Why Customer Service People burn out so fast

For someone who really grows as a person when they help another, no other job could be better than customer service.  It is more than a procedure, it’s a calling and not many possess the skills to be even a decent customer service rep.  So how do you find them and why do they burn out so quickly.

Let’s deal with the first question.  It’s easy to find someone who has that potential gold mine of a skill at customer service, watch their body language and the sparkle in their eyes when they speak about helping people.  If you do not see that, then chances are you are hiring by resume and not by benefit of company.  Having a person answer the phone does not a customer services representative make.  It goes much further than that.  A real customer service person will take as long with that one client or customer as necessary to ease their concerns.  They will stay with them until they are completely satisfied and not just appeased.  They will never be judgmental or accusatory just frank, honest and understanding.  These are not talents you can teach, either they have them or they don’t.

When it comes to question two, the reason so many burn out so fast is number one, you did not hire a customer service rep, you hired a stand-in.  Someone who took the job because it was the only one available, an entry level into that company or just needed the money and a job.  For those reasons, this is number two why they burn out so fast.  A true customer service person will search every single company policy to make sure that there is nothing that they can do for that person on that phone before they hang up and after hanging up, they will fight for more flexibility to fix an issue of the next customer calling with that same problem.  They will submit questions and suggests solutions so that they will be more able to satisfy that customer and not have to pass them on to another person.  A real customer service person knows that the people on those phone lines are the real reason that they have a job and in that capacity, they are much more important than even their boss.  Your boss signs your paycheck but it takes those people on those phones purchasing the service or product that makes those paychecks possible.

Customer service fails when management refuses to or ignores the real need of the customer and the only representative that customer has is the one who answered the phone when they called.  Customer service fails when those answering the phones began to look at what they do as a job and nothing more.  This allows them to pigeon-hole customers into categories and says things like, “that’s not my department” or “I can’t do anything about that”.  They can now see them as a waste of their time and tolerant they only long enough to get them off the phone.  As this calling becomes a job to most, they no longer look forward to being the reason that the customer who’s calling smiles or feels better about their day after interaction.  They began to only see a paycheck and not a real person.  They justify their actions or inaction by renaming those on that phone until the very same thing happens to them and then it became a different story.

Customer service representative burn out so fast because those chosen, suck at their jobs, those hiring them sucks at their job and management can’t get pass their own noses to make that job what it truly is and needs to be.  When you pick up the phone and call into a business, remember that the other person answering that phone is a person and are supposed to help you with your problem.  No matter how you come at them, they are supposed to remain professional but that does not mean that they will not remain human.  If you happen to reach a real customer service representative, remember how you feel at the end of that conversation and long after you have hung up because you need to remember it that next time you answer a phone.