Customer Service Is Easier With A Refresh Button…Or Is It?

I was recently reminiscing on my early days of customer service.  I worked at TierraNet, a webhosting and domain registration company.  Customers would call in regularly because something wasn’t working on their website and there was a simple solution–push the refresh button!

Early on I think the refresh button actually did something.  Toward the end of it however, I’m fairly certain it did absolutely nothing.  At the time, it seemed to make sense, call after call, to tell customers we had refreshed their account and that everything would be better soon.

Those days seemed so simple.  I can’t tell you how often I have wished I had a refresh button that would make everything better, or at least give the impression of everything being better.  As a customer service leader and human being, how I long to go back to the days of that refresh button again.  Push it and everything will be better in about fifteen minutes.

In the business of working with people, it gets messy sometimes.  So messy in fact that the hope of a refresh button is long gone.  Things just become too complicated for a silly button.  This past year has been difficult with not a refresh button to be found. Amid the difficult times, I’ve reminded over and over again of the fact that this has also been a time of tremendous growth for me.

How do you handle the difficult times in life?  Do you run for a button that you can push to make it all better?  Next time, perhaps hold off on hitting that button.  Instead, embrace the chaos and the mess.  Be vulnerable and even broken.  Admit that you may not presently see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I can’t tell you for certain that there’s going to be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  I do know for certain that when you look back, you will remember the growth and learning.  If you’re experience is anything like mine, you will find yourself grateful.  Happy growing!

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.” 
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

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