Escalations with Empathy

 I recently saw a course on LinkedIn by Ethan Evans titled High-Velocity Decision-Making for Senior Leaders and Executives . I found it very educational, so I want to share my notes and opinions. I do not intend to make an exact summary, and I recommend watching the course if you have access to the platform and understand English, especially because I found the administrative anecdotes about Twitch very interesting. Photo by Hunters Race Why must Executives decide quickly?   An Executive cannot wait too long to decide, they would expose themselves to competitors gaining an advantage.   An Executive must prioritize speed over certainty, and take intelligent risks. If the decision is not reversible, or the cost of a bad decision is too high, it is better to wait until you have 90% of the information needed to make decisions. If the decision is reversible, or the cost of a bad decision is low, an Executive should decide when they have 70% of the information....

Practice, practice, and practice! To really be good at something, you have to make training a routine: pronunciation is one of those basic skills that is often overlooked. Photo by Cesar La Rosa Bruce Lee said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times" . Good enunciation is a small step for the Agent, but a big step for the Client. What happens when an Agent does not have clear pronunciation?   The Client may become frustrated and feel that the Agent does not know what they are talking about, or that they are being mocked. Lack of credibility and communication problems with colleagues, bosses, and stakeholders.   Poor enunciation can be the reason for your low performance at work, and you may not have noticed it. I suggest a quick exercise to determine if you have a pronunciation problem, or at least need to improve a bit.   Record yourself reciting the following phrase out loud: "...

Life is, by definition, unfair. We can't always get what we want. And sometimes it's not possible to help others, no matter how willing we are to do so. Photo by Icons8 Team. What kind of impossible situations exist?   When company policies do not allow granting a request (refunds past the deadline, escalation to a team higher than the standard escalation team, etc.). The Customer does not accept the available concessions or solutions. The Customer asks for something unreasonable, like in episode 14 of season four of The Office , when Michael Scott makes a call hoping a woman interested in him will answer, but he gets: "No sir, this is a Wendy's restaurant " .  I could go on with a thousand more examples, and there would still be unexpected scenarios. Whether due to bad luck, process errors, or previous miscommunication, sometimes it is not possible to satisfy the Customer.   In these cases, as a Customer Service Agent , your priority is to avoid making th...