Tags
#thanks4theread, books, call centre, grateful, gratitude, reading, Rhonda Byrne, Telstra, The Magic
I had an odd experience last night. It started with a Telstra problem (which admittedly isn’t odd at all) but it developed after I rang their 24hr helpline at 10pm.
By midnight I was onto my 9th Telstra employee – Ahmed in the Adelaide call centre – who also wanted to transfer me to someone else to sort my problem. Again, nothing unusual there. It seems to be the thing with call centres. If your problem is at all challenging, the easy road seems to be redirection: “Oh you’re a business customer. This is residential,” or “Sorry, they’ve transferred you to IT support, you want IP support.” Etc. Etc.
Anyway, by the time I’d reached Ahmed I was low on reserves. I’d spent two hours being shunted from one unhelpful person to the next, and while listening to piped music I’d been stressing about how I could run a business when I couldn’t email my customers. Only certain customers, admittedly, but you know how situations always seem more dire after midnight. I think there’s some Universal Law at work with that.
So when Ahmed wanted to transfer me back to the 125111 helpline I’d been sent to three times already, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I’m ashamed to admit that I begged. I told him I knew call centre staff had time restrictions on calls, and that it wasn’t his fault that someone had transferred me to the wrong place, but could he please, please, please take the time to find the right person for me before he transferred me through. Ahmed was clearly an intelligent guy and he’d understood my problem, so I was counting on him also knowing the sections of Telstra (sprawled across several continents) and being able to find the needle in a haystack that I wanted.
And God help me he did.
I sat quietly listening to piped music for fifteen minutes while he burned off his call average for the night searching for someone to help me. Then he came back on and apologised for making me wait. I swear, I wanted to reach through the phone and kiss him! He transferred me to Dimple in the Philippines who understood exactly what I was talking about, and through a process of elimination over the next two hours she found my problem and fixed it. I feel like an idiot, but I’m crying now as I write this because I was so happy, and so relieved. I didn’t want to be one of those people who complains about call centres all the time. I wanted to be someone who gets looked after well and feels grateful for that. And I was. At 2:30am when I went to bed, everything was right with my world.
This morning (after a good sleep in) I did my usual routine of spending time with my gratitude journal. I’m currently working my way through the new book by Rhonda Byrne (of The Secret fame) called The Magic. Part of that program is writing ten things you’re grateful for, and adding why they make you feel good. Ahmed and Dimple were top of my list, and having a working email system (which I’d previously taken for granted) came in close second. Last night I’d gone to the Telstra ‘positive feedback’ website and detailed how much I’d appreciated Ahmed and Dimple, and in the light of a new day today (and a more awake brain) it occurred to me that there are lots of things I appreciate as passionately as I did their help last night, which I never take the time to acknowledge.
And high on the list is books.
Admittedly I’d done the odd review when I happened to be online, but only when it was convenient to me. I’d never gone out of my way to show my appreciation for reading, which is crazy because my love of books is one of my big passions in life. And how hard would it be to pop into Amazon and leave a review under the book I’d just read, and to add a review in Goodreads? Saying Thank you makes me feel good, and because I wasn’t in the habit of saying Thank you to other authors for the time and effort they’d put into their stories, I was missing out on precious feel-good emotions.
But now, thanks to Ahmed and his inspiration, I won’t miss out. I’m going to make sure that when I finish reading a book I Tweet, Facebook, Amazon Review and Goodreads review the book, because that’s the least I can do to show how grateful I am for the pleasure of reading someone else’s carefully chosen words.
If you love books too, think about getting onboard with #thanks4theread and let’s see if we can trend it! There really can’t be enough gratitude in the world, so let’s start with something we all love.
You defeated the Telstra beast?! That is truly an achievement worth celebrating. 🙂
And you will make a lot of authors very happy by leaving even short reviews.
Thanks for your comment, Katkasia. I’ve taken time this morning to post reviews about a couple of great books I’ve read recently, and want to hold myself to my committment to continue. Long may #thanks4theread continue!
Some good thoughts there, Louise, especially on the reviews question. And Ahmed (and Dimple: what a delightful name) deserve gold stars; hopefully no one at Telstra will get up them for failing to follow the company’s standard operating procedures, which clearly bear no relation to actually helping customers. Here in Indonesia of course we have the added attraction, when calling help lines, of the Indonesian-speaker on the other end not listening to us because were speaking Indonesian, something an orang asing (foreigner) is Not Supposed To Do. 🙂
Thanks, Richard. And how cool would that be to speak Indonesian to someone in an Indonesian call centre! I must admit I asked everyone I got at Telstra where they were, and the worst accents were staff in Australian offices. The overseas call centre operators were actually easier to understand. So much for that prejudice! I do hope Ahmed and Dimple get rewarded for their good customer service. They both deserve it!
Thanks for popping in to comment. Much appreciated
I love this post, Louise, and really feel for the long night you’ve just had. Having broken my leg this year, it’s made me so much more grateful for the simple things in life, like being able to take a bath or wash dishes yourself. Or walk barefoot on a clean floor. Now I want to name a character Dimple in my next book. It’s just so cute! And, yes, if one enjoys a good book, one should blog and tweet about it. So many of us are guilty as charged!
Thanks Cher. I do love the barefoot on a clean floor thing too! The simple things in life. And now I really must stop blogging, have some breakfast and get back to a certain critique I should be doing 🙂
Ah Louise you have the patience of the saint. I must admit I didn’t know they had a 24 hour call line, and like everyone else I’m loving Dimple for a name. Maybe we should all have cute names and people would smile when they said our name… I think i would be Lotto hehhee.
Guess I’d have to be Blotto then 🙂
Can I be Sotto (voce)?
I think you should be 🙂 What a team! Sotto Lotto and Blotto.
Great post, Louise. And yes, I too have been having internet issues and have had spent numerous hours at any given time with my website hosting company on Live Chat – up to ridiculous hours of the morning – while they have been taking the time and having the patience to rectify my problem. Unfortunately, it’s an ongoing problem that they can’t seem to fix but I love and appreciate that they try.
And on a negative note I have had terrible arguments with Telstra because of what they did to you, and repeating the same thing over and over because none of them took notes or passed the issue on – and I have not been as graceful as you and lost my cool. It was then they transferred me to India and the beautiful person at the other end understand my anger as I explained it wasn’t them personally but the way the issue was being handled and as in most things with India they have a way of diffusing the problem with their pleasant and helpful manner.
I then sigh with relief at 4am and begin to calm and feel the warm gratitude. It’s just a shame it takes Australia so long to figure out who we should be speaking to.
And yes, great idea about the book reviews #thanks4theread. And I didn’t know Rhonda Byrne had a new book out. I so want to read it – any good?
I adore “The Magic” Michele. It’s so focused on gratitude. Right book at the right time for me 🙂
Hi Louise. Your blog popped up in my Google Alerts today and I just wanted to say how lovely it was to read about your positive Telstra experience. I work in the Telstra Social Media Team and I have shown this to them all and will also pass on your feedback to others in the business. Thanks for being so open in sharing your story. Brendan
You’re welcome Brendan. Just make sure Ahmed gets a pat on the back! He deserves it 🙂
What a great post! I’m impressed with Ahmed! 🙂 Being grateful is important – as is acknowledging that gratitude! 🙂
Hey Jemi. Couldn’t agree more. Gratitude has transformed my life, and now I’m pretty well happy 24/7 (with the odd backslide, but that only encourages me to be more grateful). I wish gratitude was something your parents taught you, or you could learn in school so it became second-nature. I’m a late bloomer, but I’m getting there!