I've never heard that one before

You're the cashier, you are ringing up someone and the item you are scanning doesn't ring up.  If you have worked in retail at all, I bet I can guess what you are already thinking.  The customer saying "it must be free".  I bet you never heard that before...

I experienced an event last night that made me think of the concept of hearing the same thing a thousand times, but from a thousand different people.

Part of my job is phone support.  I looked this morning and I took a little over 600 calls last year.  Something else occurred to me as well.  I have repeated myself, a lot.  I've asked "Is it powered on?", "Are you even in the same location as the issue?", "Why did you restart it? I didn't ask you to do that" , over and over and over again.

However, as the customer who wants the free item, most of the time, the callers have not talked to me before.  They've never had the joy of hearing me ask them if the unit was turned on.  Knowing that, why do I act like they have?

It's like the artist that sings the same set list night after night, it is not the audience's fault they've played their radio hit a million times.  The audience paid good money to be there and they expect the artist to perform that song as if they are the only performance they will ever do.

Taking customer calls is a lot like that.  Even though I've sang the same song over and over, the caller has not heard it yet.

Something I have to do is to remind myself that each call is the "first" time and know that even though I'm tired of repeating myself, they are hearing it for the first time.  I think if I can own that concept, I will be a much calmer person.


Until next week,

Josh