Marcus Williams, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority’s Customer Service director, reported recently that his division fielded hundreds of thousands of telephone calls in 2021. One of them saved a man’s life.
In November 2021, Charissa King was working as a customer service representative at the OTA’s call center in Walters – responding to typical questions about topics such as how and where to get a PikePass – when she answered a phone call from a man “who was distraught and made suicidal statements,” Williams told Turnpike Authority members last week.
“We train our employees to introduce themselves to callers and ask how they can help, try to quickly build rapport with the customer,” Daniel Parker told Southwest Ledger. At that time he was the manager of the customer service center at Walters.
The male caller told King he was going through a divorce and wanted to remove his wife’s vehicle from the OTA account. He then told King he opposed the divorce “and indicated he wanted to harm himself,” Parker recalled. King, whose husband is a law enforcement officer, “did the best she could to calm him down.”
The call came at a time when Thanksgiving was just over the horizon and Christmas was not far behind.
After the conversation ended, King forwarded to Parker the caller’s name and telephone number, and what he had said to her. “I’ve never had a call like that,” she added.
Parker said he immediately called the man and informed him that the customer service rep he had just spoken with “shared with me that you’re having some difficulty.” The man “told me that he was ‘just having a hard time right now’ and he thanked us for checking on him.”
Because of King’s “intuition and the fact that she cares,” a customer’s life was saved that day, Parker said.
At that time the OTA had no suicide prevention protocol.
“I got with my supervisor and told him we needed a policy in place to deal with events such as this in case it ever happens again.” Parker said he and his supervisor partnered with a safety manager “and we quickly put that policy together.”
King and Parker both were honored with a Customer Service award presented at the December 2021 Turnpike Authority board meeting. She is now the Walters store representative and he has since transferred to quality assurance in Oklahoma City.
“Because of this incident and the subsequent policy that was enacted, an OTA Customer Service agent was able to help another person in crisis as recently as last week,” said Lisa Shearer-Salim, OTA communication and marketing manager. “These incidents are rare, but the Turnpike Authority is pleased to be able to help our customers however we can.”