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Lord Windy posted:Racism in general bums me out. My neighborhood used to be terrible, crime, drugs, violence - all the fun things. They all moved out when Australia started accepting Sudanese refugees and began housing them in my suburb of the city. They've added alot of colour to the place, shops and houses are being rebuilt. Their kids are well behaved and their national dress is fantastic. I really appreciate the vibrancy, but all anyone can do is complain about the number of blackies around. I would have made her do every little bullshit mundane tedious troubleshooting step for something like that. gently caress making that racist bitch happy. People who aren't racist don't go on racist tirades regardless of how frustrated they get. The most common one is the one you get, people bitching about Indians and sometimes the Chinese. Since I'm American-Chinese with no accent, those calls end up going like this:  "Oh I'm so glad that yer not one o' them dot-heads or chinese"  "Buddy, I'm Chinese."After which I make their call as tedious and miserable as possible. Oh you hear your hard drive clicking? Well I'm sorry guy, we're going to have to run a chkdsk, attempt a reinstall of windows, run a full set of diagnostics, and flash new firmware onto that drive from usb! As to your problems with angry/frustrated customers, my approach to the phones is tough love. I will tell someone straight up what the situation is and what needs to happen regardless of how angry or frustrated they are. It works pretty fantastically because none of my calls ever get escalated. Everything always gets resolved in the end because I won't do anything they want me to do if I know it won't fix their problem. Even the ones who call in angry end up going away at worst content. It helps that I'm naturally happy and cheery so people don't know how to respond to someone who sounds so nice but at the same time is being so demanding. TotallyUnoriginal fucked around with this message at 06:18 on May 15, 2011 |
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May 15, 2011 06:16
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Well, I had a metrics meeting today with my supervisor, where I basically diplomatically went on the same rant I went on in here, and she was actually very receptive and understanding. Especially since the numbers jibed with what I was saying (twice as many calls, exceeding target for first call resolution, i.e. getting peoples business done accurately and completely) She basically flat out told me that I need to take less calls, there's a system in place beyond me and her that we need to work within in order to be "great" employees, and even though I'm doing well, I'm not going to get recognized (i.e. bonuses) unless I work more in the system (which means getting my aux time down). She's going to give me help getting my call time up, show me how to do more thorough account reviews, things like that, so I don't burn out. All in all, I'm pretty satisfied with how that went.
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May 15, 2011 17:39
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Loving Life Partner posted:Well, I had a metrics meeting today with my supervisor, where I basically diplomatically went on the same rant I went on in here, and she was actually very receptive and understanding. Especially since the numbers jibed with what I was saying (twice as many calls, exceeding target for first call resolution, i.e. getting peoples business done accurately and completely) Get it in writing.
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May 15, 2011 20:34
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evobatman posted:Get it in writing. Get it in writing! There's an easy way to do this without coming across as "I don't trust verbal agreements made with you in a company like this." Simply write your supervisor an email clarifying the things you talked about. "Hi Supervisor, After our meeting the other day, I just want to clarify with you what we talked about so I can make sure my understanding is correct. We identified that my aux time was too high and we are going to take measure x, measure y and measure z to address it. etcetera." If you couch it in terms of making things clear for yourself, it comes across as less of a CYA measure than it is.
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May 15, 2011 21:22
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modeski posted:Get it in writing! There's an easy way to do this without coming across as "I don't trust verbal agreements made with you in a company like this." Simply write your supervisor an email clarifying the things you talked about. Two points: a) As someone that's been on the receiving end of this sort of email, it looks exactly like a CYA measure when it arrives, but regardless of that; b) Your supervisor should ideally be documenting this stuff anyway. If they've identified a performance issue then documenting it does two things for them - first, it makes them look as though they're taking it seriously and secondly it creates a paper trail so they can prove they've been managing you. Your supervisor sounds ok from what you've said, so they shouldn't care that you're covering yourself. Hopefully they've documented the conversation in your file somewhere anyway, and they should happily give you a copy of that. All that said... yeah, get it in writing.
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May 16, 2011 21:51
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I've been working sales in a call center for the last month and a half and it's bearable sometimes, but other times it's just "I can't loving take this anymore". Today is one of these days. I'm just not the type of person who can do this kind of thing for long. Anyone have any advice for making it through that urge to just walk out the door for lunch and not come back? Plus, management is doing a bunch of measures to make it more unpleasant. That's basically their stated purpose behind the changes, too make it less of a low-key enviornment, which is what they used to sell the company during my interview.
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May 17, 2011 03:57
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I have been disabused of the notion that I don't have a very noticeable accent after scores of times asking people "Do you have a dog on your property?" and being asked "A what?" every single time. 
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May 17, 2011 04:11
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Loving Life Partner posted:I've asked coaches, I've asked my supe, I've asked coworkers: how the hell do I increase my call time? Do I put people on hold for no reason and take my breaks there? Do I make bullshit small talk about things they don't care about/I don't want to talk about? God I am glad I get paid per call and therefor have to strive to have super short calls. I am not one for talking, so I could never small talk with people to hit some special time. What do you do? Work for a 1900 service where they want long calls?
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May 17, 2011 04:22
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Nope, insurance company. They're more interested in a "complete customer experience" rather than how fast you can get em off the line.
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May 17, 2011 04:38
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Ugly In The Morning posted:I've been working sales in a call center for the last month and a half and it's bearable sometimes, but other times it's just "I can't loving take this anymore". Today is one of these days. I'm just not the type of person who can do this kind of thing for long. Anyone have any advice for making it through that urge to just walk out the door for lunch and not come back? I'm in the same boat and I'm strongly considering leaving my call center to go back to retail. The only thing that's kept me from doing so already is how this position looks much better on a resume than a full time stint at the mall but I'm wondering if it's even worth it at this point. My customers are angry and condescending and the current sales push is through the roof. I haven't kept the same supervisor and team lead pairing for longer than two weeks at a time since I started in January. My commute is 40 minutes on a good day, which with the current gas prices is eating up the measly $11/hr I'm making. I've been handling it all well until recently, but for whatever reason all of the creepy customers keep getting transferred to my line, so I have 60 year old men telling me how sexy my voice is every day. Ugh, I'm married with a child and I most certainly did not take this job to help customers get their rocks off. My only advice is to focus and remember the best of your calls. The customers who legitimately wonder how you're doing, or the ones who recognize that you helped them out and thank you for it. Just focusing on one of those calls, even if it was weeks ago, can help me through the rough days. 
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May 17, 2011 14:21
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I'm a supervisor in a call center that does tech support for a well known national company that provides phone, tv, and Internet services to customers. It's honestly not a terrible gig for what I do. I'm not the normal spineless manager and my agents respect me for that and I solidified this for a group of new hires last night. The way our training process works is that agents go through 5 weeks of in class curriculum and then have one week of training bay to learn the phones, have customer interaction, and learn how to troubleshoot with all of the stuff they learned in the classroom. We don't have a script to run through, so this week of tbay is vital for the agents if they want to make it on the floor. Anyways, I was sitting at my station last night, finishing up my paperwork for the day and I hear some commotion coming out of our tbay row. I look over, see our three tbay mentors huddled around a split jacking phone, listening to a new agent taking a call. They're laughing. Either this customer is an unreasonable rear end in a top hat or they're making fun of this agent pretty much right to his face on his first day of taking calls. I go over to see what is going on and the tbay mentors hand me the phone. I take it, and listen. The agent asks for the customer's phone number to pull up and verify her account:  Ma'am, could I get the phone number on your account please? Yeah, you can. It's 1-800-kiss my rear end. Give me a supervisor. I look at the agent at this point and he looks like he's about to break. Turns out, he was having login issues for most of the day and this was his first call. Ever. Yeah. I reach down, hit the hold button on his phone, and walk around the desk and tell him I'm going to take the call from here and to go get a coffee or a coke or something for himself from the break room and just relax because I'm going to be here a while. I throw the headset on and sit down. Game time, bitches.  Hello ma'am, my name is bulbous nub and I'm a supervisor here at (company). How can I assist you this evening? loving FINALLY! My phone number is (rattles off number) And who am I speaking with? Your worst nightmare if you don't fix this. (rattles off name, account holders name, and address on account)I take a look at the account at this point. Suspended for non payment. No restore order on the account, nothing anyone can do until financial services opens in the morning. Wonderful, this is going to be better than I originally thought. Great, and how can I assist you this evening? Oh you've got to be loving with me. Ok, you bastards turned my services off FOR SOME REASON! (she said it all indignant, like it was our fault she didn't pay her bill..) I paid the amount you guys said you needed from me to get the services back up and running at 7 pm. The billing agent I spoke with said the services should be up and running within 4 hours and it's obviously not! So you understand me? Turn my stuff back on!Now, as a little side note here, our billing agents are notorious for straight up lying to customers. This is a known issue in our center, but because we're a vendor center we really can't do anything about it. This is another one of those cases. Well ma'am, I do.. No! Stop calling me ma'am! I am Ms. Soandso. Call me that, do NOT call me ma'am. Sorry, Ms. Soandso. Now, as I was explaining before you cut me off, I see the account is suspended for non payment and... NO! You fucks cut my service off for no reason. It was NOT because I didnt pay the bill. Ok, and how much did you have to pay to get the services current again? ($$$ amount) Ok, that would be because the account was suspended for non payment. ... Now the way our disconnects work are as follows: Account us suspended, notice is given to customer, customer does whatever is required for suspended services, and then a notices is sent from our financial services department to our order control group who then add the account to a reconnect database. From there, it's an automated process, but the whole thing can take anywhere from 24-48 hours. As it stands, it looks like financial services didn't send that notice to the order control group and in order for your servicesmto come back on, we need to contact financial services whom is closed and won't be back in for another... 9 hours. She just kinda stopped at this point, but picked up about 10 seconds later. Fix my shut now, or I'm going to sue you! Ma'am, if you continue to talk legal action, I'm going to end this call. This is your only warning regarding that. If a customer talks legal action, we have the authority to end the call after the second time and set their account to route directly to the legal department whenever they call in. Why is that, because you know I'm right? And STOP CALLING ME MA'AM! Actually, you're not Ms. Soandso. gently caress you! You guys don't know an rear end in a top hat from a hole in the wall. Do you? Do I what? Know an rear end in a top hat from a hole in the wall. Can you tell the difference? Actually I can, Ms. Soandso. Oh YEAH? Explain it to me. One is a hole in the wall and the other is talking to me on the phone. Yup. Exactly what I said to her. Should I have said that? Probably not. Ooooh, funny funny. Get my services back on right now or I swear to god I will be on the phone with a lawyer first thing in the morning. Ma'am, after warning you about speaking about legal action, you have continued to do so. At this point, I am ending this call. Please call in tomorrow morning and speak to our legal department, thanks for choosing (company). Now, she was screaming some stuff over me as I did my closing, but I didn't catch any of it. People were standing around listening to the split jack phone and one of the overnight sups was dialed in to that agents phone ID and was listening to the call. Every single one of them told me it was the best escalation they have ever heard. Sorry for the huge wall of text, but I think at least someone out there will enjoy it.
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May 17, 2011 18:52
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I enjoyed it greatly, nub. Thanks for sharing!
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May 17, 2011 20:00
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Loving Life Partner posted:AUX TIME AND BUSY SEASON From one of your main competitors: We do have AHT, and failing at it can be a fireable offense. A 10 year veteran was fired for it, despite perfect attendance for 3 years and sparkling QA/customer satisfaction scores. In my department, which mostly assists agents, they've dropped by over a minute over the last 4 years (from 420 to 350). We've made some system improvements that do make the calls go faster, but not that much faster. Plus, we're constantly getting new levels of administrative scutwork added (make sure you're mentioning some kind of product or service on EVERY SINGLE CALL, and if they don't have an E-mail address on file, you have to harass them until they give it to you. Then make a policy change. Which takes 60 seconds of ACW to process). My AHT exceeds standards, but it's getting harder and harder to keep it there. I'm looking for some new things. Toying with either getting my state insurance license to sell, learning underwriting, or a complete career change. The final straw was watching a rep with 3.5 years of tenure, who was one of the better ones at their job, get fired. For "negative reliability points" (I'd explain, but explaining the system makes my head hurt. Lets just say that it requires IT'S OWN WEBSITE to calculate.). On take your daughter to work day. In front of her 11 year old daughter. That kind of made me think about what I do (which is basically, play a bureaucrat and repeat the same things over and over again 75-85 times a day, with a metaphorical knife against my neck) and who I do it for (a company that, since they've been bought out, has went from being a slightly annoying corporation to the most overbearing place I've ever worked). I don't care how busy they are (and we are extremely busy at this time of year), I will no longer do OT for them, because that's time that can be better spent with friends and on hobbies and looking for other jobs. Honestly, I'm a bit overpaid at this point, but my sanity is worth a pay cut.
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May 19, 2011 06:05
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I guess it can always be worse! Yikes! We have a "services" advertisement webpage that pop ups showing what offers are available to the particular customer we're talking with, but it's more a nuisance than anything. They expect us to attempt to fit everything into the call, but they don't really enforce it very strictly. The most it will do is ding you if that particular call gets audited. They understand that most calls you can't really fit in a pitch for renters insurance, or whatever. And as much as I hate our quirky policy editor, sheesh, 60 seconds to update an e-mail? Holy cow. EDIT: And I'd like to get licensed and actually try the sales side of the business, but unfortunately it came down from on high that if they need "blended" reps in the future, it's going to be done with sales -> service, rather than the other way around, which makes sense I guess, since licensing is the expensive part. With that door closed, I'll probably start drifting into other skillsets and specialty groups once my year in the trenches is up. Loving Life Partner fucked around with this message at 06:26 on May 19, 2011 |
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May 19, 2011 06:24
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"Welcome to ShopNBC, may I.." "YOU STOLE ALL MY MONEY!"<get cx ID, find out he hammered the "buy" button online when there were computer issues, cx now has 15 holds on his debit card for orders that didn't actually complete>  "<MASSIVE SCREAMING AND CURSING>" <contact billing/financial to contact bank and try to get holds dropped> "<slightly calmer> What about my order?""I'm sorry, we're all sold out of..." "MORE SCREAMING AND CURSING>" "While I have you on the line, would you be interested in today's special, a Coach purse for..."  "I WANT A SUPERVISOR!" Why yes, having your inbound customer service crew be *required* to pimp the day's specials to people who are more likely to be unhappy in the first place, that's an *awesome* plan.
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May 19, 2011 18:52
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I used to feel bad when people were set on automatic withdrawals and we would withdraw hundreds of extra dollars due to whatever dumb reason. Your situation sounds harder to deal with, in my case it's usually because they ignored a sales representative/agent who told them to sign everything they got in the mail, they ignored the packet we mailed them, they ignored the reminder memo, the final memo talking about the increase, the e-mail stating that the withdrawal would be considerably higher, and they usually missed a phonecall about the whole process. The only time they want to talk/listen is after we've already withdrawn 300 additional dollars 3 days ago.
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May 19, 2011 18:58
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Loving Life Partner posted:I used to feel bad when people were set on automatic withdrawals and we would withdraw hundreds of extra dollars due to whatever dumb reason. Oh no, it's because people don't read when the screen says "If something goes wrong/this takes too long, don't click again/flip back a page and continue again." If the order glitches for whatever reason, it still puts a hold on the funds, even if there's no completed order (so, no order #, or even a record in the customer's file). Get all excited and hammer that "buy now" button a few times, and the bank happily goes "hurp de durp de.. aww, you broke, sucka". At this point, if you call the bank, they'll tell you "Oh, there's a bunch of $x charges from <store/whatever>, you have to ask them." But since there's nothing in customer records... I found out that if you searched by the full card number (you know, the one we as CSRs weren't really supposed to have access to), it would bring up all the holds, and thus the bank could be informed, and maybe the holds could be cancelled. ("Natural" drops, due to the order never being completed, could take up to 2 weeks, according to the CC companies/banks.) But it had to be by the entire number - last-4-digit records weren't showing jack, but I think that was becasue it wasn't really accessing the card-use activity, but the actual order info. All I know is, I got two of those within a week, from different people. I'd expect that it wasn't a truly rare occurrance - and yet, as far as I knew, no one was trained for it. "Cx called re: charges on CC; bank called." (It's been a few years since I was a phone-monkey, so this may have been corrected or otherwise addressed, and it might even have been specific to that one particular business...  I'm just glad I'm out of that poo poo, hopefully forever.)
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May 19, 2011 23:05
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Loving Life Partner posted:I guess it can always be worse! Yikes! We have a "services" advertisement webpage that pop ups showing what offers are available to the particular customer we're talking with, but it's more a nuisance than anything. I've been on both the PL and Claims side in various roles, and you really don't gain anything different on Sales. You'll be doing a lot more scripted stuff, EFT, accident disclosure, etc. PCA and other roles aren't any different than regular services. If they open a CCU in CS you should absolutely jump on it.
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May 20, 2011 02:55
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bulbous nub posted:Sounds like APAC.
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May 20, 2011 19:29
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I am a Team Leader for a major e-commerce site that you can sell your poo poo on. The absolute worst people to talk to on a phone? People selling poo poo online, bar none. Being a team lead, we get all the escalations, as our Supes and Managers don't take them. We just use a blanket statement for the management team to cover our asses that we aren't supervisors. Item didn't arrive to a buyer? OUR FAULT You didn't ship something, it never got there and the buyer did a chargeback on their credit card? OUR FAULT We closed your account because you were ripping people off with 75 dollar PS3s and not shipping anything? GIVE ME MY MONEY I SENT THEM THEIR poo poo It's quite ridiculous, and quite frankly saddening, that the 'American' way of 'GIVE ME YOUR MANAGER' will magically remove policy and give you everything you want. At least my team is great. We generally get fresh college grads looking for stopgaps, and they try hard to at least care a little bit about the problems our callers have. But, this job sucks your soul out. Standing for a policy you don't like, while you know the person who is raging on the other end is getting hosed makes me leave with a sour taste and bad mental state after defending the person who hosed my escalated caller. While my pay is great and the stock options are immense, it's just really, really hard to justify the mental anguish this job provides.
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May 23, 2011 04:21
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I just hate the customer satisfaction surveys. I mean, they keep telling me the trick is working on ways to get rid of the calls within the guidelines, but it's just a little frustrating to get rated as not knowledgeable/helpful and hassled by management because you tell someone they're gonna be ineligible for a rebate or whatever, rather than letting them just buy it and find out later.
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May 23, 2011 05:28
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A friend that works at the same call center as myself made a song about our job over the weekend. I think that it is something that you will all enjoy http://www.looperman.com/player.php?tid=106345
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May 24, 2011 03:41
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I had one of the worst calls ever yesterday. I work at an insurance company and was helping out at teammate who was out of the office. I needed to request some medical records on a questionable surgery that was billed to the claim (a repair of a previous surgery from before the accident, unrelated to the loss). Sometimes these things just get billed in error so I call up the provider and get some horrible office manager on the line who actually screamed at me about this. I had to turn down the volume because she was freaking the gently caress out.  Why haven't you paid us for this yet? You were supposed to send a check!! I'm sorry. We're still reviewing the notes for this surgery, which is why I called... it looks like this surgery might not be related to the accident and I just wanted to confirm that it wasn't a misbill-- HOW DARE YOU QUESTION WHETHER OR NOT IT WAS RELATED. YOU'RE A LIAR. There's absolutely no need for you to be hostile or rude right now. It's a surgery that happened a year after the accident which the doctor specifically says is a repair of a surgery from 3 years prior to the accident... THEY DON'T TEACH YOU WHAT IS OR ISN'T RELATED TO A LOSS IN MEDICAL SCHOOL. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. WHY ARE YOU LYING AND STEALING OUR MONEY? Ma'am I'm going to need you to calm down and speak to me professionally I will disconnect the call. Nowhere in the doctor's notes does it say anything about this being related to the accident and instead cites a number of other factors not related... DID YOU GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL? HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S RELATED TO THE LOSS? THE PATIENT TOLD THE DOCTOR IT WAS RELATED HOW DARE YOU QUESTION THAT? THE DOCTOR WASN'T THERE WHEN THE ACCIDENT HAPPENED. THE PATIENT TOLD HIM IT WAS RELATED. WHY ARE YOU GETTING HYSTERICAL ABOUT THIS? I don't know what is or is not related to the accident, that's why I'm asking that the doctor provide his reasoning. The patient might not know whether or not it was related either which is why I am calling to speak with the doctor-- WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL THEN IF YOU'RE SO SMART. I've asked you repeatedly not to be rude. I'm going to disconnect the call now. Please communicate with us via mail in the future. NO--*click* I've had insureds and claimants act like that, but never a medical provider. A sup was standing right next to me the whole time asking "What is this person's problem?" Soured my whole day.
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May 25, 2011 01:51
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How much was the surgery? They are trying to claim it on PIP/Medpay right? Sounds shady.
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May 25, 2011 02:26
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Bovine Delight posted:How much was the surgery? They are trying to claim it on PIP/Medpay right? Sounds shady. Exactly! It's like $10k, obviously totally unrelated. Yet this woman flips a bitch at me for like 15 minutes.
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May 25, 2011 02:39
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There was so much fraud at my company in New York state we had to institute ridiculous provisions to prevent it or else we'd have to pull out. Basically there was a ring of people headed by a shady doctor bilking us out of millions in PIP claims. Most of the vehicles we were insuring for them never existed or were VINs gotten from junkyards. Fun times.
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May 25, 2011 03:11
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Loving Life Partner posted:There was so much fraud at my company in New York state we had to institute ridiculous provisions to prevent it or else we'd have to pull out. Yeah and usually they have a shady chiro too that somehow manages to squeeze in 30 chiro appts in 28 days. Yet when you probe the customer they say they can't recall what the chiro looked like, DESPITE BEING THERE MORE THAN ONCE A DAY FOR A MONTH. Also when you present the vehicle that you claim was the involved vehicle and it has completely rusted through the axle I don't think I believe you.
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May 25, 2011 03:41
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Loving Life Partner posted:There was so much fraud at my company in New York state we had to institute ridiculous provisions to prevent it or else we'd have to pull out. I did jury duty on a case where a dr got millions out of at least two different insurance companies over four years and pleaded ignorance and said he signed blank documents to try and get out of it. The insurance companies only caught it by doing some outliers algorithm that I still don't really understand. He was also up for tax evasion and taking money from his employees pension plans. That was a fun month of my life. This was on Long Island as well. I'm sure it happens everywhere but yay NY? ilysespieces fucked around with this message at 13:14 on May 25, 2011 |
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May 25, 2011 04:05
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hello clarice posted:Exactly! It's like $10k, obviously totally unrelated. Yet this woman flips a bitch at me for like 15 minutes. At a guess: she knows she's been rumbled so is hoping she can yell her way out of it, because it's worked in the past.
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May 25, 2011 10:30
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rolleyes posted:At a guess: she knows she's been rumbled so is hoping she can yell her way out of it, because it's worked in the past. Yeah that's basically it. Happens all the time, but this woman was just off the wall crazy. I've been treated that way by massage therapists and chiros and people who do their own billing or whatever, but this was an office manager for a freaking SURGEON. It was really weird.
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May 26, 2011 00:45
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Tomorrow will be my first day on the phone doing tech support for a major computer manufacturer. This is after a month of training. I'm not really super nervous or anything, but I do feel like I'm not as prepared as I'd like to be. Not on stuff that I was training on, but.. just how to talk to the customer. I've never done call center before. The tech support poo poo I've got, and I more or less understand the basics of the systems I have to use on my end.
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May 31, 2011 03:55
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Revol posted:Tomorrow will be my first day on the phone doing tech support for a major computer manufacturer. This is after a month of training. I'm not really super nervous or anything, but I do feel like I'm not as prepared as I'd like to be. Not on stuff that I was training on, but.. just how to talk to the customer. I've never done call center before. The tech support poo poo I've got, and I more or less understand the basics of the systems I have to use on my end. There are 5741 Tech Rules here, but the most important thing you should remember is that users lie and that users are retarded. Think of yourself as 'good cop' in an interrogation scenario.
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May 31, 2011 10:14
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On Dec. 31st of 2010 I walked out of my call center job to start EMT training. Yesterday, an EDP called me a "friend of the family loving motherfucker" and threw his own feces at me. It's still 100 times better than listening to people's IT issues.
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May 31, 2011 12:15
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Revol posted:Tomorrow will be my first day on the phone doing tech support for a major computer manufacturer. This is after a month of training. I'm not really super nervous or anything, but I do feel like I'm not as prepared as I'd like to be. Not on stuff that I was training on, but.. just how to talk to the customer. I've never done call center before. The tech support poo poo I've got, and I more or less understand the basics of the systems I have to use on my end. Generally, I'm finding people will call you up about stupid things that are easy to fix and they are generally happy when it's dealt with in 5 minutes. If you ever get stumped tier 2 are great when they know you're just asking questions. Everything you'll pick up on your own anyway. As for customer service I've learnt 3 main things. 1. Empathize with the customer as soon as you gain agreement on the issue. I get goodwill for some reason because I work for Apple; I doubt Dell, HP or Lenovo would have the same. If the customer thinks you're in their court you won't have to deal with as much poo poo. 2. Options are gold. I don't know if your company refuses service to people who don't have some sort of service plan in place, but if you have to give them at least 3 options and let the customers pick which one they want. Same with repairs and anything else. 3. poo poo sandwich is a great way to give bad news. It essentially works like: good news -> bad news -> good news. "Great news, there is nothing wrong with your iPhone. It can successfully connect to 3rd party wifi's. Now, I can't explain why your Wifi isn't letting your iPhone connect, so I'm going to refer you on to your wireless carrier. They are the best people to help you and I'll happily help you find their number." Otherwise just be upbeat and bright. It's humiliating having to call Tech support so just making the experience nicer will get you great brownie points. Also, casual racism -> get ready for it! I've even had Indian's say how nice it is to hear a non Indian speak.
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May 31, 2011 13:30
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Haven't read much of this thread yet as I'm new to working in a call centre. I used to work in retail so this is much different. Had a strange one today:  Me BossHey Invis, did you call up some guy saying we sell wood?uh, what? Yeah some guy just rang up customer relations and said "Hi I'd like to buy wood for my church, Invis told me to ring here" We are a financial investment group. Also, while I haven't worked here long and I don't enjoy it at all, so far my co-workers are chill and the pay is nice. Friday is multicultural food day at our work so everyone has to bring in a plate of food. The boss is providing the drinks.  One thing I hate so far is the people who hang up on you thinking your selling something, even when I specifically say "I'm not selling anything". What we are doing is providing a free service you gently caress face!
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May 31, 2011 14:04
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Invis posted:One thing I hate so far is the people who hang up on you thinking your selling something, even when I specifically say "I'm not selling anything". What we are doing is providing a free service you gently caress face! Are you providing unsolicited free services? Because if I don't know you from Adam and you call me with some offer, I'm hanging up on you too.
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Jun 1, 2011 05:19
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Weatherman posted:Are you providing unsolicited free services? Because if I don't know you from Adam and you call me with some offer, I'm hanging up on you too. Invis, unless you work for the government or a charity then I'm with this guy. Any other business is not going to be offering something genuinely free, it's going to be a loss leader for something. The only 'free' financial services I've ever been called up for were loss-leaders such as "Hay free credit check if you sign up with us and £24.99 a month if you forget to cancel". As I'm already on the TPS list (UK equivalent of Do Not Call) these calls are illegal and I feel fully justified in hanging the gently caress up.
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Jun 1, 2011 09:46
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It is a genuinely free service we provide. Sure it's unsolicited. That's why we call up and ask people to see if they want to come along. In fact, we provide light refreshments on the night and I think we even provide a $10 fuel voucher for those that attend. What we do is provide information on commercial investment. We are an investment company, after all. Of course we try and show why our company is good and we offer further information about our investments to those that are interested, that's how we make our money. However there is nothing to buy on the night and there is no possibility of even doing so. Like I said, it's just information on investments for those that are interested. If they go to the night they are free to leave at any time. They can use the information they gather from us to invest in another company if they desire. All we ask is that they come along! Edit: I don't mind if you hang up on me. But be polite and at least listen to what I'm offering before you say 'not interested'. How can you be not interested if you don't know what we're offering? If you hang up before I get a chance to pitch, you WILL be called again because it's how our systems work. Unless you are on the 'Do not call' register of course. If you are busy or it's a bad time to call, I understand. But you will also be called back later. That is why it is best to listen first, then explain why you're not interested. You will then be taken off our list and no one will call you from our company. Invis fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Jun 1, 2011 |
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Jun 1, 2011 12:44
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Invis posted:It is a genuinely free service we provide. Sure it's unsolicited. That's why we call up and ask people to see if they want to come along. In fact, we provide light refreshments on the night and I think we even provide a $10 fuel voucher for those that attend.
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Jun 1, 2011 12:56
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Zo posted:It's you. You are why I'm an rear end in a top hat to every telemarketer (which is what you are). What do you mean it's me? I'm just telling you how our system works. I didn't design it. I'm not saying I agree with it either. I'm just trying to earn my keep. If I don't follow the rules I will be fired, it's pretty simple really.
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Jun 1, 2011 13:18
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