Colleague is huffing with me

skea56

Not sure if this is the correct forum so apologies in advance.

We took on a new employee at the start of the year to help with increased workload, including reception and general admin duties.

She took a call yesterday morning from a customer who left a message asking another worker to call her back. About an hour later she phoned again saying she still had not received a call back, my colleague took her details again and then put the call through to me. I could do no more with this customer other than take her details once more, and tell her I would pass them on, as my colleague had already done.

I explained to my colleague that she shouldnt have put that call through to me as it resulted in the customer becoming frustrated at having to explain herself again, and that I could do no more than she had already done.

She has not spoken to me since. When transferring calls to me, there is no pre-warning of who is on the line, just the call put straight through. I have tried to make conversation with her this morning about the weather etc and have received one word answers.

I didnt snap at her, or make a big deal out of it at the time, just a suggestion of how to deal with future calls.

What more can I do?

sk56

KiKi

You could talk to her and ask her outright why she's being a bit off with you (nicely). Most people depend on the fact that you won't actually ever ask about it, so talk to her.

Ask her, see what her response is. If she's not going to play nice, then explain nicely and professionally that even if she has decided she doesn't like you, she still needs to put through calls correctly.

Equally, look at it from her perspective. She's general admin, fielding calls, and clearly can't answer this query. She took a call, someone was supposed to call a customer back - and they didn't. Poor customer service. She took another call from the customer who's now cross. She knows she can't help, but perhaps she thought that someone else in the team / more senior to her might take some responsibility for it, even if it's just to chase the colleague up. Whilst you may not be able to answer the customer's query, could you really not encourage your colleague to return the customer call? That's at least something you could do that perhaps the new person doesn't feel able to. She probably thought she was trying to help, only to be told (in her mind, perhaps, not saying you did this!) - until XX person calls the customer back, you've got to keep taking angry calls, I won't help you.

But talking is always a good start.
KiKi

asajj

Kiki made a good point.
Alternatively, you can speak to your manager and ask advice if you are in good terms. If your managers are the same, she/he can sort it with her.

skea56

Thanks everyone, I was quite annoyed about this all day yesterday as the atmosphere in the room was awful. I tried to speak to her yesterday before I left and got nowhere - she said there was no issue and she had been really busy all day and had no time to talk - this is find hard to believe, we share an office, I'm not looking a full scale conversation, just general back and forth during the day to interact.

Anyway one of my other colleagues spoke to me this morning to say she had been giving off about me after i left yesterday, saying that as I was not her superior I had no right to tell her how to do her job. This hurts - I have never treated her as a sub-ordinate - we are on the same level, doing two very different roles, I used to do her job so try to help her out as much as I can.

She is at an appointment this morning, but I will speak to her again when she comes in.

sk56