All in a day’s work
WHENEVER I tell my newfound friends what I do for a living, the response is always the same: “Wow! You handle complaints daily? How do you do it?”
Well, first up, customer service is not all about crazy, nasty, macabre, customer complaints. Some days at the bank I work at, we have to deal with extremely nice and humble customers as well. On other good days, we deal with compliments from them, praising our service, which we feel unworthy of. Most likely, we were just there for them at the right time and place. But, of course, most of the time, we honestly strive to do our best for them.
Customer service is not just about handling complaints, it’s also about making the customer’s day. Call me crazy, but
I like it when customers come in to perform a transaction and end up sharing their daily lives, their hardships, or even what they ate before they stopped by. Sometimes, I get to hear their proudest moments and of their funny encounters on the way to the bank. And when they leave, it feels like they have just let a load off – they end up feeling somewhat relieved. It’s such a wonderful sight to behold.
Of course, some customers would probably use the customer service staff as their punching bags. When there is a need to release stress, they just pop into the nearest bank and pounce like hungry lions at the slightest move of the banker. The unfortunate banker would definitely be verbally-abused – and the banker doesn’t even need to be at fault. And most of the time, at the death of the whole spat, the customer would either say “thank you” or “have a nice day,” which would leave the banker gobsmacked and wondering “what have I done?” What are we to do then? Most of the time, we just take a deep breath and take it all in our stride.
The irony is that, these customers are the most loyal. We think that if we are not good enough for them, they should leave us. But they never do. I once had a customer who didn’t want to leave after complaining about our supposedly horrible service, just so he could torture us. I was speechless hearing that from him. Thankfully, he ended up being a customer that is so grateful for our assistance, especially because he was once stranded overseas.
For such excitement everyday, I would not trade my job with any other.