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gomababe posted:Dang, it's been ages since I posted in here and I don't even have any stories to share right now My mom's a tax advisor, and I work with excrow accounts and mortgages, so we both get super stressed this time of year. This year my dad got us these stress face things where you can squeeze, push in, pull out, and just gently caress this persons face. It's my new favorite stress toy right next to my football I like to randomly launch over cube walls into other friends cubes.
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Apr 4, 2011 20:33
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My stress toy was a slinky. Then one day one of my coworkers mangled it. He's always said he'll get a replacement slinky, but it never happened. So my other coworker bid on a pack of 12 slinkies online as a joke, somehow managed to win them. Now there's a few lurking (slinking?) around my workplace.
froglet fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Apr 5, 2011 |
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Apr 5, 2011 11:29
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Stress toys? Pen lids. My desk is a veritable graveyard of mangled pen lids.
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Apr 5, 2011 22:13
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Stress toys? I chew those things into unrecognizable messes. To stop myself from doing that, I just throw them away.
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Apr 5, 2011 22:17
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For stress toys, I have a little plastic thing, kind of like this that the company gave everyone for Christmas (with chocolate and a gift card, they aren't the problem at the call center). It's fun to twist around and break by squeezing. I also bite the sides of my thumbs till they hurt and bleed when on a particularly awful call, which is not so fun.
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Apr 6, 2011 04:16
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gomababe posted:Dang, it's been ages since I posted in here and I don't even have any stories to share right now iPod. I started wearing an earbud in one ear, opposite my headset. Never heard anything about it. Eventually I upgraded to earbuds in both, placing the headset over it. Never heard a thing about it. 
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Apr 6, 2011 04:59
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Dear angry lady calling about her iPhone I wish I could help you, honest to god I do. You got a raw deal. Your friend hosed up a restore and some other rear end in a top hat advisor didn't even stop to ask you what operating system you used before loving you over again. But apple wouldn't let me give you an exception because I felt bad. Had you called your carrier they could have escalated. Had you ranted for 2 more minutes then I could sent you to tier 2 and they would have given you an exception. I wish you followed the article I sent you. Anything other than the retarded idea that getting you husband to call back and yell was going to work. So sorry once again.
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Apr 6, 2011 09:11
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less than three posted:iPod. I don't think I'll quite get away with that in my place.I sit directly opposite my Team Leader and my desk isn't surrounded by baffle boards on all sides. Besides which I haave enough trouble understanding some of my customers as it is without bringing music, however quiet, into it. It's been pretty good this week. The nice weather must be improving everyone's moods because I've had something like 6 compliments passed my way so far. An example to brighten everyone's day;  : *after doing a search for a customer, having already taken 10 minutes finding 3 things for him* I can find one last thing for you if you just hold on a couple of seconds.... : Oh no need, this is more than enough to be getting on with. Thanks so much for your help. I really do appreciate it.: Not a problem, was there anything else at all?: is your manager there at all?: Yeah, just hold on a tick.My line manager had a quick chat with the guy and told me after he'd hung up that I had apparently been the first helpful person he'd spoken to for the last 3 months. He'd been passed from pillar to post with some of our other colleagues and was starting to get a little fed up of it. That really brightened up the rest of my evening because it was literally the last call I took for my day. It kinda pisses me off that it's such a surprise to our customers when some of us genuinely want to help them out though.
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Apr 7, 2011 18:34
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My stress toy is chewing gum. I have about six packs of sugar-free chewing gum in my desk, and everyone knows to ask me for a stick or two. Today was actually a good day at my insurance claims call center. I was a little annoyed by these callers who were from a religious volunteer group. They were at this old man's house, and were offering to fix all of his storm damage for free. This sounded really cool. The old man hadn't really heard of the organization and was wanting to talk it over with his property adjuster. The head volunteer seemed to grab the phone from him and hung up while I was trying to transfer her to a licensed adjuster that could talk to the homeowner about how this would affect reimbursement and stuff. :\ I figure that every day here is another day of experience in the office, and something that will make me better prepared when I graduate with my master's (or doctorate, depending on how the economy looks...) and desperately need some kind of work to pay student loans.
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Apr 9, 2011 00:42
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I have an interview for a non-cold calling office position on Monday! I've only been cold-calling for a week and my anxiety/depression is making every shift a living nightmare. If I have to listen to one more person bitching about how I'm wasting their minutes or how much of a scumbag I am, I'm going to dive into a shotglass and never leave. Basically what I'm saying is that I'd better nail this interview. 
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Apr 9, 2011 08:04
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ProfessorDandypants posted:I have an interview for a non-cold calling office position on Monday! I've only been cold-calling for a week and my anxiety/depression is making every shift a living nightmare. If I have to listen to one more person bitching about how I'm wasting their minutes or how much of a scumbag I am, I'm going to dive into a shotglass and never leave. You've honestly got to let that stuff slide off or you WILL go mad. They're not really pissed off at you, they're pissed off at the company that's cold calling them and you just happen to be the representative. Once you get that mindset nailed you'll find it less terrible. I was the same on outbound dialling at first and one day when someone was in the middle of some rant about how dare we call them at an inconvenient time it just clicked and I stopped being bothered by the vitriol.
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Apr 9, 2011 17:12
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This thread has made me feel better at my job. I do Tier 2 tech support, through a contractor for a contractor that manages a large insurance agency's IT. It's all internal so I don't have to deal with abuse, if anyone was violent I could probably get them in trouble. I do have to deal with impatience and unrealistic expectations on many occasions though. One of the issues, however, is that I might as well be Tier 3. When I was hired I was told I'd look at a ticket for 45 minutes and if I couldn't figure it out I'd pass it on to T3. That's changed, and I've only escalated maybe 5 tickets in the 6 months I've been working here. The problem is that they've assigned us T3/L3 "mentors" who we're supposed go to first for assistance. They know more about the massive clusterfuck of tech support in this monstrosity of a corporation, between the actual *INSERT COMPANY* tech support teams and the *INSERT CONTRACTOR*, and which teams certain specialty tickets should go to. We need to ask their permission to send tickets to other teams (we only do remote support so when I get a ticket for a printer that needs to be physically installed it goes to a local hardware team for that site) and for help if we can't figure an issue out. The problem? They're busy/lazy as hell (I can't tell) and usually don't respond in a timely manner, and refuse to take tickets until they absolutely have to. Shortly after I started working here this happened: : Hey ___, I have a ticket for this issue with the anti-virus. I'm setting the software up to push but it never actually installs. I've tried pushing it 3-4 times with different admin credentials, with the user logged off etc.*wait 15 minutes*  : Try pushing it again. : What? I just tried that. The user is the Vice President of ____ division and every time I try to install it, it has to reboot twice. The user is getting impatient.: Just push it again.*2 hours later*  : Hello again ______, it didn't work. I've been working on this for 5 hours today, do you have any other ideas?... : Try *software reinstall procedure*This literally happened. They just didn't want to deal with the issue and had me going in circles at the user's expense. I'm expected to close X amount of problems per day but I still have to work on crazy issues for 4-5 hours for any one of the thousands of proprietary apps people have? And worst of all now? Someone high up probably whined that they got a voicemail when calling us for a problem, so now we have a call queue. All of our phones are hooked up to VOIP software and we're giving out an 800 number. Someone calls and puts in our tech extension and if we're in "busy" mode or already on the phone, it goes to any random tech who isn't. So now we're like some hosed-up inbound call center that also has to work tickets for several hours. HOWEVER, I can browse SA on the contactor's dedicated internet line and I see my boss maybe twice a month, and I work at my own pace. If i get a bunch of easy tickets in then I get to ride the day out because I can meet the quota.
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Apr 13, 2011 16:31
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It's official -- I have 7 shifts left at my call center. Thurs-Fri-Sat this week, Wed-Thurs-Fri-Sat next week. Week off, then I start my new job. Today was the first day since I put in my 2 week notice. It was definitely interesting as I had a call that didn't go so hot from the perspective of one of our clients. Our QA person was going over it with me, and then I was getting a bit defensive, like "I KNOW I didn't screw this up." After a few minutes of this, though, I realized that I can sit here and say "In 7 more shifts, I am moving on." It is amazing how much that makes things 'better' when I say it.
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Apr 14, 2011 14:42
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I just got eligible for overtime and it's pretty much as soon as I put it on my schedule it's approved, so I have about 16 hours worth the next 2 weeks..... sigh. I'm going to be so burnt out so fast, but I can't resist that fat check.
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Apr 14, 2011 21:18
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People are calling for 1099 forms and stuff like that since tax season is at a close and I had a really pleasant customer say to me, "Listen, tomorrow's gonna be rough, and so is Monday, but just keep your chin up, keep smiling, and you'll get though." Sometimes I love my customers.
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Apr 15, 2011 02:49
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I work at an inbound call center for an automaker and its honestly not that bad. We mainly talk to dealers and I speak French so I speak with the same Quebecois dealers and they call me by name and call me sweetheart and butter me up so I'll give them extra labor hours on a job. I have two main frustrations with the business and mostly its that customer service seems like an even shittier version of the mob, where you can never get out. I'm looking for another job because I hate the area that I have to live in for this job and it feels like the only thing that people want to hire me for is customer service. I do my job well and I am outstandingly efficient, but I don't want to have to answer phones again for the rest of my life. As I said, most of my calls are easy. I'm a girl, so that helps and a lot of dealers are nicer to me. I have a young voice, I'm good at sounding chipper and helpful. Although technicians tend to be dirty little liars and you can always tell the Service Managers who used to be salesmen. I had a call in French last week for a restricted part that went like this:  So the engineers have released the part and it should be on its way in about 2-3 days. I can have it overnighted at the dealer's expense. Would you like to do that? Uh actually we just did a test and we need [other (related) part] Oh. Ok. Let me call up the field engineers and we'll see what we can do. What's the problem you're having on [other part]? We did this test on [service bulletin] and its not good so we need to replace it. *pull up service bulletin, its for a completely different transmission than what they are working on. Whatever. I'll call the engineers* Ok I'll try and get a hold of the field engineer What the gently caress? NO. This isn't even a part for the transmission they're working on. Of course it didn't work. They aren't testing anything.So I look like a doofus in front of the field engineer and then I get an angry dealer because I'm telling him he's not going to get what he wants. I LOVE being lied to. I did get to be sassy to a dealer (in English, my native and sassiest language) when he wanted a shitton of time to do things that we don't pay for like road testing and calling technical assistance. I'm sorry, I can only approve you for 2 hours for that, not 9. You all are loving incompetent assholes. I have worked in this business for 25 years and I've never dealt with a oval office like you. You motherfucker! Sir, what I do in the privacy of my own home has no bearing on the number of hours you're getting paid for. *click*I get the "I've worked for X Company for [huge number] of years and I've never had to verify calibrations/do things that have been policy for over a year now" all the time and I feel less and less sorry for people every time. That said, I have dealers that have personally thanked me for helping them and other ones that will call several times trying to get me.
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Apr 17, 2011 01:24
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A New Name posted:People are calling for 1099 forms and stuff like that since tax season is at a close and I had a really pleasant customer say to me, "Listen, tomorrow's gonna be rough, and so is Monday, but just keep your chin up, keep smiling, and you'll get though." Mondays are my day off, my day to do homework. I just got scheduled to do a noon to midnight because of expected call volume. I hope my manager isnt to pissed, cause I am not coming in. I got homework to do.
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Apr 17, 2011 01:31
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JackRabbitStorm posted:Mondays are my day off, my day to do homework. I just got scheduled to do a noon to midnight because of expected call volume. What gets me about this, is with a bit of thought its really really easy to do rotas. With the amount of bitching I heard about them, from both sides of the fence when I had to cover a month holiday and write out the rotas I was expecting a nightmare. However, some logical thinking and half an hour with excel and you can work with even the most difficult schedules and know well in advance if you have a problem, or even might have a problem if you have any sickness\holiday. The fact so many managers can't do it, well, its just pure laziness\ incompetence. It also makes me mad.
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Apr 17, 2011 17:29
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:What gets me about this, is with a bit of thought its really really easy to do rotas. We have some fancy pants program that projects call volume weeks in advance and schedules people, that cost us god only knows how much to implement, but we had 4 people quit on Thursday. Well, one got fired, one handed in their 2 weeks notice and was told to pack their poo poo, and the other 2 just got up and left. They were all loans reps so we went from 15% of our reps being able to handle loans to about 7%, but I don't give a poo poo. My schooling comes first, and they know this
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Apr 17, 2011 18:23
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JackRabbitStorm posted:We have some fancy pants program that projects call volume weeks in advance and schedules people, that cost us god only knows how much to implement, but we had 4 people quit on Thursday. Well, one got fired, one handed in their 2 weeks notice and was told to pack their poo poo, and the other 2 just got up and left. They were all loans reps so we went from 15% of our reps being able to handle loans to about 7%, but I don't give a poo poo. My schooling comes first, and they know this Even the fancy pants software should be able to cope with stuff like "I cannot do mondays". What it SHOULD do is generate a bunch of template schedules which your rostering guys assign people to. They should a) make sure they have at least one template set with no mondays in it and b) assign that set to you. Excel's ok until you start getting into multiskilled agent groups, off phone activity requirements, etc etc - as soon as you're taking thousands of calls a day and you're open something other than 9-5 you probably want some workforce management software AND some decent training on it.
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Apr 17, 2011 18:43
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Fil5000 posted:Even the fancy pants software should be able to cope with stuff like "I cannot do mondays". What it SHOULD do is generate a bunch of template schedules which your rostering guys assign people to. They should a) make sure they have at least one template set with no mondays in it and b) assign that set to you. Haha, our software is called Workforce Management! Thats funny, and yeah, I agree 100%. Luckily my direct manager (who pleaded with me to stay when I was musing over quitting to focus on school full time) stepped up to the plate and is actually going to *gasp* live the day of a rep tomorrow and work at least 4 hours of core loans calls to help out.
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Apr 17, 2011 18:50
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JackRabbitStorm posted:Haha, our software is called Workforce Management! Thats funny, and yeah, I agree 100%. Luckily my direct manager (who pleaded with me to stay when I was musing over quitting to focus on school full time) stepped up to the plate and is actually going to *gasp* live the day of a rep tomorrow and work at least 4 hours of core loans calls to help out. If it's the one made by Aspect then it's the one I use - it's insanely powerful and clever but requires a real training investment across a long time - there's too much in it to get your head around right away and so many parameters you can gently caress around with that it's easy to get lost. I've been using it for two years and I'm nearly getting the hang of it. It's really really easy, though, to just set it all on autopilot and have it build schedules with no regard for preferences. Frankly, where I am we could do with a bit more of that sort of thing though; so many people have compressed hours, "can't" work sundays, etc that it's become a bit of a joke. Work/life balance, sure, but if you say in the interview you can work literally any shift, gently caress off coming to the rostering guys two days into training to try and get Monday off every week.
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Apr 17, 2011 19:19
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Fil5000 posted:If it's the one made by Aspect then it's the one I use - it's insanely powerful and clever but requires a real training investment across a long time - there's too much in it to get your head around right away and so many parameters you can gently caress around with that it's easy to get lost. I've been using it for two years and I'm nearly getting the hang of it. Yeah, I work the same hours every week built around my school schedule, and this was the first time they tried to change it up on me and it was just due to all of a sudden we were short 4 out of the 9 people we were supposed to have on that day for loans and it being a busy tax day they wanted extra help. Except they didnt ask, They assigned me for a 12 hour shift on a day I wont work, and during the week I only do 4 hour shifts because of classes and homework.
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Apr 17, 2011 19:27
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JackRabbitStorm posted:Yeah, I work the same hours every week built around my school schedule, and this was the first time they tried to change it up on me and it was just due to all of a sudden we were short 4 out of the 9 people we were supposed to have on that day for loans and it being a busy tax day they wanted extra help. Except they didnt ask, They assigned me for a 12 hour shift on a day I wont work, and during the week I only do 4 hour shifts because of classes and homework. At my call centre, I tend to get a lot of shifts because I have a very broad set of availabilities (nobody else seems to want to work weekends/evenings). However, this has lead to situations where I've asked for only 2-3 shifts per week due to study, to find the boss has put me down for four or five because there's nobody else to cover. Most of the time I can handball the shifts off onto somebody else, but it annoys me that I get placed in that position. Rant of the day: One of my coworkers can't stand coming to work, so he calls in sick as much as he can get away with. Every now and again he then asks us to give away shifts to him. The last time I gave him an evening shift he swapped it with somebody else for a weekend shift... then called in sick for the weekend. I wouldn't have cared if it weren't for the fact that I worked that weekend, there was a major outage and it was just me on my own answering the deluge of calls for the next two hours. While he's not psychic, it's poor form to agree to take a shift for somebody else, then not show up. Technically speaking I shouldn't be pissed off that he gets sick or injured, but he freely admits (to anyone except the management) that he calls in because he doesn't like working more than 2 or 3 shifts a week, and if a shift is remotely inconvenient he calls in sick. froglet fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Apr 20, 2011 |
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Apr 20, 2011 04:38
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Infra users unite?
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Apr 20, 2011 04:43
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froglet posted:At my call centre, I tend to get a lot of shifts because I have a very broad set of availabilities (nobody else seems to want to work weekends/evenings). However, this has lead to situations where I've asked for only 2-3 shifts per week due to study, to find the boss has put me down for four or five because there's nobody else to cover. Most of the time I can handball the shifts off onto somebody else, but it annoys me that I get placed in that position. I just wouldn't do any more shift swaps with him if I were you. "Sorry, you left me high and dry because you couldn't be bothered to come in; go ask someone else." He does this to people often enough and eventually no-one will switch with him.
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Apr 20, 2011 06:27
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Fil5000 posted:I just wouldn't do any more shift swaps with him if I were you. "Sorry, you left me high and dry because you couldn't be bothered to come in; go ask someone else." He does this to people often enough and eventually no-one will switch with him. Yeah, I haven't swapped shifts with him since then.
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Apr 20, 2011 08:40
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I hate when people get indignant that their card was rejected. Dude I dunno why the hell your card was declined, it doesn't says "REJECTED: CARDHOLDER IS A BROKE LOSER gently caress", you don't have to go "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE, THAT ACCOUNT HAS FORTY SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS IN IT!" why don't you just assume there's something wrong with the card part and call your bank instead of having me try to run it 3 times. We process about 50,000 credit cards a day, and we like making money, I'm sure our system is working. tia.
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Apr 20, 2011 14:18
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Loving Life Partner posted:I hate when people get indignant that their card was rejected. Dude I dunno why the hell your card was declined, it doesn't says "REJECTED: CARDHOLDER IS A BROKE LOSER gently caress", you don't have to go "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE, THAT ACCOUNT HAS FORTY SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS IN IT!" why don't you just assume there's something wrong with the card part and call your bank instead of having me try to run it 3 times. We process about 50,000 credit cards a day, and we like making money, I'm sure our system is working. tia. It's mostly because it's embarrassing to be told your card was declined, because the first thing that pops into people's heads is that you're broke, and don't in fact even realise it yet. The customer likely assumes that's what the cashier/agent/whatever is thinking, so they go on the defensive straight away. I admit that's what I do if my card is declined and I've no idea why since I know I have money in the account. Not in an angry way mind you, just in a confused way.
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Apr 20, 2011 15:11
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Loving Life Partner posted:I hate when people get indignant that their card was rejected. Dude I dunno why the hell your card was declined, it doesn't says "REJECTED: CARDHOLDER IS A BROKE LOSER gently caress", you don't have to go "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE, THAT ACCOUNT HAS FORTY SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS IN IT!" why don't you just assume there's something wrong with the card part and call your bank instead of having me try to run it 3 times. We process about 50,000 credit cards a day, and we like making money, I'm sure our system is working. tia. On the other end of this "YOU ASSHOLES BLOCKED MY CARD AND THERE IS FORTY SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS IN IT!" Yeah, and you've spent 2 thousand today all over and our security department has called you twice, and you hung up on them twice. So, you got a security hold on your account until it could be verified that your card hasnt been stolen.
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Apr 20, 2011 17:05
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JackRabbitStorm posted:On the other end of this "YOU ASSHOLES BLOCKED MY CARD AND THERE IS FORTY SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS IN IT!" I had one like that the other day, except he had $70,000 and his card was blocked because we mailed him a new one AND HE DOESN'T CHECK HIS MAIL.
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Apr 21, 2011 01:52
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My favourite 'you oval office' call was the guy putting his card (limit £18,000) £10,000 in credit and then trying to spend £28,000. The credit card, she does not work this way. I explain this. He calls me a oval office for telling him he's too poor to make that purchase. I say that I am not calling him poor or stupid, but his credit card does not work this way. We go around and around for 45 minutes. He asks to speak to my LM. She, and everyone else on my shift went home a half hour ago. There are no managers to be raised in the building. I tell him again that the card doesn't work like that, but he can get a call back from a manager when one of them choses to respond to my now desperate calls and e-mails. He calls me a oval office, tells me he's rich and smart and that he wants my full name so he can report me to all the newspapers for calling him poor. I give him my details and tell him to have a nice night. I get to go home an hour after my shift ends. My manager chews me out the next morning for overtime they can't afford.
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Apr 21, 2011 03:43
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I had a fun one today. Guy has a mortgage and a second mortgage with us. He sells half an acre to the Department of Transportation so they can expand the road. He gets a check for about 10,000 written to him and us. Proceeds to attempt to rip me a new rear end in a top hat today because we are going to take 8 grand of that check due to his property level plummeting due to the sale. Explained to him multiple times that not only does he have a mortgage, but also a second mortgage. We own his house and his land. He "rents" from us essentially until his debt is paid off to us. Not only did he lose a lot of land, theres now going to be a 4 lane highway in front of his house which caused his property value to plummet and he has to keep at most a 80% loan to value, and this sale took him to 90%. Which is against his contract, and he was told this would happen about a month ago I was super nice about it, until about 20 minutes into the phone call when he responded to everything with "You are a motherfucker". Then my manager who was listening in on it, emailed and told me to do what I need to do to get it through his head that he needs to mail us the check, and we will give him the leftovers, and to end the call at any means possible. Which was at the same time he was spouting off about having his credit union cash the check anyways and just "gently caress us" because of whatever reason. I got to respond that he sure can go ahead and do that, but he will have to spend that 10,000 on lawyers when we sue him for the property and court costs, over which he will lose due to violating his contract and then he will be out not only the 10,000, but also his house and most likely will never be approved for another mortgage again. He said fine, he'll send us the check. Told him to have a nice day. "Yeah, you have a loving great day to, you loving rear end in a top hat" (Stay classy man, stay classy.
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Apr 21, 2011 04:00
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Finished my training yesterday, full fledged iOS tier one adviser now. Started on the phones without a mentor for the first time today. Best day to start as well, first time in a year the Apple Internal Network went offline so I got a crash course in learning how to man the phones without the software. Couldn't book any repairs, make any logs of issues, register any Applecare, but people well and truly outside of free phone support got exceptions out the wazoo because of this. I suppose that balances out. (Maybe I'm saying too much about internal stuff, oh well.) I do have a question though, how do you people deal with angry customers? I had one today I had to escalate to Tier 2 today because I couldn't control the call and I feel kinda down about that since it was a simple battery configuration problem I could have solved in 5 minutes and both left happy
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Apr 21, 2011 13:30
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Lord Windy posted:Finished my training yesterday, full fledged iOS tier one adviser now. Started on the phones without a mentor for the first time today. There's lots of different ways, depends on the customer's particular form of enragement. What was the problem, exactly?
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Apr 21, 2011 13:49
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If you've never done call center before, you'll learn in time how to deal with angry customers. At first you just apologize a lot and fall over yourself to try and appease them, but with time you'll learn when to push back on them a little, chastise lightly, and get them under control to get their problem solved. It's a confidence thing that will only come with time. In the meantime, if someone is angry just let them vent it all out. There's a couple types of anger, one is the emptying balloon, where they'll calm down, the other is the filling balloon, where they'll just get more steam until they explode. The latter usually have to get escalated no matter what, even if your company is in no way wrong.
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Apr 21, 2011 14:17
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Fil5000 posted:There's lots of different ways, depends on the customer's particular form of enragement. What was the problem, exactly? She set up an iPhone exchange via her Carrier, a long slow tedious process that took a month and a half to complete. She got a refurbished phone back (standard practice when they are available) and the battery for the phone was running out of juice far to quickly in her mind. I tried emphasizing with her (I couldn't live a month and a half without my iPhone either ), agreeing with her that a month and a half was far to long to get the phone back and how she wouldn't be out of pocket for more money because all replacement phones come with a 90 day warranty and how I was going to step through a simple battery configuration to see if some of the settings couldn't be tweaked to give her increased battery life. She didn't take my word for it and spent the next 5 minutes gushing about how unhappy she was.I couldn't get the call under control so I exercised my newbie right to hit the panic switch and gush to the tier 2 adviser that I didn't know what to do. He sighed and took over the call for me and I hightailed it out of there to the amusement of one of the coaches.
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Apr 21, 2011 14:28
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Lord Windy posted:She set up an iPhone exchange via her Carrier, a long slow tedious process that took a month and a half to complete. She got a refurbished phone back (standard practice when they are available) and the battery for the phone was running out of juice far to quickly in her mind. Loving Life Partner's given a good answer here; some you just have to let run down and some you're not going to win with. Although, the "filling balloon" type customers do have another option available once you're confident enough to try it. Sometimes if someone's just angry and not calming down, you can control the call by actually topping the anger out instead of letting it simmer. Having worked in debt collection, a way I had of doing this was say things to the customer like: "What you're doing here, in borrowing money and failing to repay it, could be considered theft." This results in a minor explosion from the customer instead of the slow simmer you had before, and the explosion is actually easier to manage than the relentlessness of someone that is quietly fuming at you/your company. Once they've exploded, you can back off, clarify that you were explaining that your earlier statement was simply one possible interpretation of the facts and get on to actually resolving the situation. It doesn't always work, and it takes a while before you can judge which customers to employ it on, but I've often found the calls I have that start off that way end up being some of the most pleasant ones. Partly because I think people realise how douchey they're being if they actually erupt. On a related note, there used to be a guy in our centre that acquired the nickname "The Volcano" because of his habit of going off at customers. His manager had a little sign on the wall with "Days since last eruption" on it.
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Apr 21, 2011 15:04
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I had probably the most patient person in the world, but gently caress you tier two! I legitimately had no clue what I needed to do to help this dude out and you gave me the worst advice on how to solve the issue. "Restoring the iPad as new" isn't going to help me when the customer's problem is that he was experiencing ridiculously long sync times when it came to syncing books across. Yes, we've tried a new cable. Yes, we've tried resetting Sync History. Why yes, you mean you aren't going to help out despite me telling you I did know what to do. Ok fine, I spend the next 40 minutes trying to work out how to help him transfer the last 2000 books of his 15000. Manual syncing seemed to be the answer, but by now the Customer was so frustrated that he requested someone higher up to deal with the issue. It's been 70 minutes now, the man has requested for someone higher up and I'm begging for help on how to speed everything up. Don't try to worm your way out of it again and give me no help, do your job and take ownership of the call and be thankful I didn't call over my manager to deal with you.
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Apr 28, 2011 10:19
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Lord Windy posted:"Restoring the iPad as new" isn't going to help me when the customer's problem is that he was experiencing ridiculously long sync times when it came to syncing books across. Sorry, but how do you know this? You said yourself you don't know how to resolve the problem, how do you know what won't resolve the problem? Lord Windy posted:Yes, we've tried a new cable. Yes, we've tried resetting Sync History. Why yes, you mean you aren't going to help out despite me telling you I did know what to do. Anyone who's worked in tier two for more than an hour knows that you can't take this poo poo for granted. I'm sure we don't work for the same company, but I guarantee a shocking number of your colleagues don't do poo poo before they throw their hands up and call tier two. Lord Windy posted:Ok fine, I spend the next 40 minutes trying to work out how to help him transfer the last 2000 books of his 15000. Well there's your problem. Lord Windy posted:It's been 70 minutes now, the man has requested for someone higher up and I'm begging for help on how to speed everything up. Don't try to worm your way out of it again and give me no help, do your job and take ownership of the call and be thankful I didn't call over my manager to deal with you. There isn't a 'Turbo' button in iTunes that will make it sync faster. Assuming the sync time is actually longer than it should be given he's syncing 15,000 loving books, it's either a hardware fault or a software fault. It could also be a corrupt file or two, which is pretty loving likely since I doubt those 15,000 books were all legitimately obtained. Honestly, one of my biggest peeves when I was in tier-two was the sense of entitlement from a lot of tier one reps. I mean Christ, April 20th you finished your training, April 28th you're bitching about how "useless" tier two is. Throughout your rant you go back and forth between crying "I don't know what to do" and "I already did everything you're suggesting, plebe". Make up your mind. You don't get to be both the clueless newbie and the all-star super-agent. Tier two isn't there to take over for you when your call gets too long. You tell me you want me to take over because you've been on the call for an hour, I'll tell you to go tell your manager your handle time requirements are too hard. And that last sentence really makes you come off as a total poo poo.
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Apr 28, 2011 21:50
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