One thing you need to cultivate if you want to be a call center agent is to know how to effectively listen. Most people think that its only about being able to speak well, that counts most in this job. But, based on experience, its not even the whole picture of it. As a call center agent you really need to effectively listen. One thing, I am struggling with and I’m sure with a lot of call center agents. As agents who know about the product and services we are offering we tend to be too informative and talkative to our callers. Talking and talking to show our competency and knowledge, and forgetting to slow down and listen to them as well. If we only listen well, we would be able to help them out better cause we can sure we are hitting the correct target and not just assume. Not listening well, could give you a lot of trouble.
It could be that you might be too preoccupied with another areas of your life, while you are at work, and that could affect your effectiveness. So, you really have to learn it. It’s something which is not impossible nor too hard to achieve, yet many of us neglect it.
Yes, being a call center is not as easy as you think. Every now and then you get bored and tired of your job that you want to quiet. And in cases like this, ellipticals are pretty helpful in diverting your attention. If you are too stressed with your job, just try to unwind and do something else.

I don’t want to forget about my accomplishment for this week, because this is special to me. Every week, our management leaders or sups chooses our agent of the week. From these agent of the week for each week in a month, an agent will be chosen as agent of the month.
For each team, there is a nominee, based on our metrics or performance stats. I always get nominated but I never ever won when it comes to voting. When compared to the stats of others, I would always fall short of it. This was because it wasn’t important to me, at all. As long as I have a job. I also, am not aware of what stats would make me agent of the week.
This time, they revealed the stats and started to send us emails on who is the agent of the week along with the stats. This made challenged and so I tried to monitor my performance metrics such as the length of time I resolve an issue in a call, the time I am on break, attendance, attitude, the time I pick up the phone and most of all, the quality of your call which is revealed in our quality monitoring score. And I was surprised, that finally this time, I was chosen as agent of the week, I really won the voting based on our stats.
Every week, we are monitored twice to ensure that we are delivering the best customer service experience to guests. Being a technical support engineer is really not easy to think that you have to give instructions to people who are not visible.
It has been a real challenge. I am now in my first year as a technical support and I would say its not easy but its not impossible to be a good one. This work has helped me improve my patience a lot. Yes, it requires a lot of patience. Patience, patience and more more patience.
For this week, I got the most number of calls because i resolve issues as quickly as possible, so my available or idle time is high which gives me more calls. So, for that, our manager asked a picture of mine to be posted on our bulletin. And, this is what I used. I printed it out from Kodak so I brought my micro sd from my phone. The photo was taken from SM Mall Cebu.

Starting today, Monday my work schedule is now 3 am up to 12:00 pm.
Whew! Our supervisor realized I am just a walking distance from work and so she placed me on this schedule. I don’t know what to say. I was shocked when I first saw the final schedule. I was like, okay, okay. I can do this. But, deep inside I was really not so convinced. I waked up very early, 2 am. I had to wake up Ronel too, so I have companion. I can’t walk that 500 steps alone, of course. I am typing this at work, cause we have less calls today due to the holiday season. I hope, this happens everyday. Nah! It takes 10 minutes or more, before the next comes in. Wow, what a nice treat. The advantage of this schedule is that time flies fast, and I still have the rest of the day to spend. That’s about a half day.

I got my very first kudos call, last October 17. What is a kudos call? It is a call wherein your caller will express gratitude and appreciation for all your help and efforts made. It happens rarely, since most callers are in a hurry and so they don’t have time for that. In a kudos call, a caller would ask for a supervisor or manager, and when he or she will be speaking to your supervisor, he will be expressing gratitude, appreciation to the service you showed him.

A kudos call is a sign that you are doing well as a customer service representative. If you got a kudos call, everyone in your company will be emailed and everyone will know about the great job you did. In a year, this is my very first kudos call. I wasn’t really expecting it, cause I do finish calls very fast. The caller was so happy I resolved his issue and thus, he asked for my supervisor.

According to the caller:
was incredibly helpful and very pleasant. No complaints for me… She did a super job and really helped and then you know I really needed help. I just wanted to say that.

The criteria that God my kudos call approved as per our Quality Assurance agent

Appreciation was initiated by the caller.

Agent sounded pleasant during the call. She did not only exude technical expertise but displayed good customer service as well.

TSE was very spontaneous during the call which resulted to a smooth call flow.

And you know, whats the best part of it? You’ll get to have 1,000 pesos additional salary for each kudos call you get. Amazing, right?

We have a new policy at work. Every week, our team leaders and supervisors would choose and vote for the agent of the week. The agent of the week, is the agent who performed well based on metrics such as call handling, average time on calls, attendance, and attitude. I have been nominated by my team leader to be the agent of the week, last last week and last week. So, I am now agent of the week for 2 consecutive weeks. That’s because I got 100 % from QA evaluation, 100 attendance, no late and good overall performance. I never thought I would be recognized. I thought it only goes for the vocal and outgoing type of employees. But, I have proven, that if you do good, you will reap the rewards. This might be a small thing, but nevertheless I appreciate it. I don’t know if I will make it to the Agent of the Month. But If that will happen, whoa, I will really be happy.

The picture above is the original members of Batch 27 who applied and trained to become call center agents in a certain company. There were about 17 of us. We’ve been through a lot of assessments, tests and level ups. And now, only two of us from this original batch are left. Yes, it is indeed true that when the going gets touch, the tough gets going. Those who are weak and who are not that determined, cannot make it through. In the call center world, people come in and out, and I’m really glad I stayed. I am glad that the previous company did not regularized me, which appeared to be a blessing in disguise. Back then, I cried buckets of tears and even came to the point of questioning God and his guidance. God told me to keep on trusting him. After a couple of months, I got hired in another call center. A smaller one than the previous company, but indeed very very much far from the previous one. I am so glad. When it comes to pay, the stress of work, and the relationship of people here, I would say I really would prefer to be here. My batch mates from my previous work, keep on complaining about their salary. But here I am, I have been promoted to LEVEL 2 again, and of course a higher salary with come with that position. Since when I left work from previous company, I never looked back. I just kept on moving on, even if I see their very big building every time I go to work to my present company. I just smile and remember how God has been good to us. Yes, he has been sooo God. Here are the 2 survivors. Both of us, are now LEVEL 2 certified.

WENDY

YOURS TRULY

As a technical support engineer what we do is that we provide solutions for guests or callers who cannot get internet connection while staying at hotels in the US. This job is a blessing for me, since it really helps my family a lot. I don’t know what we would do, if I’m not working here. But, that’s just for now, I have a dream to be out of the rat race some day and be able to afford to stop working and just stay at home. Anyway, going back to my job, as a technical support agent speaking to somehow who is miles away from us, it is important to speak clearly and to provide clear instructions so the callers will not be confused. Something to remember, is that we are not allowed to speak in jargons. Meaning we only have to speak in layman, only terms that the callers can understand. So instead of saying CAT5e cable, we do say ethernet cable or a better description is an over sized telephone cable. We further describe it by saying its the cable connected from computer to modem if they can’t understand still. This job is not really easy, but I just have to be grateful that at least I have a job.

In a call center industry, where there is constant communication between the call center agent and the customer asking for support or assistance, phonetics is very much helpful. What is phonetics? Phonetics is the standard used when spelling out letters. Phonetics are very much helpful in establishing a clear and smooth communication between the service provider, which in this case is the agent and the recipient of the service, which is no other than the customer. Sometimes, due to cultural and language differences, there could be a communication gap that might occur. Phonetics really helps a lot. A lot of American callers complain that the accent is very prevalent in most call center representatives, thus making the communication more difficult. In this case, one can make use of phonetics. I used it a lot and it usually works.

How does phonetics work? Let’s say for example your trying to say “ipconfig” which is a command in getting all the internet protocol information of a computer. You can use phonetics by saying I for India, P for papa, C for Charlie, O for Oscar, N for november, F for Foxtrot, I for India and G for Golf.

Phonetics helps a lot in ensuring that there is a clear line of communication between the two parties: agent and customer. This helps in differentiating M from N, and other letters that sounds almost the same. In other words, we can consider phonetics as “spelled words”. Here is a complete list, one that should be followed by every call center agent like me.

A - Alfa
B - Bravo
C - Charlie
D - Delta
E - Echo
F - Foxtrox
G - Golf
H - Hotel
I - India
J - Juliet
K - Kilo
L - Lima
M - Mike
N - November
O - Oscar
P - Papa
Q - Quebec
R - Romeo
S - Sierra
T - Tango
U - Uniform
V - Victor
W - Whiskey
X - X-ray
Y - Yankee
Z - Zulu

I had this caller who’s still having a hard time understanding my accent, even after I gave out the phonetics and spelled the word to him, and he requested me to spell it out using animals. haha:) it was such a funny experience. I was forced to create my own phonetics.

The word I was trying to tell him through phonetics, was SERVICES.

So, instead of following the standard protocol for phonetics, I used these instead. haha:) I still laugh, everytime I can recall it.

S - Spider
E - Elephant
R - RAT (toinks)
V - Vulture (had difficulty with this)
I - Iguana
C - Cat (ofcourse so easy)
E - Elephant
S - snake

Hey guys, I have good news, I made it. I passed the Level 1 Certification Test and guess what? i have achieved my goal of being a regular call center agent now. I’m really so happy. Sorry for not checking on you for those days, I was so busy studying. The exam was easy and good thing they did not made it too hard for us, because they really need people right now. I’m now getting closer and closer to my goals. Thanks to God, to my family for the inspiration and to my friends. Thank you to all those who emphatized and wished me luck, may you also succeed in all your endeavors. Thank you for visiting my site, my traffic is generally improving a lot. And that’s all because of YOU. It’s was my dream ever since to be a call center agent. Right now, I have achieved it, and I think I need to step up. Not right now, perhaps someday. Time will tell. I’ll know when it’s the right time. I don’t want to take calls forever. What I like about my job is that I get to practice English a lot. There has been a tremendous improvement and change in my speaking ability. I am happy for that. There are a lot of people who wish to be in call centers, to become customer service representatives or technical support agents, without even thinking of the hardships and challenges of the job. They don’t get information and research about the job, and they just jump into it. During training, they’re so eager, enthusiastic and willing to learn, but when they are already starting to take calls, that’s when reality sets in. They get so pressured that the option they can think of is to back away and find another job. They reasoned, they changed their mind, only to find out that they have applied in another call centers already. I encountered a lot of challenges in this job, I can’t share all of them though. All I can say is I’m proud of call centers agents, specially those who work hard for their family, sacrificing their lifestyle and social life. Yes, I’m a night shift agent and it was really hard for me to adjust. Even until now, I still feel sleepy sometimes, and my body really dropped, because I don’t have appetite due to varying eating schedules and patterns. Another hard part of being a call center agent is to be shouted, cursed and blamed by guests and callers who’s only will is to have their problem solves as soon as possible. Their not pointing the anger to you, its nothing to personal, but it still hurts. And to think that it is human tendency to fight back, it’s really not easy. I salute all call center agents out there, who are trying to make a living and to make the best of their skills. If your planning to become a call center agent, you better start learning how to type fast, how to do multitasking: talking, problem solving, typing at the same time, heck! There are still a lot of things you need to know, but the bottom line is, know what you are getting into.

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