Dealing with difficult people

The customer contact center is the place where all interactions funnel through. It’s considered an entry level position and employees feel they are undervalued.

Our contact center works closely with the Marketing Departments. Most of the Product Marketing Managers understand the value of the customer and know that the contact center is one place where that can happen. There is only one group who feels “it’s our job to deal with the customer.” The head of one group is feeling the pressure to turn a profit so that’s their primary focus, forgetting the customer is how to grow the business.

For a while I would butt heads with this person (both of us adamant on our position) until I decided this is not the way to work this through. I began to pray about this situation and how to make it change. What did I need to do to open the communication? Using prayer helped me to view the situation in a different light. Prayer helped me take a different approach with this group and remember that it’s in God’s hands, there is only one plan and we had to find a way to carry out the plan smoothly and respectfully.

There are of course different outlooks on how the plan should be executed but at least I don’t have a negative attitude or closed mind about this group but just want to help them do their job better by making the customer first priority!