Accepting questionable criticism at work

AODIT

So Im over a month in to a help desk position and I came in the door making a difference and resolving issues from day one. I was called in for 2 meetings so far mostly addressing my customer service however I have enough call center and customer service experience to be above average in that department imo but for some reason there getting these phantom complaints and are letting me know. I havent been told about the great work Ive done since stepping in but more just about the negatives and I assume that's how its going to be moving forward. I like the position its good experience for my IT career but these unasked for critique and phantom penalty calls are getting annoying. Can anyone with many years of call center help desk experience tell me what this is all about? Do they just want to keep me in line? Is it so I dont get my head big and remember Im not special? Advice? 

AODIT

I meant to post in the jobs section can you move it. Thanks 

kaiju

Simple question! 
Is the criticism correct (did you do whatever was mentioned during the conversation)? 

If so, take it to heart and make the necessary corrections. 

JDMurray

I'm not sure what "phantom complaints" are, but from what you have said, it's likely that you are not conforming to company best practices, and instead preferring to use your own a priori customer service style instead. You need to be objective about looking at your behavior and open to changing your style for your new employer.

MeanDrunkR2D2

Take the advice on the criticism to improve your interpersonal skills with others.   See what you can do to fix that and how you can improve that skill.   Communication can be hard for some in IT to understand fully especially if one is far more technical and has a difficult time conveying items to end users that may not understand all our IT lingo. 

Now, onto the other part about looking for advice from those with many years of call center experience.   Don't take it.  Why? It's a very entry level role and only the lazy, unmotivated and poor technical workers stay in that role for much longer than a year.   Call center work is soul sucking and not fun which I'm sure you know by now. I did it for about 6 months before I got a desktop admin role where i was not tied to a phone queue and spent most of my time going to users desks and interacting with them.  I'm an introvert in most cases, except when I'm at work and am completely opposite when at work.   Why is that?  I really can't pick it out for sure, but it's something that I've learned to do over the years and have no issues talking to anyone about any problems or projects I'm working on.   Look at what the next step in your career you want and figure out how you get to that point. Look for your exit to that next role and accomplish the steps you need to get out.   Do it before the job affects you personally and you get sucked into feeling like you need to do that job for years before you can move up.  Also, never trust any employer will happily promote you up into higher level roles quickly.  That rarely happens and every upward movement in job roles has come from leaving to another company.

AODIT

Thank you guys so much! Anyone else?

MarkTaylorCa

I would recommend to calm down and analyze all the criticisms you got. If some of those can help you become better specialist just take it into account and try to use. If they are not helpful, just be patient, get everything you can from this position and look for another job.

NetworkingStudent

The help desk is more about customer service than the technical aspect.

I have found out through out my life that more often than not, people will remember the negative things, and forget the positive.

I would beef up your communication skills.. Check out the Resources below:

Check out the book 

How To win friends and influence people.

Understanding True Intent of End Users and Other Customers: Customer Service Training 101

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogny0EK32Vk

-There are more videos on this channel too.

---------------------------------------

A couple of tips I can think of...

1) Remember the person's name it is the most beautiful thing a person can hear is their name.

2) Get the customer or end user to talk about themselves. What do you at XYZ company?  What is your role?

3) What does your boss say about these meetings and your overall performance?  Do he go to bat for you and stick up for you?

4) Do you have other co workers that you can talk to about these meetings?  They may have advice on how to proceed. Maybe they went through the same thing you are going through right now.

I think others have said this on this thread, but it does bear repeating.  Your idea of great customer and the company's could be two different things.  You need to take time to learn about the company.  Learn about the cultural and what makes everyone tick.  

If it's a smaller company think under 5,000-1,000 employees, then your success will be more based off how you treated the employee/customer, than how many tickets you resolved.  

What I have found that always works is providing the next steps to the end user if I cannot resolve the issue.

Big Picture:

You need to take some time and play with different technologies.  TryLinux,Cisco, Microsoft......What is you end game?  What do you want to in IT beyond help desk? Network Engineer, Programmer, System admin,security...?

Once you have this figured out, then you want to develop a plan to get into this role.

AODIT

SOOOO  update.

I get called into a room today and I'm thinking what now... I go in to a room with an HR lady the manager and supervisor and the manager says we've had more complaints, the issues are there and an attitude so were going to terminate you. I'm not going to argue because obviously they want me out but Its not because I couldn't do the job. Any POSITIVE feedback appreciated because I cant take anything negative atm!

Azt7

this seems quite odd ! Keep your head up.

What did they have to back the claims ? Emails ? recordings or just hear say ?

AODIT

I didnt even ask you know when you hear bullshit and you just take it for what it is... based off the first interactions I seen what it is

paul78

Interesting... If I read the sequence of events correctly - you have been at the company for about 6 weeks and you were just separated. I'm curious - are you doing internal helpdesk or for external clients?

Don't sweat it and learn from the experience.  Sometimes it's just not a good fit.

Good luck in your next job.

AODIT

About 3 months.. external clients

DatabaseHead

Very strange indeed.  Move on and if it happens again then you'll have to start to look at yourself.  With that said, it sounds like you have plenty of customer service experience and it doesn't sound like this was an issue before.  

Sounds like a blessing to be honest.  Good luck.

Jon_Cisco

Honestly it sounds like you probably just didn't hit it off with whoever was responsible for you. Some companies will move on quickly just not to deal with any issues. Good Luck on the next job and don't look back.

thomas_

It could not even have anything to do with you. If it happens two or three jobs in a row, then it probably has something to do with you.

NetworkingStudent

AODIT said:

SOOOO  update.

I get called into a room today and I'm thinking what now... I go in to a room with an HR lady the manager and supervisor and the manager says we've had more complaints, the issues are there and an attitude so were going to terminate you. I'm not going to argue because obviously they want me out but Its not because I couldn't do the job. Any POSITIVE feedback appreciated because I cant take anything negative atm!

I have been were you are at twice in my IT career.  My first IT job let me go and they listed several reasons that didn't really makes sense to me.   Also, I did have another IT job were they let me go, and they listed several reasons.  To be honest,  I didn't think they gave me enough training.  After the termination meeting my manager talked to me outside and said "When a company fires an employee, there is a problem with the company and not the employee"  I think he was referring to new employees.  Basically, the company didn't take the time to evaluate my skillet.  

Remember you're a good person, and there is a company that would love to have you.  Get out of the house, and try find things you love to do , while you're looking for a job.  As far as this company letting you go, it's far to easy to obsess over the why's of losing your job.   Stay positive and focus on finding an IT job that you love.  

If you were only there for a month, then it should be fine to leave the job off your resume.

What do you what to do beyond help desk?  Networking, system admin, security...ect  Define your long term career goal, and find a job, or jobs that will get you closer to your goal.