My first call. Aww.

Two days ago I took my first call in the new department.

I was rather nervous, for many reasons, you never really know what you're going to get, some customers are philosophical about it, some are only phoning to shout.

I squared my shoulders and switched my console over to "available".

The phone rang and I hit the button to pick it up, an automated voice told me which section of our collections cycle this customer was calling from, in this case, she'd received a reminder, one of the earliest stages.

"Good afternoon, welcome to Company, can i take your account number please?"

We go through the preliminaries.

"That's great, I'm showing an outstanding balance of £xxx on your account, how can I help you today?"

"Well I'm not very happy, I received a Very nasty letter from your company today telling me to pay my bill. I found it extremely offensive! If your company had bothered to come and read my meter then this would never have happened!"

Yeah and if you'd read the bit on your bill where it says in bold typeface that your account was estimated and to please call in with a reading then it would never have happened either.

"Very well, I can see that there is a payment pending on your account, it will take a few more days to clear though, so should you receive any more communications from us regarding the debt you can ignore it."

"I should bloody well hope so! And you need to change that letter, it was disgusting! In fact I'm thoroughly disgusted with your service and I'm moving to Company X!"

"Very we*click*ll....?"

She hung up on me.

I switch myself off available and glance over at the experienced advisor who is shadowing me and he grins. "Tough break, but you did well."

I grin.