The Last Call of the Year

It is the last day of 2012. A Monday. I am working from 1 PM to 9 PM. I am working in the telecom field as a technical frontline rep over the phone. A cold snowy day today. We are not too many at work. Lot of the employees are on vacation.

The company would give us three paid days off during the holidays. The 25^th, 26^th and the 1^st. Today is the 31^st so whoever is scheduled to work must show up in the office. I came to work on time. I always try to get to work thirty minutes before my shift. To have time to open my computer, open up my tools, check my emails, and check my cases where a follow up is required.

Management always keeps checking the service levels at almost every minute. It is a call center environment after all. Companies do not want to pay staff doing nothing. I totally understand that. They must stay on the plus side, and make profits. Usually, they would offer an unpaid early leave if too many agents are sitting and not taking calls. Those who started their shift early would be offered this option first. I was finishing late so they would offer me to finish early only in the last 2-3 hours of my shift. So not before 6 PM. It would be nice to end my shift today earlier. It is New Year’s Eve after all. I did not have any plans to meet someone or attend a party. However, I still wanted to get home early, rest, maybe watch a movie or a tv show. Of course, while I have a good supper. I never enjoyed eating at work. Maybe a coffee or tea. But that was about it. For a full meal, it was always once I was home from work. Even if I finished late.

I am keeping an eye on my work emails through Outlook. I submitted my request to leave early. As soon as my request gets approved, the work force management team will send an email to notify the time I can leave work. Between and during my calls, I am anxiously checking to see if I can go home early.

I see people that are finishing at 7 PM, got an early leave for 5 PM. I might be able to leave for home around 7 PM! It is 6 PM now. Calls are coming in but we have a good idle time of ten minutes between calls.

The day at work is going well. I finished my cup of coffee. I got my early leave approved for 7 PM. It is 6:50 PM. I am almost done. So happy! I will be able to get home sooner than expected. I am good with all my suspended cases. All my follow ups are up to date. No pending cases to work on. I want to start 2013 with no pending cases with my clients.

I have started to pack my things. Clearing my desk. It is 6:55 PM. NOOOOOOOOOOO! I just got call!!! My God! I hope it will be a short and sweet call. An easy one. In the tech support world, a call can last two minutes or two hours. It is very difficult to predict the duration of a call with a client.

‘’Welcome to DXCOM tech support. My name is James. How can I help you?’’

‘’Hi James. I have an Iphone and it seems to be working quite slowly. I mean, slow in terms of responding to commands. Browsing Safari is slow, sending and receiving text messages takes time, the phone freeze, etc. Just slow in general.’’

Oh boy…that does not seem like a two-minute call. I could probably just ask the client to contact Apple directly but with the way company is headed, they want us to help the client to the best of our knowledge. One call, one resolution. Make the client happy and no time limit imposed on us for the duration of the call. So that is great. I don’t have to stress about it. After verifying the client’s credentials, I proceeded to investigate and help her. I think I am will be here for a while. No way I will be done by 7 PM now. I just want to be home. At least before midnight and with no pending cases.

In my field, listening to the client, probing, asking questions, repeat what client just said, are important steps. I did check her profile with the tools I have access to. Nothing showing anything out of the ordinary. 

‘’Miss, can we check your phone’s available memory space? To me, if the phone is almost at full capacity, it can slow down the phone in terms of its functionalities.’’

“Sure. How do we check that?’’

‘’In Settings, General, About. Then check the value beside Available.’’

‘’I see 0.9 GB.’’

‘’Ah! I see! That is not helping. You might need to remove some content of your phone. Pictures and videos perhaps. That must take away a lot of memory and we can transfer them on a PC or your MAC.’’

‘’I have 3,569 pictures and 122 videos.’’

‘’We will need transfer to your computer if possible.’’

‘’Can you help me with that? Also, I see that my phone is not on the last IOS version.’’

On boy…this is going to be a long call for sure. I could just refer the client to Apple but if the quality team listens to this call, they might not enjoy it. I will help her. Long call, but for me, it is an easy task.

‘’Sure Miss. Can you make sure you have access to a computer with Internet, the Iphone’s cable charger, and make sure you are not talking to me from that Iphone.’’

‘’Done!’’

I guided the client. I used a tool called logmein rescue to connect remotely to client’s PC. That helped a lot. First transferred all the pictures and videos from the phone to the PC. Then, proceeded with the software update. Her PC was slow, and I think her Internet speed is slow too. By the time the call ended on a good note, it was 10:45 PM! Geez! Honestly! I am too kind to our clients but that is who I am. I am a perfectionist and if I know I can fix something for the client, I will go above and beyond.

In the end, client was happy, I was satisfied with my work, and I will get a good sms survey from the client for the job rendered by me. Time to close my work computer. All my task for the day, for the year are completed. Nothing pending. I stayed almost two hours extra after the end of my shift but I do feel great.

Time to drive home and wait for 2013!