Harmful listeners
Dear readers,
Ive been using this website for some years now, visiting once a month to vent emotions, it helped me a lot.
But the last couple times i came here i consistantly failed to get help.....everytime i get 3 chats in row where a listener randomly stops responding before i finish my story when im not even 2 minutes in it, or takes like 1 minute to reply to everything with 1 word. And i hate to put it like this, but its usually the same kind of countries where this happens consistantly, as in nearly 100%.
Came here today feeling sad and now i got 4 new chats in my mailbox, where they just randomly left me after the first 2 questions. And its not like i have some really weird or scary issues. Just some sadness. Again hate to put it this way, but all 4 India and Pakistan. Ended up crying by myself, feeling even worse :(
Are these people even here to help, or just hanging around for other reasons? I feel really upset that not once but consistantly i get left alone, while they are the ones clicking on helping me. What can i do about this? Rating 1/5 seems to be pretty useless if the next person in line is just as bad...
@KaspertheGhostt I agree with you. I question whether these people are really here to help, or whether they are here for other reasons.
It could be that they really are here to help but they don't know how to because our listener training is inadequate. 7 Cups has always resisted improving the training, possibly in order to inflate listener numbers.
The possible link with certain countries that you've noticed is difficult to interpret. As far as I know, listener training is still only available in English. Perhaps this is a significant barrier for some new listeners. @SoulfullyAButterfly might know more about translated training in Hindi (for India) and Urdu (for Pakistan).
It could be that these listeners are here for other reasons but we do not have good systems in place to remove or reeducate them.
In the past there has been a lot of discussion about ghosting and how to reduce it, but again 7 Cups resisted improving the chat system, and again this might possibly have been to inflate numbers of chats.
@EvelyneRose had been leading some work with the aim of improving the situation, but I don't think I have seen any news about it lately. It seems to me there is a lack of clarity around how successful it has been. Your recent experiences might indicate that, sadly, the work that has been done in that area is proving ineffective.
What can you do about it? Avoid the general chat queue and choose experienced listeners from the Browse Listeners page. Ask listeners who have helped you in the past whether you can chat to them again. Report any listener who has a Chat Now button but refuses to chat.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie
that's a thoughtful insight charlie.
And i also think this is because of cultural differences too. The listeners may not be able to understand or relate with members.
I think members should be encourged to use browse listener page and looks for listeners they think are best and not go for connect now.
Even in connect now through noni the bot they can choose preferences about listeners, members should do that.
Listeners also need to be more empathatic, rather than ghosting or not replying they should guide the members to listeners who can help them better.
It all boils down to what these listeners are here for.
@ComradeKat I agree. After I pressed Send I got to thinking about cultural differences. But I don't know enough about cultures to understand how they would affect listening.
Charlie
@KaspertheGhostt Hi there, I am sorry to hear about your experience. I know you do not mean to generalize, I myself have the country flag for Pakistan because it is where I currently reside though English is my primary language and I understand @RarelyCharlie 's idea about training these listeners via translated training methods -- I was just thinking of ways to arrange this via our new Growth Path feature so yes, it is something that will be available soon to possibly help.
I encourage you to leave a detailed review so these listeners can be coached and guided - at 7 Cups, we do have several ways to help train people to be more effective listeners. Moreover, you can use the Browse Listeners page to perhaps filter listeners according to your needs or desired criteria, though I understand that is not always immediate.
In the mean time, please let me know if I can personally help you, I would love to be of support.
@KaspertheGhostt
one way to help is to leave a review and outline how they interacted with you, this also helps us other members to watch out for listeners who are here for other reasons.
Especially listeners from specific countries in SEA.
Cheers for the helpful replies, hope they can improve the system, i guess i do understand if they make it difficult they wont have enough listeners.
As for myself it seems like venting to a brick wall is somehow still effective :) all good.
I just hope no poor soul with serious distress or some kind of abandonment issues encounters them. But ye bad things happen everywhere in the world, can't fix everything i guess. And as long this website is helping a ton of people including myself i can only be thankful.
Cheers for helping those around you, keep up the good work!