By the time the call reached a human being, the customer had already typed "representative" five times. She had repeated her account number to a bot, a phone tree, and a chat window that kept offering her a link to the page she was calling about. She had spent her patience before anyone said hello

For twenty-five years I have watched the same scene on every contact center floor I have worked. A rep takes the hard call. She absorbs the frustration, steadies her voice, finds the policy, and earns back a customer the company nearly lost. Then the line clears, and her reward begins. The notes.