World-Class Customer Service

It's my fifth day in training for AT&T All Distance. After handling Newport News for 10 months, I found the transition extremely difficult because of information overload. There's so much stuff to understand (at the very least). Since AT&T is the largest telephone service company in the United States (and the world), the company uses different kinds of systems such as RAMP (Residencial Account Maintenance Platform), CST (Customer Sales Tool) and BureauLink (a system that AT&T uses for credit checks... there's lots of Americans with bad credit, mind you). The Knowledge Resource (KR - considered as the AT&T Information "Bible") has about 11,000 documents. We don't need to memorize everything, but familiarizing myself with the non-user friendly DOS-based systems is becoming hazardous to my brain cells.

I'm being pessimistic about working in the AT&T project again. I have grown to believe that AT&T is possibly the worst telecommunications company despite them being the first and the largest (they take up 70% of the market share, I believe). Come on. When I was with inbound sales, I felt like a punching bag for all people's problems. About 95% of the people I talked to are irate. So you can't blame me for having a negative impression about the company.

As my knowledge of about AT&T progresses, my impresssion of the company is changing. Heck! They DO give world-class customer service. Come on. They pretty much have everything you need for phone service. They have also been there before everyone else and is one of the pioneers in innovative services such as VoIP (Voice-Over Internet Protocol). They also give special services to the legally blind such as having your bill in a larger font (size 24 to be exact, try it out in MS Word, you can just imagine how many pages the bill would be) and even in braille. I think their service is just underrated because of these nifty Americans who demand to much.

It's been fun. Emerson and Mike are not shy anymore (I've been teasing them about how they stand bashfully with their hands in front of them when we ride the elevator together). Sheila and I got closer as friends and colleagues. Charles is one of my gimik buddies and now I'm working with him side by side in the same project (I think I have been hanging out with him too much though coz I'm starting to look at girls now and make comments about how they look... mind you, I'm a full-fledged heterosexual). I have also discovered that Gerard is a little boy at heart who plays video games and collects action figures.

Amazingly, despite the fact that I get headaches because of all the information I have to absorb, I find myself becoming some sort of technical masochist. Weird. I actually like the feeling of busting my brain cells. Maybe because I like the challenge. Or maybe because I know that if I do well, I'll be greatly compensated (I'm actually thinking of things to buy when commission comes in... Yeah!). =D