Treat People like People - a Blog Post

I wanted to write this today, because something inside of me said that the world may need to hear more of it. It’s about a phone call, and a person on the other end of that line. This is merely about our ability to rise above ourselves and treat others with respect and empathy rather than acting on raw emotion based on how we feel about a particular situation. I write this for you because we see so little of it today.

So, I will begin with explaining briefly what happened. I had an interaction today with a customer service representative for my cellular provider. It was related to a problem with our bill, a miscommunication or misunderstanding of certain terms and/or promotions. Basically, we were told one thing, and billed another. This is merely the context of what the phone call was, but it was the handling of it that I feel is important to share.

Now, my wife was angry. She was furious and she wanted to just destroy anyone who got on the phone with her out of the frustration she was dealing with related to this billing error. At some point, she decided to hand me the phone because she was so angry that she was afraid she would blow up on the individual. She clearly felt like she was not getting the result she wanted, and after a long day at work, I knew she was already exhausted and didn't want to deal with anything that would make her day any worse.

I begin to talk to them. I started off as just one human being talking to another. I explained the frustration my wife had dealing with the issue and how I was fully aware that it was not the fault of the individual on the phone for what we were experiencing. I made sure to empathize with them, as it is their job to be berated and argued with by people who are unhappy with their service/bill and the woman on the other end of the phone was just another human being, just someone doing a job. They have bills to pay, possibly children to care for, and I am pretty sure it was not their life’s ambition to be working for this company and doing the type of job they were doing. I went into the conversation with a simple request to understand the issue at hand and why it was being handled in the way it was. I was aware of all the facts and I tried to find out exactly where it went wrong and how we arrived at this point. By treating this person as just that, a person, I realized that not only was I going to be treated kindly and fairly, but I felt I was helping them regain some faith in humanity that not all people on the other end of the phone are out to be angry at them. I spoke calmly, and made sure my words were clear and without any negative connotation, so as to convey through the phone that I was simply trying to resolve an issue without any sort of difficulty or complication to both the service representative and my rather angry wife.

In the end the issue was resolved, with far better than expected results, and the individual thanked me for my patience and demeanor, which I'm aware is part of their training protocols for dealing with customers, but you can always hear in someone’s voice, if you listen carefully, the truth behind their words.

I made her day better, and she in turn made mine. My wife became a much happier person in the end, so I suppose I get points for that too.

I guess the point I’m making, whatever you get from reading this, is that you try to treat your fellow man (or woman) with the respect and understanding you would wish to have if in the same situation. It has to start somewhere, why not with you? I try to take it upon myself to be that person who makes the change I wish to see in the world. I may be only 1 person, but that’s all it takes to start anything worthwhile.

Be good to one another, and maybe one day we wont have to write about how kind someone was, or how great something was, because it will be the norm and maybe the world might just end up a little bit better for it.

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