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I worked in an inbound call center for 4 years. So lots of stories. This one takes place during my second year.
I was in my cubical (little half wall things barely big enough to qualify as a ‘cubical’) on the phone with an irate customer (I handled escalated calls) when I heard a loud sobbing voice cry out, “What do I do?! What do I do?!”
Curious I rolled back my chair to look down the aisle-way towards the voice and saw one of my co-workers standing up, head-set in hand bawling her eyes out while frantically looking around (the usual action when one needs a freaken supervisor and none are in sight). Several other nearby female employees are looking freaked out as well. Curious, I hit mute, took the phone off my ear and started to ask what was going on but stopped when I heard the screams. Screams that were coming from the frantic co-worker’s head-phones.
Jumping up I looked over to the nearest supervisor’s cubical and saw that it was empty. I too then began to frantically look around the office.. and low and behold, no supervisors. Sad to say this was *NOT* an uncommon occurrence. Supervisors would be called into meetings, without warning, by self-important corporate managers, leaving the call-floor without any supervision. Some of these meetings took over two hours!
As I handled escalation calls, and no supervisor was around, it fell to me to step in. I un-muted the call I was on, cut off the customer’s verbose complaint, informed them that there was an emergency in the office and that they had two choices, take a three month refund as a curtsy for the interrupted call or go back into the call-queue. They took the refund. I hit the refund, logged out and headed over to the distraught co-worker.
I had to push pass several co-workers, the woman was a broken sobbing mess.. and screams were still coming from the now discarded head-set. I demanded in my most authoritative voice what is going on.
“He’s BEATING her! I don’t know what to do! I wasn’t trained for THIS!” she bawled out.
Looking at the computer I saw that she had an account up. I examined it first, then picked up the head-set. I flinched when I put them on. A woman was screaming. It was worse then a horror movie because this was REAL. The woman was screaming “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” at the top her lungs and behind her voice you could hear a man calling her all the worse names one could call a woman.. and what sounded like a belt hitting flesh. Again and again and again.
I then spun back on the crying co-worker, grabbed her shoulder to get her undivided attention and demanded to know what happened on the call. She said the woman called in, she was crying and sobbing, demanding a full refund for the monthly service she claimed she ‘accidentally’ signed up for. Then a man started cussing her out, claiming she had stolen his credit card, and then began beating her.
I fully admit I panicked for a bit there. No one was trained for this kind of thing. The only thing I could really think of was to call the cops. That thought kept bouncing around in my head until it bumped into a couple of other thoughts and a plan developed.
I opened a second phone line and did an out-bound call to 911. (Make note that employees were strictly forbidden at that time to make out-bound calls for any reason, on threat of termination.) The 911 operator answered and asked what was my emergency and I quickly explained the situation. Her tone indicated she wasn’t to concerned with the nature of my call, that is, until I transferred the muted call onto the line and she herself heard the screams. She asked if I had an address and I told her what city and state the call came from (it was in the account information on the computer screen). The 911 operator said she would call that districts 911 call center. In short order a second 911 operator came on the line and I explained again over the sounds of the victim’s screams what was happening. She immediately dispatched officers to the address I provided.
I was still on the line when police officers kicked in the door and arrested the man beating his girlfriend. An officer came on the line and talked with me for a few minutes (he confirmed the woman had been severely beaten with a belt) then asked to speak with the previous call-agent. As the call was still being recorded by 911 he took our statement right there on the phone.
I do not not know what was the outcome of the arrest. I was never contacted again in regards to the call. However, the outcome of my actions did cause issues and changes in the office. When our supervisor returned from their oh so important meeting she was informed of the call, and when asked I explained my actions. My supervisor took the story to the department manager and soon after I was called onto the carpet.
The manager started chewing me out for making an out-bound call, for making an out-bound 911 call, and for handling a call that should have been handled by a supervisor. Then started threatening to fire me. I. Completely. Lost. My. Sh\*\*!!
End results: Manager was terrified of me from that day on-wards, always made supervisors handle any ‘issues’ that I was involved in. If a supervisor meeting was called there ALWAYS had to be at least one remaining on the floor to handle emergencies. And Emergency 911 calls were allowed IF there was a clear threat to a caller’s health.
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