Imagine working in a call center where you have a script to follow. Would you read it word for word, or would you deviate from the script to sound more natural instead of robotic?

In this story, one teenage girl did a great job sounding natural at her call center job, but then a new supervisor told all of the employees to “stick to the script.” She decided to give it a try.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

“Stuck to the script” so I did. Word for word.

I (18F) worked at a call center for about 3 months, mostly helping people reset passwords and answer basic questions.

During training, the told us to “sound natural and conversational.“

Cool. I did that and got great feedback from callers.

Then we got a new supervisor who flipped if we didn’t read the script exactly as written. She said, “If you deviate even slightly, you’ll be written up.”

I feel bad for the next caller.

Okay.

Next call, a guy says, “Hey, my account’s locked, can you help me real quick?”

I respond (robot mode): “Hello, thank you for calling. My name is [NAME], and I hope you’re having a wonderful day. How may I assist you with you technical concern today?”

He paused and said, “…Are you serious?”

The supervisor realized her mistake.

I kept going exactly word for word. Even even the weird fake empathy lines like, “I completely understand how frustrating this unique situation must feel.”

Mid call, my supervisor walked by, and actually stopped to listen. She tilted her head, looked confused, and asked after the call, “Why were you talking like that?”

I just said, “You told me to stick to the script.”

She didn’t have a comeback. And funnily enough, the next day, she told our team: “Okay, just make sure you cover the key points. You can be natural again.”

I’m surprised how quickly the supervisor realized sticking to the script wasn’t a good idea.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

These rules don’t seem helpful to the customers.

Here’s the customer’s perspective.

Another former call center employee shares a story.

Make it make sense!

Conversational is better than robotic.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.