I’m writing to provide an update after making it through one of the busiest parts of my job. This is currently a temporary position and now that things are getting a little slower, it may be coming to a close as hours will probably start to cut. For this reason, I am prepared for transitional steps in the event I were to get let go. I think it’s always safe to be prepared for the worst. This post will highlight a summary of what I’ve learned from a holistic view now having approximately 2 months down since my employment in early July.
Seeing Results
During my current employment, I handled over 400 phone calls so far while consistently meeting company targets. One metric I’m particularly proud of is indicated in my first scorecard, which showed that for every 3 calls I received, I generated an additional ticket. This reflects a 139% ticket-to-call ratio, highlighting my ability to exceed expectations and efficiently manage customer issues. I have continued to manage the more challenging phone calls with a calm demeanor and strategic tone.
Memorable Words
When I ask callers if they’d like to participate in the survey at the end of the call, a majority of them have agreed. I don’t know the exact figure on the survey agreements, but I would estimate that it’s close to 80-90% of callers willing to participate in it. I’ve always been very happy to end a phone call where someone says, “Will the survey help you? Then sure I’ll do it!” or, “You got it! I’ll do the survey for you, David. You’ve been so helpful.” – those kinds of comments have stuck with me and they always motivate me to carry that positive feeling into the next call.
Technical Puzzles
There are a lot of challenges that we faced during our busier period, where technical issues occurred and got in the mix. Despite these issues, surprisingly after the rush of calls, things were surprisingly pleasant. These more technical problems were always a breath of fresh air for me because while the problems were more unusual, they were in my playing field, being more technical minded to begin with. I had the resources to at my disposal to problem solve and the customer would always be able to hear my passion come across over the phone as I got a burst of energy when it came to something that required a deeper level of troubleshooting.
Lessons Learned
The large thing I’ve gained from this employment is a new perspective of time. I think I view time more as currency than I did – as I realize, what is really worth my time? Is it worth my time to lay in bed for 15 extra minutes, when I could be writing a blog in the same amount of time? Or, perhaps I want to leisure and enjoy that 15 minutes. If I associate a cost with an hour, say, $15/hr, then I can say that was a $4 nap – did it feel like $4? Did I take unpaid time off, say $120/day, was that day worth it? Did I make the memories of a lifetime for that $120 to be worth it? What about an investment? Let’s say you make $400 on an investment, that’s 26 hours of your time saved, at a $15/hr rate. It’s this kind of perspective that really helped me to upgrade to a new level of attention to have while managing my time.