I have had jobs before where the job posting was customer service, but in reality it was actually pushy salesman type of job (one was telemarketing gaaah). I could not stand selling things to people that i thought i was supposed to be helping find solutions rather than just getting the product/service "off the line" I like to help people and I think hiring customer service people under the false pretense of getting salespeople is pretty low. And nothing feels worse than realizing you are a seller and not a helper. anyone who has been through this feel free to let us know how you feel/felt and if you have some tales be free to vent.
I was feeling this a few weeks ago when we had someone come out to give us a quote on a new heater, humidifier, and air purified. Of course, he had the best of the best. When he got to the basement, he explained that the heater was not working properly because the wires were not hooked in together. Later he asked me to take a look at his website. It was one of those sites built by sitebuilder (or something like that). The code was pretty bad etc. So I started to explain to him why this was not proper coding, etc. I started to laugh because I was sounding like him. He had about 8 pages that really needed to be re-done. I did not want to do it because of his statement "his webmaster moved out of Denver". That sounded like he wanted to be with the webmaster while the webmaster was working. He said he paid a couple of grand to get it started etc, so I told him about $1,500. That way, it would help cover me just in case. Of course, being pretty much retired - I rather rant and rave on message boards these days instead of developing a web site.
I guess, this is a question of personality. One was born as a salesman, another hates to sell but likes to help. I know, it is like an enthralling game for many of salesmen to sell something. Sometimes it does not matter what to sell, they are just interested in act of selling, they feel it like a victory. Poor people. Personally I prefer some other type of enjoyments. I like to create. I guess I am a creator by nature, and it it really nice to see then your creations are in demand and useful for people. So, it is better to be yourself and to do what you were created for.
Yep...I am the same. My CS skills are way better than my sales skills. However, my sales skills are improving all the time. Customer service is GOLD in any industry IMO. Col
Very true, a company that sells but does not have return customers is a sure failure in many ways, and anyone knows that keeping customers is much easier than getting new ones in many businesses.
I've been a salesperson just for 2 months way back after graduation from college... That was the worst job I ever had... The trick was, we acted like some kind of surveyor of gas tanks..we checked peoples' gas tank for safety and offer them our safety device product... weird, but I lasted for 2 months because I was in real financial trouble after graduation.. Now I I'm in customer service... A technical Support supervisor for Verizon DSL...helping people thousand os miles away..all the way from Philippines to US.. I hate selling...
I could probably go on and on about these. When we went to buy a Land Rover, they did the same things as most. For example, they first show you a figure, like $90,000. Oh, that's too much, well what about $89,050. It was at that point where I said, quit show us this game and let's get to the right price. Very irritating. I think though this is probably one reason why we only choose one person when needing a job. If we had to listen to five of these people telling us why one if better over the other, that would be the end.