I hit the floor on Wednesday. Translated from call-centre-speak, this means that instead of being in a nice safe classroom with my fellow trainees for customers in pretend scenarios in which all the people I deal with cave in to my demands for money on behalf of my clients pretty easily, I am suddenly taking calls from real people. Real people who have spent tens of thousands of dollars on a collection of moving parts which is, generally speaking, fairly central to their existence (two big purchases in a human's life: the house, and the car). People who have found that that tens-of-thousand-dollars-puchase is, for some reason, not working. People who cannot afford to get their vehicle repaired.
And they want me to help them. So they call me, big speech rehearsed over and over so it's just right, and I listen (sometimes the first fifteen minutes of the call is spent just listening and making sympathetic noises and repeating back key bits of information to make sure I've got it right), and I tell them that I am listening and that they have Called The Right Place, and that I just have a few questions and then I'm going to see what I can do for them.
Unfortunately, since generally speaking the dealers themselves can handle cost assistance in the open-and-shut cases, "what I can do for them" tends to be not nearly as much as they'd like.
( For instance! )Other things I have learned:
- There is a dealership in Jacksonville, FL, which has an absolutely AWESOME breakfast restaurant.
- There is a particular accent from Kentucky that I cannot understand for the LIFE of me. Poor guy, having to repeat himself that much. I had to get him to spell his name three times before I figured out what it was. He was really nice about it.
Generally speaking, I'm doing a good job. I am making people happy, and the phone call I was dreading having to make today went really well, surprisingly. What it basically entailed was calling someone up and saying "Yeah, you know that incredibly lengthy process you thought was finished two months ago, and how you've been waiting for the reimbursement check? Whoever you were talking to then has royally arsed it up and you're going to have to start over." He took it very well and seemed happy that I was on the case. I promised to keep him updated every time something changed, since his main frustration was that he'd basically been left hanging in the dark for two months. I can't say I blame him. I think if I can manage it, I'm going to make sure I call him every week to let him know I'm still working on this for him, even if there's no actual progress update for him. I want to rebuild his trust because frankly it has been betrayed as hell in about eight different ways.
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