I think I paid my bill. Let me in!

Welcome to the self storage blog, PhoneSmart’s diary of our day to day experiences in the world of self storage.

A few days ago I wrote an entry about the lady who left her birth certificate in storage too long. I thought it was a good story because the whole ordeal helped our client catch a door that had been accidentally left unlocked at the property. The lady calling us was the inspiration for this blog entry from Wendy, our evening supervisor. Wendy go to talk to her several times that night.

Wonderful People

A lot of the calls that we take here in the evening are some very nice people! Just joking. Most are pleasant but some are not. The ones I am talking about are those not so pleasant people that call and hear my smiling voice and are still not nice!

I know it is most likely because of their present situation at that time. A lot of the calls we take late at night are people with storage bills they did not pay. They call the store when they are trying to get into their units after hours. They are over-locked and can’t get into the unit. Since the store staff is gone for the day, we get to talk to them.

One particular woman called and knew she was late on the bill. She said she had paid the bill, but could not access her unit. We don’t know if the caller is making up a story hoping that we will find a way to get them in to their units. We don’t know if they actually did pay and there was some confusion in getting their over-lock removed. Or we don’t know if they made a partial payment and the staff was not able to remove the over-lock.

Well I took the brunt of that call for the next 2-3 hours after initial contact. When I had first spoken with her she demanded to speak to someone above me. After I had told her she would need to contact the manager the following day, she got very upset. This is not unusual and we have gotten good at “taking arrows” from callers. She was leaving for a trip and needed her birth certificate to leave the country. So I passed the call on to my superior who had resolved the issue with her or so we thought.

Two hours later she called back and got to speak with another agent here. Again she demanded a supervisor. So at that point I got on the phone with her and tried as hard as I could to get through to her but it was to no avail. I got cussed out yet again. At least in the midst of her cussing she did apologize. To my surprise! Most people cuss me out and do not apologize. They often don’t admit that they had a hand in causing their current difficult situation. But anyway, I did the best I could do for her situation, which she realized towards the end of this horrid call.

So I endure to take another phone call from another person who is mad at me because she didn’t pay her bill and is now locked out, just minutes from the one I just told you all about. I smile and go on as if the next caller will be a little more pleasant.

Wendy

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

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