance, as they seemed to want to go over management's head a lot, some were of a coworker who would slam his headset on his desk when he was pushed too far (which was a lot), and others were about getting revenge on customers. I had drawn one cartoon of a big hand with its middle finger up, sitting on a chair and a smiley face on the middle finger tip wearing a headset, asking "how can I help you?".

Even though you will get irate customers, remember that they're not mad at you, but since you're representing the company, they may take it out on you. Try to empathize with the customer as to why they're upset. Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? Can you relate to them somehow? If you can get through to them, it sometimes as helps as they may seem calmer knowing that they're not alone. You'll always have customers that don't care, or those that call in for help but spend their time cutting you off, interrupting you and prohibiting you from doing our job. When you get those, simply hang up. It's not worth it. If you get dinged by QA, let them know that they will have to instruct you on how to deal with calls like that, perhaps in a role-playing environment, before you handle any more irate calls.