Working in customer service can be truly soul-destroying at times.

But at other times, it can warm your heart.

That was exactly the case for the woman in this story, who took her time on a phone call with a disabled gentleman.

The resulting call restored everyone’s faith in humanity.

Read on to find out what happened.

Probably my most favourite call of the month

I work for an energy company, and am the first point of contact for most of the customers that ring in.

A call came in today, and there was a woman on the line, speaking in that careful voice that tells you someone else is being discussed, and that they’re listening in.

She explained to me that she was from a social housing place – these tend to be clusters of flats or bungalows, with a small staff of people who help their elderly or special needs residents stay independent.

She herself was a named person on this account and normally dealt with it for Richard, but that today he wanted to try and do it himself.

Let’s see how the customer representative dealt with this call.

I asked, careful as her, if Richard was the kind of person who maybe didn’t have much confidence in speaking on the phone, and would need to take it slow?

She said yes, clearly relieved that I’d understood straight off what I needed to do.

Richard himself came on the line, and we went through security together. He was a man in his fifties, with the sort of booming, halting voice people with learning difficulties sometimes have.

He asked me some questions about what my job was, and where I lived and whether I had any cats, and were they big cats or small cats?

Read on to find out how she responded.

I told him I had one of each but that the small one bullies the big one, and it made him honk with laughter.

After he’d talked off his nervousness a bit, I asked him if he had any questions about his bill.

He didn’t really, because he didn’t understand the bill in the first place. So I told him I would be his teacher today, and he could ask me whatever he liked about his electricity.

At this point I knew my call handling time was going to be messed up, but I’m pretty quick on calls so I’d make it up elsewhere.

Let’s see what questions Richard had about the electricity.

He asked me all sorts of things about where the electricity is made and how it gets to his house. How much it was and how he can pay, and how I found out how much he’s used.

So then we get on to how electricity meters work, and he went to his meter and asked me how he could read it.

I have to admit he faltered on this last bit and sounded quite disheartened, so I told him that he could read it himself but when the meter reader goes to his neighbour he’ll check his too, just to make doubly sure his reading is right.

I added a note to his account, explaining that he might call in with meter reads, but not to enter them onto the system if they were out of line.

And the helper was truly appreciative of this.

We were on speaker, so the woman who called in could hear what was going on, and it was lovely to hear her say from time to time ‘That’s good Richard’ and ‘It’s ok Richard, the lady said you can ask whatever you like’.

I spent forty very enjoyable minutes on the phone, and I don’t know whether he’ll retain any of the information I gave him.

His helper told me from the background that he likes getting post, so I’ve sent out whatever brochures and guides are available, anything really.

But at least he knows he can ring big companies now, and there’ll be a friendly person on the line to help him.

This is a really heartwarming story that shows how big this woman’s heart is.

Some people might get hung up on this call handling time, but she understood that a person’s quality of life is so much more important.

And it sounds like she got a lot from this call too.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person commended the woman for her customer service.

While this care professional thought she’d done a great job.

Meanwhile, the story gave this customer service worker a well-needed boost.

Sometimes the unexpected can really make your day.

And that’s the story all round here – for the woman, the customer, and his helper.

She deserves a customer service award for all the effort and kindness she put in here.

She did a great job.

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.