I cried on the phone to a customer

[TheChild]

I have had the shittest of shit days today, need to let it out because I can't stop crying.

I work in a Call Centre, worked at the same place for nearly 6 years now. 5 minutes before the end of my shift and 5 minutes before we actually close I get a call from a customer who I could tell striaght away was not happy.

It was nothing I had personally done, he had problems with our (admittedly outdated) systems and the way we have to do things. Nothing I said or did was good enough, the options I gave going forward weren't options, I had to repeat myself multiple times when he kept asking the same question, saying that I did not have the answer because it involved a 3rd party who's systems we don't have access to. I never ever lose it on the phone, show any annoyance or emotion but this man just pushed me to the edge. I asked if he's like to speak to a manager, ignored and told again how useless I was. Asked what I could do to put the situation right, was told I could tell him the answer to the question that I already said I could not answer, offered to raise a complaint so we could fully investigate. Nope.

What made it worse was that I was working from home, no colleague next to me to listen in and take over the call and my voice broke and I started crying, whilst at the same time apologising for being unprofessional. Ended up staying on an hour and 30 minutes extra doing everything I needed to do. A colleague will need to listen to the call as I logged a complaint, so they will have to hear my pathetic snivelling.

I'm so cross with myself that I let someone get to me that badly, and that I had a panic attack afterwards whilst trying to sort it all out. I'm back in tomorrow and I just feel sick, I'm so fed up. I don't want to go to work tomorrow and deal with more people being arseholes over something that is not my fault.

I will add a disclaimer to say that the majority of the people I speak to are lovely, but it's the rare arseholes that can just ruin my day. My confidence is completely knocked

Please someone tell me SOMETHING happy?!

You poor thing. I have never understood why people are so awful to those who are not to blame and trying to help them!
I think it's a good thing. It showed that arsehole that you're human and hopefully gave him pause for thought.

I do a similar job. Customers like that are not to common but of course they are out there. I've cried before to, not through hurt but anger as the call is recorded and I can't say what I'd really like to! Now if I have a shouter, someone who is sarcastic or who simply will not let me help them I go quiet. Yes or No answers. Keep it simple and remember you're doing your best to make a living and if you can look for another position inside or outside of your company do. You didn't deserve it but now it's over and I hope you forget about it soon and have a relaxing evening. Keep positive x

Last year, after twenty years in retail a customer made me cry. She was a mean, nasty lady who sensed that I was not feeling great and went in for the fun of it. After my manger told her to leave and not come back she rang customer services to tell them about the bad customer service she imagined, told them she made me cry and demanded a hand written apology from me. They told her politely that this was not something they would be pursuing. This man is the same, what an arsehole. Take comfort in that people who behave like that constantly have horrible things put in food and drinks when they eat out.

@TheChild

You're all so bloody amazing. Being at home definitely made it worse, sitting in my own living room being made to feel like a useless idiot really hits hard. To top it off, I knew DP and the kids were due home not long after my shift ended so had the panic that they would come home when I was still on the phone.

DP gave me a cuddle and ran me a bath, I feel more human now.

I just feel shit as I've really tried to develop more of a backbone when dealing with difficult customers as I'm working towards a promotion and it will be something I'll need to deal with more. Turns out I'm still rubbish at it!

Can't believe some of the awful things people have had to deal with through work, although personally it's made overly friendly when I have to phone people up. I can be so cross at something that has gone wrong but when I speak to someone I'm always so apologetic and nice because I know it's not the fault of the person who answered the phone.

I will stop thinking about it now, going to find something good to watch on Netflix so if anyone has any recommendations I'm all ears 😊

No you aren't rubbish ! You are a human being who has been hurt by a vile specimen of a man , i hope he is dwelling on how disgustingly he behaved and maybe it might change the way he is towards others in the future . Tomorrow is a new day .

I have worked in prisons, homeless shelters and some really 'scary' places.

Worst arseholes... my job at a call centre. It's not you. It's them.

I once got screamed at down the phone by a lady telling me that she was going to ‘give me what’s for’ when she next seen me. I knew she was coming when I was alone in the building (sole work and petrified)
I told her I wasn’t willing to continue the phone call and if she turned up I wouldn’t be letting her in. Then I called my manager and cried and she made me let the awful lady in.

Sometimes people suck, sometimes work sucks. Sometimes the two sucky parts of life come together and make it massively suck. Sorry you had that day OP.

On a happy note - my little girl rolled for the first time today. I’ve baked all day so have lovely goodies to watch celeb with, and your post showed me there is other loverly people in the world, chin up ☺️

That is so sad. I always tell the person on the line they are a help/have been brilliant/ have a beautiful accent, eg Irish, Tyneside, Welsh, unless they have been really unhelpful, but that is rare. Hope you feel much better tomorrow. He should be ashamed. 💐

I’ve worked in a call centre and I’ve cried on the phone to a customer too. Absolutely the worst job I ever had (in fact it made me seriously ill), even though most people were perfectly nice. The awful ones were absolute cunts.

You sound like a fabulous employee, I’m sorry you had such a bad day, but bloody well done you for trying so hard to help.

Ah OP, I'm sorry that happened.

I always am conscious that the person in the other end of a phone, in a company, is simply doing their best. They didn't cause the problem, and don't deserve to have anyone taking out their anger or irritation on them. I can well imagine it makes things even harder to not have a colleague or manager nearby.

To hell with him. I hope he cops on a bit. It's no reflection on you whatsoever.

Oh those 'rare' arseholes are utmost fuckers.
Many many years in a Call Centre now and people definitely are so much worse in general.
The lovely ones are lovely though.

Sorry, should’ve said I’m so sorry about your shitty day. 🌷🌷🌷

Hope you can have a good night’s sleep tonight.

I'm sorry you were made to feel like that.

My daughter (17months) got called a boy today, again, and then spent the entire 45min bus journey blowing kisses at everyone else. I didn't know she knew how to! I'm torn between 'that's cute', and slightly mortified. I'll point her in your direction to share the love.

When you are about to finish a call to someone who's being a bit of a twunt, find a way to get the line '....there we are then' at the end of the call before you say 'enjoy your day' etc etc..

If you take the first letter from each word you will get my drift.....

There
We
Are
Then

A bit juvenile, but hey ho......

Oh OP, we all have these days. When your call is listened to by a senior manager, ask for some feedback on dealing with challenging customers or resilience and apologize. Let them know it was just an unusually awful day. It's really hard to deal with someone who got personal and told you that you were useless. That is never ok.

Does your company have a policy on hanging up on customers after fair warning? When I was in a call centre type role, I had to resort to telling people not to do it and will disconnect their call if they aren't listening to my suggestions and choose to berate me/swear at me instead. You are human and if your situation were applied to a partner on a Mumsnet thread, it'd be full of 'LTB' responses.

Tomorrow will be a better day and if it's not, it's your sign that the job just isn't for you. It can be soul destroying in a job like that and people don't understand this when they call up to swear or get personal to someone who answers.

Hang in there

People ought not to lose their temper with call centre staff. And if you offered to pass him on, he should have taken you up on that. That's what senior staff are paid more for, to deal with tricky situations.
But bear in mind that customers/service users can also be having a hard time. They may have been on hold for half an hour or more, and depending on what it's about, may be getting desperate if it's about something serious. My elderly mother has frequently spent days trying to get through to her GPs surgery, or her carer provider when no carer has turned up- ringing up, holding often for as much as half an hour, then getting cut off by the machine 'because it's lunchtime, ring again later' and having to start again in the afternoon whilst trying to look after a partner with advanced dementia.
At present, everywhere seems understaffed, and that affects callers as well as call centre staff. We all need to make allowances for each other.

It's one of the hardest jobs OP. I work in compliance and regularly listen to calls. There is no way that I or any colleague I have ever worked with would judge you for being upset in a difficult call. I've had calls where the call handler has had to politely hang up on a call and then a manager has called the customer the next day to explain why. That's what I would expect to happen. You were never going to resolve his problem and you attempted to offer support until it could be. He obviously wasn't open to that and that's not your fault.

I agree that it sounds like the straw that broke the camel's back. I'd email and call a supervisor/manager in the morning and explain what happened.

Hi OP,

I've worked in a call centre

My strategy was:

1. turn the volume down on your computer until customer is barely audible
2. speak in a very calm and monotone voice
3. the madder they get, the calmer and more monotone you speak
4. wait until they slowly run out of steam shouting. timing is important
5. begin in a slow, professional, emotionless "I'm sorry but I can't hear you very well, we may have a bad connection, can you go somewhere with better signal and calmly repeat yourself?" make sure you say this very slowly, drag it out to at least 45 secs and don't stop talking if they interrupt you
6. at this point, they will either hang up, or start personally insulting you, then as per most company policies you can give a warning and terminate the call

I had to put a complaint in about the state of a place I was hiring. The previous hirer was so incensed to be complained about they demanded my phone number, and, bizarrely, were given it.

The phone rang. I picked it up. Mouthfuls of abuse. After a couple of minutes, I quietly left the phone and went and did something more useful. The guy was still ranting half an hour later and hadn't noticed my absence

God when I worked on phones I cried on the regular, or sometimes got angry. It’s human nature when someone is being awful for you to react. Honestly the person who picks up the complaint should be writing to them to say they don’t tolerate abuse to staff. I think everyone should have to work on the front line with the general public for a few years so they know how tough it is and how people should be treated.

Chin up. It happens so often. People can be awful and it says more about him than it does about you.

I worked in a call centre some years ago (before the targets were as insane as they are now) and we had our fair share of horrible, horrible customers. (It definitely made me more patient as a customer, though like everyone I still have my moments! I do try not to take it out on the poor individual on the other end of the phone though.)

Might I recommend a few lovely things to take your mind off it? And my apologies if you've already seen these. I don't know what kind of thing you like, obviously, so I'm going for nice feelgood type stuff.

Netflix: Downton Abbey, The Good Place, Schitts Creek, The Queen's Gambit, The Crown (even if, like me, you're not a Royalist, the settings and the costumes are amazing), Glee, Hot Fuzz, Shrek (all the movies are on there are the moment), The IT Crowd, Grace and Frankie, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Witch.

DP sounds like a keeper, and if you're into putting oils and things in your bath, just a couple of drops each of juniper, geranium, and something nice and uplifting like bergamot (it's what gives Earl Grey its lovely smell) can be really helpful after a long day. There are lots of others, lots of people love lavender (including me!) but my DP reacts really badly to it so I can only use it when they're out.

And if all else fails, there's always Terry Pratchett:

"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?" Death thought about it. CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.

Hoping your tomorrow is a better day.

I worked in a Bank complaints department years ago and one phrase in my training I still use in my current job when you've explained something once or twice and they still keep on "I'm sorry but there is nothing further more of value I can add to this conversation". In other words please listen to what I'm saying because that's it.

My little cousins-in-law have sent me a drawing of a rainbow with ‘everything will be ok’ in Italian written in big block multicoloured letters underneath. They are 6 and 3.
I can’t post it unfortunately as they’ve put their names across the middle but basically 🌈🌻TUTTO ANDRÀ BENE! 🌈🌸 Let’s share it OP!

Tomorrow you will be marvellous and he will continue to be an arse.

I wouldn't have continued with the call. I've worked in various call centres and if someone became rude or I had given all of the advice I could give, I would terminate the call. I would usually warn them first that I would terminate the call if they continued. You do not go to work to be spoken to like dirt.

Exactly.

I once worked for a probate company as a case manager. Company were rubbish so had many angry customers and I spent at least a few hours a day taking calls from furious individuals - one was actually called Mrs Cross. 🤣

I’ll never forget when my colleague who sat next to me had a guy who was insisting on escalating his complaint and she accidentally put him through to another angry customer by somehow merging the calls!

Oh op, run yourself a bath, have a glass of wine or something nice to eat and forget about him.

Some people are just bullies. He is one of lifes special little cunty cunts. He will bully everyone he thinks are beneath him but one day someone will dink him right on the end of his nose. No one irl likes him. His wife is dreaming of leaving him before she ends up as Mrs Meldrew and his children are/will be embarrassed by him. Guys an absolute dick.