Providing Excellent Customer Service Despite Difficult Situations

(Minghui.org) After staying home as a housewife for nearly three years, I was offered a job by my previous employer. I became a customer service representative, covering system installation, and after-sales support.

After working a heavy schedule for a long time, customer service representatives can become distressed at work. I often heard my colleagues talking to customers in an impatient or even impolite tone.

They would say things like, “Didn’t I tell you?! Why are you still asking?” “I’m very busy. Listen to me! Can you listen to me?” or “I finally fixed it for you, and you messed it up again!”

This was my first job interacting with customers directly. After 20 days, I also encountered all kinds of situations with different types of customers. Some were polite and some were unfriendly. Some learned more quickly and others more slowly, and so on. 

In the past, I would lose my patience after explaining the same things repeatedly. However, I changed my attitude since learning Falun Dafa. Now I am able to maintain a peaceful mind and kind tone when communicating with customers.

Aware of the CCP’s Cultural Influence

Many Chinese are influenced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) indoctrination, and do not realize it. As a result, they carry the mentality of fighting and other negative elements, which reflects in their speech. 

The book “Disintegrating the Communist Party Culture (Chinese Version)” gave an excellent example of the differences between Chinese from China versus those from Taiwan. The former has experienced indoctrination by the CCP, and the latter has not. 

If someone wants to open a window in a house, Taiwanese would ask: “The house is a bit hot, can I open the window?” But, a Chinese person from China would say: “It’s so hot in the room, why didn’t you open the window?!” Their mentality automatically assumes that the person has a problem and refuses to open the window.

Being Considerate of Others

I often remind myself to live by Teacher’s Fa at work, so my attitude and tone are calm and pleasant. When helping customers, I tell them, “I’ve just talked about this issue, let’s learn it again”, or “I’m a bit busy now, but I’ll contact you later”, or “You’re pretty smart and learn very fast.”

Teacher said,

“...you should always maintain a compassionate heart and a calm mind. If you suddenly bump into a problem, you will be able to take care of it properly. If you always maintain a heart of benevolence and compassion, when a problem arises suddenly, you will have a buffer and room to think. If you always think about competing with others and fighting over this or that, I would say that you will start a fight with others whenever there is a problem—this is guaranteed. ” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)

In one challenging case, a customer asked me questions continuously between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. Despite being very busy helping other customers, I still responded to her in a timely manner. 

In the end, she still did not know how to formulate her questions, let alone understand my answers. Her attitude was also far from desirable. 

One kind colleague felt sorry for me and said, “What is she talking about? What does she want to ask? I won’t pay attention to such a customer.” 

I became a bit impatient at times but immediately recalled Teacher’s Fa that asked me to be considerate of others. I thought that this anxious, demanding customer just started to learn a new system, and her boss might blame her if she could not use it. 

When putting myself in her shoes, I no longer felt annoyed with her. Many customers praised my service and provided positive feedback to my team leader. Some wanted to give me money to express their gratitude but I politely declined their offer.

Following the Course of Nature and Spreading Kindness

The company only gives customer service staff a three-month base pay and the rest of the income comes from selling our company’s systems. Since I just returned to work, I did not have my own regular customer base so I had almost no sales. 

In the first 20 days, I earned little despite a very heavy workload. However, the team leader taught me some tips and tricks to build up customer accounts. 

I was tempted to follow their suggestions after seeing some coworkers making hundreds, or thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of yuan in a month. 

But I thought of Teacher’s Fa, 

“…  If something is yours, you will not lose it. If something is not yours, you will not have it even if you fight for it.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)

As a cultivator, I should be a good person and do my job well wherever I go. I will follow the Fa and not work for profit, but pass on my kindness through communicating with customers.

One day, a customer belonging to another group needed help with installing a new system. The representative assigned to her was busy so I decided to help this customer. 

After checking, I could not locate her purchase record, which meant that she had been using an unauthorized copy. So, that day’s installation would count as her first system. 

According to the company's rules, initial installation for a new customer would cost 1,000 more yuan than an existing customer’s rate. After notifying her of my findings, she became furious and wanted me to provide a solution or else she would consider legal action.

I brought myself more trouble by helping her. At first, I thought about referring her back to her regular customer representative. 

Then, I decided that I should behave like a cultivator and use kindness to solve the problem. So I discussed this issue with management and resolved the concern to her benefit. 

She sent me a message to express her gratitude. As she was not my customer, I thought this was the end of her case. 

However, one night she contacted me around 8 p.m. and wanted to introduce customers to me. I figured she was talking about one store, but it turned out to be dozens of stores. 

Due to the tight schedule, we installed systems for 10 stores and plan to install more later. In a short time, I gained several customers and more sales soon followed. This big purchase order was a complete surprise for me and my other colleagues. After the sales were finalized, I remained calm without any thought of showing off. 

I felt that I just did a little bit on my part to follow Teacher’s and Dafa’s requirements. Everything was given by Teacher.

Conclusion

Society and human morality are declining nowadays, so people may feel challenged to do the right thing and follow the principles Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. But I realized that when I truly believe in Teacher and the Fa, let go of human attachments and behave according to the Fa, extraordinary things will happen. 

As Teacher said, 

“If you can actually do it, you will indeed find, “After passing the shady willow trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead!”” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)

Thank you, Teacher, for spreading Dafa to the world. Dafa disciples can practice in all kinds of work environments. Dafa brings tremendous benefits to cultivators, communities, and the world!