The Holiday Season at a Call Center

Working at a call center certainly has its trials and tribulations unless of course you have a very think skin and are comfortable delivering bad news to strangers. If not, this job can be particularly difficult during the holiday season.

If you're not familiar with the term "call center" for the most part they are businesses whose purpose is to make or receive phone calls for other businesses. One of the most common users of call centers are large utility companies calling their customers to remind them of late payments, turn-off notices, or to collect money from customers.

At least one such call center provides for a fee this service to utility companies across the United States. An automated system dials the phone numbers of the utility customers who are late with payments. Some will receive a recorded message telling them the situation (late payment, possible termination of service, or date of disconnection of service) and to call the utility to remedy the situation.

The phone number the customer is given is actually a number back to the call center in many cases. The people who then answer the pones after those calls or after such notices have been mailed via the postal service from the utility company with the call center number must then collect money over the phone, set up payment plans, or tell these customers their power (gas, electric, water normally) will be turned off without payment.

During the holiday season these calls and mailings don't stop. The day before Thanksgiving Day thousands of utility customers were told they had 72 hours or in some cases 48 hours to pay their utility bill or their utility service would be turned off. Of course they were not told the utility company would be closed during that time so not only could they NOT pay their bill but also the field workers would not be disconnecting service until the following Monday. They were left 'in the dark' emotionally stressing over this situation for the holiday.

In many cases the people didn't have the money to pay these bills or would have already done so. Many were left with the fear of not having gas, electricity or water to prepare their Thanksgiving dinner.

The Monday morning after Thanksgiving Day at the call center the phones were ringing no-stop. A common phrase that day was, "Yes, your notice has expired and there is no guarantee your service will not be terminated unless you pay_____ amount of dollars now." People with children, people with no checking account or credit card to pay over the phone, elderly and crippled people that couldn't get out of the house to take care of the matter.

Do we expect anything different over the Christmas or New Years holidays? No! The simple fact is this is business holidays or not. Working at a call center this is normal and to be expected.

Is there anything that can be done? NO! These utility customers used the utility and own the companies this money. Not much in life is free and before signing up for a utility service everyone knows they are going to have to pay for the service once they use it.

Will life and the holiday season at the call centers be enjoyable? Most likely not for most but unlike many of those utility customers at least they have jobs and most can pay their utilities. The sad thing is for most this is not a great joy because they do feel for those who don't have jobs, who can't pay their utility bill, who have and may get those termination notices during the holidays and all year round.

Here, however, is a challenge for every person around the world who will be paying a utility bill before or during the holidays. Ask someone else if they paid theirs yet. Yes, this sounds silly but a simple "Hey did you pay your electric or gas bill yet this month?" could very easily save a number of people from getting that dreaded phone call or termination notice in the mail the day before Christmas or New Years day.

You just may be surprised at the responses you get. "No, I haven't but thank you for reminding me" or I got it in the mail but won't have the money to pay it." Maybe you could help that person - you don't have to pay the bill for them although that would be wonderful on your part but maybe you could help them get in touch with an agency or organization that could help them.

At the same time you could be making the holidays at the call centers more enjoyable also. Just think how much nicer it would be for those call center people to hear "I want to pay my bill" rather than "I can't pay my bill".