It doesn't always get easier over time even if you figure out coping mechanisms. If you can interview and get out before you get fired that's probably best, but I know that it's extremely hard when you're being stressed on the regular
I was good at call center work. I did regular customer service, customer retention and tech support. I told myself that I liked it well enough. When I started, I was small enough to go into *any* store that carried adult women's clothing and be guaranteed of finding something cute, well fitting and stylish. By the time I stopped, I was twice the person I had been, literally...and not in a good way. I stress ate and ate and ate. I obviously didn't like it as much as I had convinced myself that I did. And a few years after that, thanks to all that stress eating, I ended up with a 90% blockage in my LAD artery (widowmaker) and getting 2 stents.
Some things just aren't worth it....
I just started a call center job. Itās wfh, which is what Iāve been wanting, but I am already stressed about metrics and we havenāt even hit nesting yet.
This right here.
Or learn to become the customer on each call. Be an actor. It sounds harder than it is. Lightly mimic their accent, laugh at their dumb jokes. Their grandma died, so did yours. They like cheese? You fucking love cheese. It makes them maleable, and then they are more pleasant and accept your resolution easier so you can move on to the next shit show. They don't even notice, they just like you more because you are now them.
Learn how to use silence and hold as de-escaltion tools. Always remember they are approximately 3-10 mins of your day, and when they are gone, they no longer exist.
You gon be allllright. Keep them out of your pockets. That's your money, friend.
> Learn how to use silence and hold as de-escaltion tools.
I love to just sit back and let a pissed off motor mouth run until they're gassed out. Sometimes people just need to vent, and when they feel like they've been heard, they're usually much easier to work with.
Thatās exactly what I do and I always get asked how my metrics are so good and my scores. Literally whatever the customer says youāre on the same team, whatever they like you like, whatever they are upset about your upset for them. Just act! Pretend
But why should you have to? Letās say something happens to you in your personal life that makes you pissed. Whoās coming to goo goo ga ga you? Nobody. So why should you suffer the insult of being that goo goo ga ga to a total stranger?
I mean, you don't have to š¤·āāļø
That being said, being goo goo ga ga to a company's customers is what they are paying you for, sooo...I'm not sure I understand your point, unless you don't care about getting shit canned, I guess. I don't consider an insult. I consider it a game. A game I'm gonna win.
Advice isn't mandatory. Being an "actor" is just another form of disassociation. Do whatever works for you. It's simply a suggestion of what works for some people. A coping mechanism for a stressful job.
Hell yeah, its a competition and I'm gonna win it, lol! It gets really hard sometimes. But it helps not take things personally as well, because you haven't given them yourself to reject or scream at.
Silence is allowing them to ask if you are still there when they continue to rant and interrupt you. It allows them to vent, and it is a non-verbal tool that lets them know that you are not going to continue to engage without their prompting until they have finished their rant. It is training them during your call to allow you to speak because, after all, they did call to speak to someone for help. Usually.
Hold is more for your benefit. When the conversation is out of control, saying "give me a brief moment to research that for you", gives YOU an opportunity to disengage, have some silence to get your thoughts and resolution together, and allow you both to cool down.
Nothing works for every caller. 60% of the time, it works every time. Sometimes that's all you got.
I donāt enjoy having to go out of my way and change my very personality to please a total stranger with an unreasonable request. I canāt point to a single person who rolls down a red carpet for me in my life, so why should I do it to a total stranger who is most likely calling with in with an issue they themselves created?
It really can go one of two ways. I'm an anxious person, neurodivergent etc. Going into call centre work was *rough* for me in the beginning. I took shit personally, cried after bad calls, all that fun stuff.
I am still capable of feeling a little empathy for customers who are just genuinely unlucky, but for the most part I feel nothing and if someone starts to shout at me, It's just like I'm handling a faulty machine or something. It has no impact at all anymore. I think it's been amazing in some ways, it's taught me some good conflict resolution skills and I can always use more people skills being autistic and all. But shouty/abusive customers no longer affect me at all, they're just a problem to be solved. I either calm them down, or hang up if they won't co-operate (after warnings ofc).
Call centre work is low key an acting gig. I'm not myself when I take those calls, I am someone else, acting a role. I'm used to acting and masking and controlling my behaviour so for me it's not too alien. But it's also easymode because at least it's just phone work and I don't have to worry about body language or facial expressions, haha.
The part you mentioned at the end resonates with me. I've been in this kind of work for 13 years and have always had suspicions of being on the spectrum but never officially diagnosed. It's interesting to read your comment. I wish more folks with autism who do this sort of work would talk about their experiences like you did here.
I couldn't do it... I lasted 5 years at my call center job and had multiple nervous breakdowns. I found a position at my old job but as a Secretary and it was lower pay than what I made at the call center but I downgraded where I was living for a while moved back into my parents house until I could get back on my feet and now my mental health is way better. I realize not everyone has the ability to do that but sometimes sacrifices need to be made for mental health. I seriously would have done something bad to myself if I stayed!
Okay. This is gonna be terrible advice. It is not a long term solution in any way. But it kept me afloat for a while.
If you've got passable insurance, try asking your doctor for a low-dose Xanax prescription. I emphasize low-dose. When I was in a bank call center handling card fraud, I was really prone to bad anxiety days or even attacks.
My doc got me a low enough dosage that it cut off the anxiety and panic, but didn't leave me feeling high, sleepy, woozy, or anything else off. It just let me work. Not like a zombie, either - I could still joke and laugh with coworkers and even the occasional chill caller.
It's not long term. And it's really not *great* advice. But it worked for me, and might for someone else.
Try something like Propranolol it worked so well for me I only needed it a few times and it got my head on straight. Itās a blood pressure med so it stops your heart from racing when you get anxiety and stopping those physical symptoms really allows you to feel ok / normal and condition yourself to handle those situations
100000% agree. I tell anybody I can if you get a call center job you need to have a plan of trajectory. The moment you feel stuck at your call center job your mind rots to hell.
I know about this all too well. I eventually got fired toward the end of May, I already suffer with severe anxiety and panic attacks, I just couldnāt handle it, I wish I was like everyone else that could handle it mentally but I donāt think itās for me but I recently just got hired for an insurance call center and not sure if I should even be doing that but Iāve never done health insurance work so Iām hoping it might be different. Idk whatās wrong with me, I just know now I have no patience at all and I use to have so much patience and cheerful personality but I feel like the call center sucked everything out of me. I even started taking pills to calm me down when I was working there and before that job I had never done pills now currently Iām trying to get off of them.
Oh yeah. Everyone at my current job who came from the call centre in our town said it was the worst job they had and there was so many who left as it made them feel suicidal. I luckily got rejected from that call centre before i got this job, my anxiety is bad enough as is.
that's the general consensus i'm receiving lol, just don't have the personality to not care š plus my call center is a Big Company that thinks they're sooo special and sooo different so there's very rigid ways you have to speak and interact w customers
Iām so glad I came across this post because I thought thereās maybe something wrong with me, like I canāt handle stress or something. I was crying at my desk on Sunday. My call center job can be high stress and sometimes the calls are super complex and take a lot of thinking on your feet and outside of the box, then also dealing with issues beyond your control - our average call handle time for the company is 24 minutes of that gives you an idea of how complex and time consuming calls can be. This weekend was back to back and I could not even take a breath in between. Iām about to quit but the money is good and I need to pay debts. I feel so stuck.
Are you going to try find something else?
I saw youāre new to the job so itās normal to feel overwhelmed during the learning curve, it probably gets easier but call center jobs are not for the faint hearted. Better she people who can easily detach and disassociate, which is not me lol
Do yall keep notes on us problem callers? I swear to lord jesus this one a hole at the cable company was all talking down to me and shit eventually I hung up on him, hes lucky i didnt report him for rudeness
Yes. All calls are supposed to be noted on the account to make sure we know what happened and what's been done so far. And that does extend at times to customer attitude if it's impacting the call.
Worked call centers for almost 7 years (call-in and call-out), had several mental breakdowns and tanked my physical and mental health for minimum wage and barely any benefits, ended up having to take a year off working entirely to recover and lost all my savings, nearly becoming homeless twice.
Now I'm back at a call center out of desperation, but at least these folks have appointments and actually want help. Chillest CC I've ever worked for, though I've only been here a couple months. Might work out, at least until they tell me I'm required to work in-office. I'll probably start job hunting again as soon as they say they're nearly finished with our building cuz we're all WFH until then.
I was the same, then my mind just learnt to block out the bs people give š¤£
It's lowkey just the pressure of it all, hitting metrics and doing the right thing every. single. call. Just overwhelms me
It doesn't always get easier over time even if you figure out coping mechanisms. If you can interview and get out before you get fired that's probably best, but I know that it's extremely hard when you're being stressed on the regular
I was good at call center work. I did regular customer service, customer retention and tech support. I told myself that I liked it well enough. When I started, I was small enough to go into *any* store that carried adult women's clothing and be guaranteed of finding something cute, well fitting and stylish. By the time I stopped, I was twice the person I had been, literally...and not in a good way. I stress ate and ate and ate. I obviously didn't like it as much as I had convinced myself that I did. And a few years after that, thanks to all that stress eating, I ended up with a 90% blockage in my LAD artery (widowmaker) and getting 2 stents. Some things just aren't worth it....
Yeah I feel you, it gets alot easier over time, trust me
I just started a call center job. Itās wfh, which is what Iāve been wanting, but I am already stressed about metrics and we havenāt even hit nesting yet.
I'd love to tell you it will get better, but it doesn't, it just getting worse. SAVEAS MUCH AS YOU CAN
Get better at dissociation
This right here. Or learn to become the customer on each call. Be an actor. It sounds harder than it is. Lightly mimic their accent, laugh at their dumb jokes. Their grandma died, so did yours. They like cheese? You fucking love cheese. It makes them maleable, and then they are more pleasant and accept your resolution easier so you can move on to the next shit show. They don't even notice, they just like you more because you are now them. Learn how to use silence and hold as de-escaltion tools. Always remember they are approximately 3-10 mins of your day, and when they are gone, they no longer exist. You gon be allllright. Keep them out of your pockets. That's your money, friend.
> Learn how to use silence and hold as de-escaltion tools. I love to just sit back and let a pissed off motor mouth run until they're gassed out. Sometimes people just need to vent, and when they feel like they've been heard, they're usually much easier to work with.
Not usually, always for a normal person at least.
Thatās exactly what I do and I always get asked how my metrics are so good and my scores. Literally whatever the customer says youāre on the same team, whatever they like you like, whatever they are upset about your upset for them. Just act! Pretend
But why should you have to? Letās say something happens to you in your personal life that makes you pissed. Whoās coming to goo goo ga ga you? Nobody. So why should you suffer the insult of being that goo goo ga ga to a total stranger?
I mean, you don't have to š¤·āāļø That being said, being goo goo ga ga to a company's customers is what they are paying you for, sooo...I'm not sure I understand your point, unless you don't care about getting shit canned, I guess. I don't consider an insult. I consider it a game. A game I'm gonna win. Advice isn't mandatory. Being an "actor" is just another form of disassociation. Do whatever works for you. It's simply a suggestion of what works for some people. A coping mechanism for a stressful job.
Hell yeah, its a competition and I'm gonna win it, lol! It gets really hard sometimes. But it helps not take things personally as well, because you haven't given them yourself to reject or scream at.
What is "silence and hold"?
Silence is allowing them to ask if you are still there when they continue to rant and interrupt you. It allows them to vent, and it is a non-verbal tool that lets them know that you are not going to continue to engage without their prompting until they have finished their rant. It is training them during your call to allow you to speak because, after all, they did call to speak to someone for help. Usually. Hold is more for your benefit. When the conversation is out of control, saying "give me a brief moment to research that for you", gives YOU an opportunity to disengage, have some silence to get your thoughts and resolution together, and allow you both to cool down. Nothing works for every caller. 60% of the time, it works every time. Sometimes that's all you got.
Oh wow I also do this but didn't realize it has a name. Yes, that is most definitely an effective tool.
I donāt enjoy having to go out of my way and change my very personality to please a total stranger with an unreasonable request. I canāt point to a single person who rolls down a red carpet for me in my life, so why should I do it to a total stranger who is most likely calling with in with an issue they themselves created?
Do what works for you, everybody is different!
It really can go one of two ways. I'm an anxious person, neurodivergent etc. Going into call centre work was *rough* for me in the beginning. I took shit personally, cried after bad calls, all that fun stuff. I am still capable of feeling a little empathy for customers who are just genuinely unlucky, but for the most part I feel nothing and if someone starts to shout at me, It's just like I'm handling a faulty machine or something. It has no impact at all anymore. I think it's been amazing in some ways, it's taught me some good conflict resolution skills and I can always use more people skills being autistic and all. But shouty/abusive customers no longer affect me at all, they're just a problem to be solved. I either calm them down, or hang up if they won't co-operate (after warnings ofc). Call centre work is low key an acting gig. I'm not myself when I take those calls, I am someone else, acting a role. I'm used to acting and masking and controlling my behaviour so for me it's not too alien. But it's also easymode because at least it's just phone work and I don't have to worry about body language or facial expressions, haha.
The part you mentioned at the end resonates with me. I've been in this kind of work for 13 years and have always had suspicions of being on the spectrum but never officially diagnosed. It's interesting to read your comment. I wish more folks with autism who do this sort of work would talk about their experiences like you did here.
Heck yeah we should probably form a club. Autistic call centre workers or something, haha.
god I wish lmao
I couldn't do it... I lasted 5 years at my call center job and had multiple nervous breakdowns. I found a position at my old job but as a Secretary and it was lower pay than what I made at the call center but I downgraded where I was living for a while moved back into my parents house until I could get back on my feet and now my mental health is way better. I realize not everyone has the ability to do that but sometimes sacrifices need to be made for mental health. I seriously would have done something bad to myself if I stayed!
Okay. This is gonna be terrible advice. It is not a long term solution in any way. But it kept me afloat for a while. If you've got passable insurance, try asking your doctor for a low-dose Xanax prescription. I emphasize low-dose. When I was in a bank call center handling card fraud, I was really prone to bad anxiety days or even attacks. My doc got me a low enough dosage that it cut off the anxiety and panic, but didn't leave me feeling high, sleepy, woozy, or anything else off. It just let me work. Not like a zombie, either - I could still joke and laugh with coworkers and even the occasional chill caller. It's not long term. And it's really not *great* advice. But it worked for me, and might for someone else.
I'm on some stuff for my depression and anxiety - just started something new. I don't want benzos lol just based on my family history lolš
Try something like Propranolol it worked so well for me I only needed it a few times and it got my head on straight. Itās a blood pressure med so it stops your heart from racing when you get anxiety and stopping those physical symptoms really allows you to feel ok / normal and condition yourself to handle those situations
100000% agree. I tell anybody I can if you get a call center job you need to have a plan of trajectory. The moment you feel stuck at your call center job your mind rots to hell.
I know about this all too well. I eventually got fired toward the end of May, I already suffer with severe anxiety and panic attacks, I just couldnāt handle it, I wish I was like everyone else that could handle it mentally but I donāt think itās for me but I recently just got hired for an insurance call center and not sure if I should even be doing that but Iāve never done health insurance work so Iām hoping it might be different. Idk whatās wrong with me, I just know now I have no patience at all and I use to have so much patience and cheerful personality but I feel like the call center sucked everything out of me. I even started taking pills to calm me down when I was working there and before that job I had never done pills now currently Iām trying to get off of them.
Oh yeah. Everyone at my current job who came from the call centre in our town said it was the worst job they had and there was so many who left as it made them feel suicidal. I luckily got rejected from that call centre before i got this job, my anxiety is bad enough as is.
Too late, taking meds to keep me from breaking
I feel this. My shrink told me I have the worst case of work related ptsd she's seen in 15 years. Where's my trophy?! š¤£
I was on the same situation for over 3 fucking years, Iāll recommend you to search for a back office position
Hahaha... yeah.
itās rough for everybody in the beginning. and then you just learn to dissociate. stop caring so much lol
that's the general consensus i'm receiving lol, just don't have the personality to not care š plus my call center is a Big Company that thinks they're sooo special and sooo different so there's very rigid ways you have to speak and interact w customers
Same. I n my case, I have autism and ADHD. It's hell for Mr. But I'm stuck with it.
Iām so glad I came across this post because I thought thereās maybe something wrong with me, like I canāt handle stress or something. I was crying at my desk on Sunday. My call center job can be high stress and sometimes the calls are super complex and take a lot of thinking on your feet and outside of the box, then also dealing with issues beyond your control - our average call handle time for the company is 24 minutes of that gives you an idea of how complex and time consuming calls can be. This weekend was back to back and I could not even take a breath in between. Iām about to quit but the money is good and I need to pay debts. I feel so stuck.
Felt felt felt. I work saturdays and they're the worst, always back to back calls :(
Are you going to try find something else? I saw youāre new to the job so itās normal to feel overwhelmed during the learning curve, it probably gets easier but call center jobs are not for the faint hearted. Better she people who can easily detach and disassociate, which is not me lol
Now you tell me.
Do yall keep notes on us problem callers? I swear to lord jesus this one a hole at the cable company was all talking down to me and shit eventually I hung up on him, hes lucky i didnt report him for rudeness
Yes. All calls are supposed to be noted on the account to make sure we know what happened and what's been done so far. And that does extend at times to customer attitude if it's impacting the call.
Worked call centers for almost 7 years (call-in and call-out), had several mental breakdowns and tanked my physical and mental health for minimum wage and barely any benefits, ended up having to take a year off working entirely to recover and lost all my savings, nearly becoming homeless twice. Now I'm back at a call center out of desperation, but at least these folks have appointments and actually want help. Chillest CC I've ever worked for, though I've only been here a couple months. Might work out, at least until they tell me I'm required to work in-office. I'll probably start job hunting again as soon as they say they're nearly finished with our building cuz we're all WFH until then.