That Guy

Here is a hypothetical situation, you are a customer in need of some service. That isn´t to much of a stretch for anyones to imagine. You find the long 1-800 number, you call it and you wait for someone, an actual person, to answer your call. When you finally talk to someone you notice, without any difficulty, that this guy has an accent. Let´s assume this guy is from another country. Let´s say the Dominican Republic. This guy is very polite but despite his best efforts he cannot help you. I think that it is safe to assume that most everyone has had an experience similar to this one. Frustrating isn´t it?

That is one perspective. Here is another. This guy works a full shift, finishes late at night then wakes up early in the morning to get to class. He actually paid attention in his foreign language (English) class and taught himself the rest of what he knows. Now it is paying off. He is working hard and is studying for his future career. Sounds good, right?

Yes and yes, it sounds good, but it is still frustrating. My purpose here isn´t to somehow make over-the-phone customer service easy. If I could do that, I would and then I´d make a lot of money.

The next time that you are talking to an over-the-phone customer service representative I want you to, when you get a minute, maybe after you have been on hold for a half an hour, to think about this. That guy who is trying to help you may be a friend of mine and he is probably trying his best to help you; he told me he would.