I had a conversation with one of the agents earlier that got me thinking: I need some sockpuppets in order to make routine customer service calls more pleasant to handle.

She was telling me an old, old story – client on the phone is not happy about some aspect of his travel, but what he’s really not happy about is actually some aspect of his company’s corporate travel policy, because he can’t get the SUV/upgrade/much more expensive hotel/ticket on a non-preferred airline that he wants. He was rude-ish to the agent and she was calling me to vent. There was no real problem, she just needed somebody to listen while she told the tale of how rude and mean he was when she reminded him of policy.

That’s when I realized that it might be fun for everyone to have sockpuppets at their desk, for use when parroting bits of policy ad infinitum, or when listening patiently to rude callers criticise something another agent did. This latter use would be especially nice to have for those times when the caller is saying something like “that girl (EditorWoman: Grrrr!) booked me on the wrong flight” and the listening agent is reading documentation that reads “PAX RFSD RECAP HUNG UP (passenger refused recap of the itinerary and hung up before the agent was finished with the record).

Imagine. You’re listening along, and you raise your sockpuppet high for the other team members to see: “Blah blah blah blah blah blah.” You come up with a satisfactory verbal response, such as “It’s still possible to void and reissue this ticket, let’s start over and get you rebooked” while still signalling “Blah blah blah blah blah ticket, blah blah over blah you rebooked.” Typing with sockpuppets leads to typos (a well-known Usenet factoid), so you remove the sockpuppet to finish fixing the reservation. Then it’s time to recap, so remind the caller that they’re not allowed to get an SUV even if there IS 3 feet of snow in drifts on the highway, grab your puppet and “blah blah blah nonrefundable blah blah use it or lose it blah blah before flight departs or blah blah useless ticket.”

See how much more fun you’re having already, agents? That’s why we need sockpuppets in the corporate travel office.

I’d like one with googly eyes, floppy yarn pom-poms, and a flappy pink felt tongue.

The Rest Of The Day

The ticketer stayed home to take care of a sick kid (with a TMI excuse: stuff comin’ out both ends, which we really didn’t want to know) so I’m ticketing the exchanges and other “human-powered” tickets today. And oh, joy, the team leader is off this afternoon too.

I think I’m going to be soooo ready for a week off.