I wish people would refrain from using customer service as a verbal punching bag.

Agreed.

Hi. Very sorry to hear this. I don't work directly in customer service but if I may offer some advice?

1. Very often customer service reps are not very knowledgeable of the company, product or situation. This often further frustrates customers. They can help themselves by better educating themselves.

2. Sometimes just sympathizing with a customer goes a long way. All the best customer service stories start off as bad customer service stories.

3. Always remember that if a reaction doesn't make sense to you, then it probably has nothing to do with you. Emotionally separate yourself from these things.

4. Jurisdictional laws, company rules, or even just common sense etiquette dictate that no one has to take abuse. In situations where I have attempted to be helpful and people escalate the conversation to abuse or vulgarity, I polite inform them that the conversation is over and either walk away or hang up.

I sincerely hope that this is helpful.

So many anecdotes with weird people

Sorry to hear you had a bad day :(
Sucks to get ranted at, especially when there's nothing you can do to fix their problem or it's nothing to do with your role/department.

Hey, I had my first experience as phone customer support today and almost had a panic attack while trying to find a solution for the caller. They give us 8 minutes to solve and end the case. I had a person holding for a lot more than 8 minutes while panicking and when I found the answer I apologized for the delay, surprisingly she was very nice and patient. I was really expecting to get screamed or insulted but it didn't happen. So, hopefully you get some nice people tomorrow to balance out the bad ones.

You are a mighty shield! If it wasn't you, that customer would be taking their personal frustration out on someone else. Thank you on behalf of that unknown someone else for being the wall in between. It sucks, but some customers are just horrible people, and there's little that can be done about that from a professional distance.

I know I couldn't handle a real customer support gig. Inter-office where your "customers" are your co-workers and have to live with you after they make a childish tantrum, sure. But public-facing... that's tough.

Hopefully most of your customers are rational folks rather than wrathful fools.

And yes, even if you're angry at a company, politeness, kindness, and patience can (occasionally) be a good motivator for your customer support person to really try to help you out (assuming the customer support isn't farmed out to a shoddily-unhelpful-but-cheap staffing agency...).

What you say is true and I'm not disputing that don't get me wrong, but on the flip side I also see cases where employees at certain places are incredibly lazy and/or dismissive and it irks customers to no end. Would that justify treating someone poorly as in your example? No, of course not. We should always strive to be mindful of the human element of it. But at the same time not all people who would complain about stuff are also blameless. I've spent my fair share of time working retail (which is always customer service related) and took pride in my work and always tried to help everyone to the best of my ability regardless of what they were looking for, and I can honestly say that if I conducted myself the way that most Walmart employees seem to do for example then I would have gotten fired. This is part of the reason why so many people can't stand shopping there. Not that what management does there helps them. In my experiences it's a travesty. I'd much rather shop at Target instead any day. That's just one example.

Much <3 & support!
I would like to write hundreds of line of sympathy but my english level doesn't allow me to do that, but I send you force!!!

That's people for you. That's life for you.
After 15 years dealing with this, people don't get better - so you have to learn to deal with it - the choice not to deal with people is just a cop-out.

<3 I know from experience that it doesn't always help to hear but when I was working CS and someone started in on me about something corporate did or something vaguely related to the company that upset them I took solace in the fact that anyone who yells at a cashier over an ad offending them or corporate's policy change is likely to be not all that smart and/or have serious anger issues. At that time in my life I was the kind of person that would cry at the thought of getting yelled at or upsetting someone but these types of customer's grievances went so far out of the realm of rational given whom they were airing them to that to my surprise it didn't bother me. Their comments went so far passed upsetting that it looped around to bizarre and I could do nothing but be dumbfounded at the shear stupidity of these sorts of people.

If they are angry at corporate and called the lowest man on the totem pole to yell about it, without giving thought to the fact that their complaint is a drop in the wrong ocean, then they are too stupid to be worth your tears. Hold this image in your mind when dealing with these halfwits.

View attached image.

I'm not even supposed to talk to members of the public but occasionally somebody having a tantrum will get transferred to me, and usually by the time people get put through to me they are pissed off about being given the runaround on top of whatever they were pissed about in the first place. I had somebody ranting at me for more than half an hour a few weeks ago over stuff that was absolutely nothing to do with me.

I tried to be the voice of reason, I did my best to stay calm but it counted for nothing. I tried to put things in perspective, I used to work the NHS and dealt with a lot of terminally ill patients and patients with terminally ill children and I dealt with a lot of phone calls that were far more difficult than that. You try and see things from the other persons point of view because I know plenty of times I've phoned up companies outraged about things - usually I calm down once speaking to a person but generally only because I've been on the other side of things and I guess some people don't have that.

But I'd lost it from that call a few weeks ago. I'm lucky that I at least had the freedom to decide there were things that needed doing in the warehouse and went and drove round on a forklift truck for a bit while I was calming down. I wouldn't have been happy if I'd had to sit there and take more calls like some people do. I wish I could offer great advice for people in that situation but I don't have it to give. I can only offer sympathy and say in my experience it always feels better when you have slept on it.

Sorry to hear that. There seems to be an unlimited number of morons that roam this earth.

Have you considered a career outside of customer service?

Given the nature of that occupation (and people in general), the occasional - or not so occasional - idiot and rudeness are to be expected. I'm not excusing that sort of behavior in any sense, just saying it's inevitable.

And, on the flip side, after you've dealt with the general public for a while, you get used to their stupidity and rudeness. Get yourself a good "WTF" facial expression, and remind yourself they're not angry at you, but at the situation.

People are literal shit bags, but from one jaded, cynical human being to another: revel in the fact that when you go, everything goes with you. You are the master of your domain and all those around you are just players in your game. I know how irrational emotion can be and suffer from my own set of emotional ailments, but I manage knowing that I'm the center of my universe so to speak. I believe in you, keep kicking ass in whatever it is that you do.

I know that when I call support for something and am upset, I generally do two things:

1) I try to have a rational reason that I'm calling and am upset, and a clear way to articulate it as well as a reasonable expectation for the help or answer that I expect
2) I tell the person on the other end of the line that I'm upset, that I know that it is not their fault, and that they're just the person that's stuck taking my complaint. And I further let them know that any displeasure I have or anger I express is not directed at them. [Unless they're a dickbag about the whole thing, and then that changes :D -- but that's generally not the case]

I've found that when I call any company with a complaint, if I'm a reasonable, rational, nice person about it, and am able to be clear about why I'm not happy and what my expectations are for resolution (and I don't ask for anything more than I think is fair), then I tend to get good results from my call. Calling and being emotional, irrational, and mistreating the other person on the line who is just trying to help just results in them not wanting to help and instead just wanting to get you off of the line.

I mean, as a human, if I know that nothing I do will make someone happy, then why should I try? When I meet perpetually unhappy, irrational people, I tend to just give them the Heisman and move on to more productive things.

Hang in there and know that it's not you -- it's them. Some people aren't happy unless they're unhappy. They need constant drama because they crave attention. They're just internal children who go about with a sense of entitlement and self-absorption, and when you encounter them, just do the minimum to get them to go away because they won't be satisfied no matter what you do. It's their own bad karma to build, and that crap will come back around for sure.

Although I agree it would be nice if people would learn to treat CSR's better... It's gonna happen, and I might sound like a dick but... You gotta learn to deal with it. That said though, is there no policy in place in which you can hang up if certain criteria are met? Although I always refrained from hanging up as a CSR, there were always policies in which swearing or other vulgarity would allow us to hang up. Only time I heard of this not being the case was with mates who worked for AT&T. If there are no policies in place, you should probably get together with other employees and go to management demanding change.

Sometimes it's good to remind the people things which should be completely obvious. I wanted to cite what I thought is a German proverb, but Google tells me it's a globally known principle called Golden Rule. I didn't know that. Learning never stops. :)

Thanks a lot for GA!

Never had to deal with the general public, but did support for co-workers and business clients and frankly some people are just maniacs, that's all there is to it. They were apparently taught as children that they can throw a temper tantrum and they'll get what they want. My reaction is to just smile and laugh, which either calms them or enrages them further (which I find hilarious). -- counterpoint, though, is that sometimes somebody is not mad at you, but wants you to be mad alongside them, just as mad as they are... I am personally not really capable of getting mad about things, I am very calm and low-key, so I can't even fake enthusiasm or anger most of the time...

You've got to remember that they aren't mad at you, personally, and imagine this person's miserable existence that they are getting so worked up with a total stranger on the phone about something like that. I honestly wonder how some of these people even manage to tie their shoes in the morning.

At an old job I programmed the phone system for the call center, and I put in a "cool down" period after calls that would grow increasingly longer based on the length of the call. That way they would have a few minutes to decompress after dealing with a particularly crazy customer. I don't remember the exact math and it had to be within what the managers would allow, but if they were on the phone for 30 minutes they'd get a 5 minute break or something like that. They also had a soundproof door and they were allowed to go outside and scream and yell or take a cigarette break if they needed to let off some steam. There was also an unofficial secret alcohol mini-fridge under one of the desks...

Man, I only worked via messaging as a customer service rep and I hated it. I can only imagine how I'd react to it via phone/in person. It's also the reason I turned down a decent-paying job offer, since it required talking on the phone with customers, which I honestly don't think I could do, seeing how I already have trouble dealing with angry people via text. (Luckily, I've been moved to a new project recently and no longer deal with angry customers much.)

Best of luck. If all else fails, consider finding other employment - You certainly do not deserve to experience things that are bad for your mental health (mental breakdowns, etc). Sometimes the job just isn't worth the effect it has on you.

And people like you are the exact reason that no matter how upset I am, I'm always polite with the customer service rep. Not their fault the company sucks or that I'm having a problem, so why take it out on them? I'm not trying to ruin someone's day or stress them out.

Sorry you came across an asshole. Just try to keep in mind that whatever his issue is, it's not your fault or problem, and chances are he won't even remember by the next day, so why should you?I know it's hard (and why I can't do customer service lol) but that's prolly been the best advice Ive heard when I worked with people. I hope tomorrow is a better day for you :)

That's really unfortunate, sorry that happened to you.

I worked as customer service / investment specialist for an investment firm, and if we ever encountered something like that (I never did) we were instructed to refer them directly to our supervisor so that they would handle it and wouldn't have to. Does your company not have a policy like that?

When I call customer service, I always try to be respectful of the person I'm talking to because they're not the source of my issue. Even if I'm justifiably upset, I'm upset at the company and the situation, not the customer service person on the line. If I get an inept customer service person, I'll just ask to speak to their supervisor instead.

Although my SO did have to chew out a CS rep for Amazon yesterday. There was an issue with a refund, and the rep seemed really confused and asked for the order number at least 3 times over 15 minutes, and after the third time my SO lost it and said something like, "I indicated the order and items on the website when I requested a call, I then gave you the order number again and again, and it's now been 15 minutes and you're still asking for the order number? What is the difficulty here? Are you looking at my order or not?" There, I can see why my SO got upset.

Anyway, I hope you're able to put this incident behind you, and hope you will have only lovely people to talk to for the rest of the week. :)

I work customer service and fortunately don't have this problem. With people people just tend to overshare. I've thought about opening a bar at my returns desk and putting out a tip jar, I'd make more.

Some people are just lacking in the compassion field. I hope you get better.