DOT had issued a notice to all telecom subscribers in India in 2007 to resubmit the documents for KYC. This turned into one the most chaotic situation across all the front end stores for all telecom operators. The E-kyc was not in place and thousands of customer use to line up in front of the stores with their anger towards the operators as their services were barred.
I was working with Tata Indicom -during that period as a TL for one of the COCO store (True Value Hub) in Mumbai. We, as a team, handled around 1200-2500 customer avg. walk-in into the stores on a single day for the document submission & reactivation of services.
Every irate customer wanted to meet the TL for escalation. At times i got angry, lost my cool, but the brunt was for the DOT only & the internal customer conflicts were also tough to handle.
After a couple of days of managing the situation , i was suggested by my Manager to take control over the main reception. The FTR (first time resolution) was important, & when the Team Leader is standing at the 1st line of interaction the customer anger subsides quickly, and there is a lot of time saved.
During that period i reported to Anshumati, who was by far one of the finest CRM Lead in telecom in my opinion. I joined TTML as she was my lead during my Reliance Infocomm days as well.
Since it was my 1st stint to such an aggressive situation, i often crossed my lines of aggression while handling customers. One of the days, when she was supervising the situation at my store, she knew.
She took me aside and taught me a very important part of communication - "Vikas", she said "There is a very thin line between being assertive and being aggressive, It is up to you on how you want to handle the situation, as the results will be accordingly"
That line still echoes in my mind and that is one thing which i believe has helped me in the most crucial customer handling situations in my career.
Communication is a endless learning subject and you can never master it. But some people like Anshumati give you a lifelong lesson.
Cheers to everyone who have had such leaders in their careers.
#thursdaymotivation #thankyourmanager #lifelesson #communication #customerservice #telecom #ttml #tataindicom #ttsl
Lead - Provider Network at Across Assist | Ex [Zopper | OneAssist | Samsung |Vivo | Lloyd]
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