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I used to think it was hilarious personally. I had fun with unruly customers.
I worked a call center for U.S. West doing tech support for DSL modems, this was when ADSL was in it's infancy so no one was really that smart about it. Especially when we would get a new metro the calls of angry people would pour in. Salt Lake City had the nicest people and Las Vegas had the absolute worst client base.
See my theory is the reason people like this exist is because we live in a society where it's no longer okay to fight back. Customers essentially say whatever they want because if you dont do what they demand they will bad mouth the company. I would look for another job.
I had this one old crank from Vegas call and make every threat know to man. After listening to his diatribe I asked him "Do you want help or not? He said "no I want you to wiz on my feet and tell me it's raining." I told him "US West does not provide golden showers or any urine related actions to customers. That's Time Warner." After that he was cool. Because he saw that A. I was not intimidated. I found him ridiculous. B. I gave him ultimatum do you want help or not. It was very easy to just put him on hold and accidentally lose him. I did that thing very many times. One time it was the end of the shift and a person I had just kicked off "accidentally" came back to my queue. She said your the same person I said "yes yes I am, I kicked you off for shouting at me and we have two options now, you can shout and I can go home to my working internet, or you can remain calm and I'll fix your internet." I fixed her problem. She thanked me.
So you have to use your power. Your power is you don't help them or you lose them. I got bad QAs 3 times and still did not get fired because I had over 100 good QA checks.
Now see people relied on us for their internet connection, so we had some power. I don't know your job, you may be calling them, in which case you have zero power and have to suck it up.
Sadly, this sort of behavior is not restricted to customer service work. I was a flight attendant and boy, talk about the abuse I used take. When I put my uniform on to go to work, I used to feel like I was getting dressed for battle.
Some advice: visualization and a relentless positive attitude really help. I would imagine myself enveloped in a magic bubble that was impervious to negativity. I would also try to send love out to every passenger that I interacted with.
When I would get some miserable, entitled, usually frequent flyer who refused to be satisfied, I would ask, "Mr/Mrs. Jones, what can I do right now to make this better for you?". Usually at that point they would realize I wasn't a magician who could manifest extra overhead bins or two seats together and they would calm down.
What you are doing is a form of emotional labor. You not only need to solve a problem, but you need to make the customer feel happy and valued. That requires emotional energy on your part. You need to develop skills to strengthen that barrier between you and all the negative energy coming over the phone. It takes practice, but you can do it. The first step is realizing that other people's negative emotions are affecting you, and that's where you are. Good luck to you.
I don't agree with this. Sometimes the customer is a sociopathic A-hole and the company is better off without them as a customer.
But the CALL REP doesn't get to make that decision. When you're low man in the organization you do your job - if you start deciding who is a good customer and whose money isn't good enough, you'll be out of a job - as you should be.
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Nobody gets paid enough to deal with that crap. Comcast, AT&T, and others are proof that the customer is not always right. That is an antiquated idea that is just not true.
I have worked in customer service roles most of my life up until about 6 months ago. Now I work mainly with computers, which is wonderful...I can yell at them all I want with no repercussions! lol
Words to live by: Treat others the way you want to be treated.
Clearly some people don't understand this concept. I also think it's easier to hide behind a telephone and berate someone, then doing so in person. Takes more guts, than many folks seem to lack.
The worst verbal abuse I ever witnessed was when I worked at an amusement park. They would employ many younger kids (as young as 14). It is absolutely sickening to watch a grown adult (with children!) laying into a 14 or 15 year old. Absolutely disgusting. One time it got so bad, I went and found my manager. The kid getting threatened, screamed at and berated was literally sobbing and cowering in fear of this crazy woman. Manager came over, things continued to escalate. The police they have there had to escort the woman off the premises. The kid was 15 years old, my manager told me that he quit right after that & had his parents come pick him up. Freakin' terrible & absolutely disgusting.
You ARE paid to listen and deal with that stuff - that's what customer service is and the customer is always right. You can't be so naive as to not know this.
You are wrong. You are not paid to be abused. You are paid to help customers. And the customers are NOT always right. What world are you living in? Obviously you have never worked in customer service yourself.
Call Center jobs tend to be that way. It's unfortunate but you just have to decide if it's worth it to you because of pay or other benefits. If it's not, start looking for something else.
I currently work in a job in which I typically have at least one person call daily who is irate. Some are abusive and some actually throwing a temper tantrum like a child. Anymore, it's like I kinda am observing their tantrum like a bystander. I don't like it obviously but I also don't take it personally either. It helps that I can transfer the call and not handle the situation. Also if the person is cussing, we can terminate the call after a warning.
Basically, though, if it is consistently unpleasant, I would say try to find something else or somewhere else. Customers will be abusive anywhere but there are places where the representative , again, is allowed to terminate a call if the customer is cussing, threatening, etc. There are places where the management will give you more support than what you are describing.
Last edited by kaykay; 01-07-2016 at 11:38 PM..
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Anymore, it's like I kinda am observing their tantrum like a bystander. I don't like it obviously but I also don't take it personally either. It helps that I can transfer the call and not handle the situation. Also if the person is cussing, we can terminate the call after a warning. 
