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space pope posted:I am in my third day of training for a call center that does iPhone support. Sat in on a few calls today, wasn't as bad as I expected. We will have mentors and a week of nesting so I think that will help a lot. In my opinion, it's not that any one call is so bad (well, it is, sometimes, but not most of the time) but the dull monotony and casual contempt you get. It's more of a slow grinding down.
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May 24, 2012 02:37
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Chicken Doodle posted:Ahhh so THIS is what call centre fuckery is like. Take your MONITORS away?
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May 24, 2012 03:20
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dustbin posted:Take your MONITORS away? Yep. The dual ones. And stick us back on singles. Cause CLEARLY the problem is the fact we're not productive on them, so they're going to get their money back. Not, y'know, the poo poo system that actually caused everyone's numbers to tank for weeks after it was installed. Edit: Just realized what you must've thought. Ayup, we're going back to banking on accounting machines now. Let me write you a receipt. 
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May 24, 2012 04:22
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Chicken Doodle posted:Yep. The dual ones. And stick us back on singles. Cause CLEARLY the problem is the fact we're not productive on them, so they're going to get their money back. 'We'll take your PHONES away. Has to be that. Making those drat private calls. Put you all on the telegraph network again!'
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May 24, 2012 22:36
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Luquos posted:'We'll take your PHONES away. Has to be that. Making those drat private calls. Put you all on the telegraph network again!' Nah, then they'd have to train me in morse code. Another wasteful expense!
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May 24, 2012 22:39
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I just found out I'm one of the top three candidates being considered for a job that is so much better suited to me. At this point I'm afraid to ever hope that I'll get out of here. EDIT: Also, a friend of mine suggested that call center work will tell future recruiters that I handle stress well. Um, no, all it seems to do is give people the impression that I have no employability or real office skills--otherwise, wouldn't I be doing better than working at a call center by now, or wouldn't someone have been impressed enough to hire me? Someone in a different department at my job actually smiled and said "That sounds fun!" with total sincerity when I told them what I do. legsarerequired fucked around with this message at 03:19 on May 25, 2012 |
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May 24, 2012 22:45
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space pope posted:I am in my third day of training for a call center that does iPhone support. Sat in on a few calls today, wasn't as bad as I expected. We will have mentors and a week of nesting so I think that will help a lot. Hey, I do something very similar. I was wondering where about you work because we may end up working together 
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May 25, 2012 00:25
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Market Research goons - I am a mid-level employee at a big firm which has a call center located in it. As part of my analyst orientation I had to do every department for 2 days, being on the phones was not bad, I got put on a project where we had listed sample for customers who actually liked our client. However, I can see how doing that stuff for longer than a few months would drive a person to insanity, especially if it's a 20 minute survey with general population (i.e. old people because nobody but old people has landlines anymore). Solidarity - keep at it and get out somehow! One funny story, I was reviewing open-ended comments for a school district survey we just completed. One of the questions was "To the best of your knowledge, who is the school superintendent of X district?" One answer was "Shaquille O'Neal". Gotta love smart rear end respondents.
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May 25, 2012 03:54
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Looks like someone's hit the switch on the blame merry go round in one of the centres I do forecasting for. Someone somewhere has decided that the reason one of the departments is failing service level is because the collections department supporting it is transferring too many calls over to them when they should be dealing with them themselves. Thanks to some reorganisation a year or so back, the collections department now sits within a seperate business unit to the customer service department, so the finger pointing has commenced. I predict much trawling through transactional data from the ACD so I can go "Look, the calls you get in from them make up something like 1% of your total call volume. It would frankly cost more in man hours to pull those agents off the phone and shout at them not to transfer calls in these specific circumstances than it does for you to deal with the calls for a year. No, please do not invite me to the audioconference you have convened between 20 people who all have an axe to grind about things tangenitally related to this topic, as I will be busy deleting all this data that proved nothing you wanted to hear and bashing my head on the desk."
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May 25, 2012 21:47
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legsarerequired posted:EDIT: Also, a friend of mine suggested that call center work will tell future recruiters that I handle stress well. Um, no, all it seems to do is give people the impression that I have no employability or real office skills--otherwise, wouldn't I be doing better than working at a call center by now, or wouldn't someone have been impressed enough to hire me? I do hiring at my (customer service but non-call-center) work, and one of the things I look for is call center experience. As a former call-center monkey myself, I think it shows ability to deal well with douchey customers without cracking. v v
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May 26, 2012 06:37
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Angry Pie posted:I do hiring at my (customer service but non-call-center) work, and one of the things I look for is call center experience. As a former call-center monkey myself, I think it shows ability to deal well with douchey customers without cracking. v Well that's just the thing; I think he's trying to get out of customer service.`
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May 26, 2012 07:02
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Well that's just the thing; I think he's trying to get out of customer service.` Right.  I'm not very particular about what job I would take--in fact, I do enjoy customer service and helping people, and I do enjoy volunteering for long shifts at the suicide hotline (which is a call center environment), but I don't like the stifling metrics obsession that seems to be in most of these environments. (I'm also a woman, but it's no big deal--I'm used to people mixing up my gender in forums like this )
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May 26, 2012 18:22
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It still boggles my mind on how loving hard it is to understand "Put one end of a telephone cord in your phone and another in the modem"
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May 26, 2012 21:41
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So since I'm out of call centers for the time being, and looking for a new job, here's some choice customer quotes: 1. Oh, I don't keep any of that electronically, just in this excel file. 2. Is the password for this the same as my banking password? It's '________' 3. But the salesperson told me this computer couldn't get viruses, so I don't need a firewall. 4. My IP address? It's ___________@yahoo.com. (note: this was from the 'IT person') 5. TYPE my name? You need me to TYPE MY NAME into this box?? I don't type!! 6. I CAN'T log in, I'm on the HOMEPAGE. 7. How do I make a capital R? 8. Sweetheart, I know what a browser is, I have a Dell. 9. My firewall is VERY FIERY, do you hear me? It is the FIERIEST! 10. "Start here"? What does that mean? Why do you make this so complicated, I have 2 college degrees and can't figure it out! miryei fucked around with this message at 00:50 on May 27, 2012 |
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May 27, 2012 00:46
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For a time, I worked a government license line. We even had to deal with doctors and such. So I get a call from a doctor wanting to know why he's getting an error that some information is incorrect. HE is an MD and would NEVER get his information incorrect. He spent over 20 minutes telling me I'm stupid, our system is stupid, the page is stupid, I'm some dumb bint, he's a doctor, on and on and on. I /finally/ get him to just -please- double check so I can put the ticket in since our supervisors record calls and want us to document. He grumbles about how stupid it is, but does so. When he gets to the zip code field... he put US. Yup. The letters U. And S. In the zip code. There was a moment of silence. Then "Oh." and he hung him. Thanks, jackass. I almost feel bad for your patients. Another fun one: "Yeah, there's some flames coming out of my computer... is that why I can't connect to the internet?" Um. Yes. Go call 911 or put the drat thing out! I also hate being able to reset passwords because we've got at least a couple of people who outright told me: "Oh, we won't bother with our reset stuff. It's just easier for us to call you." Ffffffff-
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May 27, 2012 08:41
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Aerofallosov posted:I also hate being able to reset passwords because we've got at least a couple of people who outright told me: "Oh, we won't bother with our reset stuff. It's just easier for us to call you." Ffffffff- I know our help desk/tech support guys wound up calculating how much time they spent doing password resets, the cost of said time, then implementing a web based password reset solution and telling us all to use that so they could deal with our actual tech support questions. It really is terrifying how much time businesses must lose from people that can't remember a password. I mean, I get it if it's one you don't use often or if you've been on holiday for a couple of weeks, but if it's your damned login password that you use every single day multiple times, what the hell is wrong with you? That said, there was a guy a while back who kept getting locked out and needing us to contact technical support to get the block removed. Turned out someone on the other side of the country had a username one character different to our guy, as well as fat fingers and an inability to work out that he'd typed the wrong username. Daft sod was putting our guy's username in with his password and retrying until it liked our guy out.
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May 27, 2012 08:59
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This password is one you use to claim financial aid, get grades, transcripts, register and ... the other is for e-mail. I honestly wish they'd bought the software to let people use passwords over PINs but. :/ I'm sympathetic to a point. The automated reset was secure, as it used a number assigned uniquely to a person and could only be retrieved by calling the line JUST FOR THAT and eeh.
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May 28, 2012 02:51
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No, sir, greater than 100ms or thereabouts is normal when routing traffic to your offices in India from the US. And, yes, your circuit is working fine.
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May 28, 2012 03:51
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So I recently became the next rung up in call center land. I take the calls for supervisors when they get too escalated. So I get to deal with some crazy people. This guy calls in because he has a negative credit reporting. One. I assume that I can calm this down by reminding him that people make mistakes and that it may stink, but this is how it is. I was wrong. I work for a student loan servicing company that's contracted out by the Department of Education, and we have some really stringent rules. One of which is negative credit. You get 90 days till we report you negatively, and the only reasons that you can get it removed are by being in school at least half time, being deployed by the military or in the case of a gross error. (I have got a few credit reportings removed for a woman who got hit by a bus, but that was a special circumstance.) Anyway, I tell him all this. I tell him that I understand, that I'm behind on my cable bill and that I get it. He proceeds to get so fed up with me that this happens:  No sir, we will not be able to remove your negative credit reporting. Are you loving serious? I am. Oh, you are SO going to get hit by a car! Excuse me? Sir, that's inappropriate conversation, let's stay civil- Yeah, you're going to die. You're going to get hit by a car. If you don't have anything constructive to say, I think we need to end this call. You. Are. Going. To. Get. Hit. By. A. loving. Car. -click- Needless to say, I proceeded to go out to lunch and cross the street. Multiple times. On a happier note, a friend of mine's first call of the day was a guy who has identity theft. What did he say? 'Ma'am, I'm a drug dealer. I ain't never been to college!' Honesty may not be the best policy, but it's loving hilarious. Edit: Also, I'd just like to put this out there, but there is nothing better than being able to go to your supervisor, say 'This guy threatened to attack me' and have that supervisor call the cops on the caller for threatening a federal employee. Granted, the guy who said I would get hit by a car didn't fall into that, because he wasn't being specific, but if anyone physically threatened me, and they have, my sup will and has called the cops on them. Frankly, the fact that call centers exist that don't have that policy disturbs me. Effexxor fucked around with this message at 05:08 on May 28, 2012 |
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May 28, 2012 04:43
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What I like about working in a mortgage call center is that it is not customer service and so many borrowers think their usual Wal-Mart bullshit will work. This month we had a problem with some banks sending in their electronic payments, and as such some were returned to the borrowers and their payment wasn't made. We obviously waived all late charges associated with it and all they had to do was resubmit payment. However it should also be noted that this did not affect ANYONE that paid on time. It mostly affected the few people who waited until the last day of the 15 day grace period to make their payment. So as you might expect if your payment isn't received and is still due, you get collections calls. Most people are grateful I am calling them and letting them know somethings wrong. Sometimes they are a little upset but I let them know that the late charges are being reversed and I'll set it up so that no more calls are sent to them, etc etc. Well one lady just exploded on me and demanded to speak to a supervisor. It more or less went like this:  I find this WHOLE CALL offensive. I need to speak to a supervisor right now. Maam there is no need for you to speak to a supervisor. I already explained what happened and that you just need to resend your payment. I've already set it up so you will not get anymore collections calls This is just so offensive. I am offended. I need to speak to a manager *after a small chuckle* maam what do you think a manager can do for you that I have not already done? Look this whole thing is just offensive and I need to speak to your supervisor RIGHT NOW no maam there is no way I am going to transfer you to my supervisor. There is no reason for you to talk to him and I have already explained that I have corrected all the issues. listen I am offended at this call and everything and blah blah blah 50 more times she says shes offended and its offensive and jesus christ get a new word of the day lady.... so are you going to let me speak with your supervisor or not? nope*she then hangs up* Then 2 minutes later I get an IM from some other employee somewhere in the company saying she called back in and he had the pleasure of answering the call and shes demanding to speak to my manager. At this point I bring it up to my manager and he says to transfer her to his voicemail and he'll call her back later. I told the rep who had her on the phone to do this and he says she doesn't want to leave a voicemail. Now why he decided to tell her he was transferring her to voicemail I don't know. The correct course of action is "I'm transferring you to his phone now" and then dropping her off at his voicemail. So then the rep transfers her to my department and the girl who sits behind me gets the call. So finally my manager takes the call and then says exactly everything I told her the last call and even said that I did everything possible for her already. So after 30 minutes on the phone with my company she finally got to talk to a manager who told her the exact same things I told her from our initial 5 minute call.
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May 28, 2012 05:30
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If one more goddamn person asks me "Is that a capital zero, or lowercase?" I'm going to stab somebody. Also, was it weirdo day for you guys on Sunday? My whole center got a ton of calls from people who are just off the loving wall. I had a woman in Manhattan tell me that her rural-interests channel needs to work because her daughter got into witchcraft and got arrested, and now Jesus wants me to make the channel work. I had a woman spend ~10 minutes telling me about how her cat waves its balls at her. Lady, I don't need to know that. Get off my phone.
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May 28, 2012 15:27
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Aerofallosov posted:So I get a call from a doctor wanting to know why he's getting an error that some information is incorrect. HE is an MD and would NEVER get his information incorrect. As an admin for doctors, be reassured that this is actually how they all are. I work with people that are certifiable medical geniuses, yet if I put a paper on their desk without a "SIGN HERE" flag, they are incapable of signing the paper in the right place. I'm guessing all the computing power goes into medicine and stuff like driving, consuming an adequate amount of food, and the ability to fill out simple forms atrophies through lack of use.
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May 28, 2012 16:13
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Rodent Mortician posted:As an admin for doctors, be reassured that this is actually how they all are. I work with people that are certifiable medical geniuses, yet if I put a paper on their desk without a "SIGN HERE" flag, they are incapable of signing the paper in the right place. I'm guessing all the computing power goes into medicine and stuff like driving, consuming an adequate amount of food, and the ability to fill out simple forms atrophies through lack of use. Oh god. We deal with Total and Permanent Disability for student loans, and I swear to god, it is always the doctors that screw it up. It says in plain english with examples on the forms that needs to be there. The forms are okay'd or not by analysts with no medical training and they can't have medical terminology on there. But every damned time the doctor puts medical terminology or percentages and the person has to go back and have them do it again. And then they call in because they have 200k in debt and start bitching about it because they do important work. I didn't make you take out the debt, and I sure didn't make you get a BMW and an expensive mortgage the second you started getting paid well.
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May 28, 2012 20:20
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SpartanIV posted:Now why he decided to tell her he was transferring her to voicemail I don't know. The correct course of action is "I'm transferring you to his phone now" and then dropping her off at his voicemail.
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May 28, 2012 22:07
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SpartanIV posted:I WANT A MANAGER!!! I love when people want a manager. Thanks to massive layoffs, my center has 3 managers for sales, and they only work from 9-5 monday-friday, and they spend a lot of time not able to take calls. It's so great when someone asks for a manager and I get to tell them "Sorry, nope". They never believe there's not one there. A lot of them just ask because they think that speaking to a manager is going to get them a discount, so gently caress 'em.
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May 29, 2012 17:43
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Our loving phone software. I don't normally log in anymore to take calls but jesus gently caress if it isn't the worst. Today I had to log in for a few hours to collect a few stats and check up on a few things. Obviously, there ain't no way in hell I'm setting myself to ready because I ain't taking no calls. Clearly the demon software had other ideas, decided I was clearly slacking or some poo poo and started routeing them through to me anyway. Who the hell thought that was a good idea. On the small plus side, at least I was in a position to give no fucks about metrics, surveys or even complaints, so that was liberating. Is it me though or have people become even bigger dicks than a few years back?
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May 29, 2012 17:45
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I will never forget my last chat. If I knew it was going to be my last chat I would have just disconnected even though the sup told me not to: *sends initial greeting with request to secure account* Are you a real person? Yes I am. If you can secure your account with the information above, I would be more than happy to help you tonight. I need to speak to a real person. I promise you. I am real. What is the opposite of up? *sends second request to secure* If you are a real person, you can answer my question and tell me the opposite of up. I apologize, I am unable to discuss anything but your account. Do you not have the information I am requesting to secure?11AgentAgentAfter that he left the chat. I understand with the scrips and everything it sounded robotic. I told my sup that if it got close to my 3 min then I was going to disconnect anyway. We had to average 3 minutes a chat. Two of us (we were in the same training class and had still been there under a year compared to everyone else) was taking two chats at once. While only being able to log in to each program once. Felt so sorry for the customers that needed in the same program as the customer who I was helping before I got them too. Then there were the customers that thought if they told me they didn't get a bill that they didn't think they had to pay. (Yes, your tv, internet, and phone is all free this month!) Also, I think we were the only center that had chats for the states we were dealing with. Everyone who was in chat and writing the notes on the account I could pick out from each of the two shifts. That made it great when someone wanted a payment arrangement, one of us told them no and if they didn't come back to us (they would if we weren't with someone else) and the other agent would look in the notes and tell them no for the same reasons without going into the account. Also when they would come back and see our name in the greeting and bounce back out.
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May 29, 2012 23:39
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I have a phone interview tomorrow for a position for a Personal Banker at a competitor. I am really stoked, I meet all the qualifications, it took them 48 hours to respond to me, its $15k a year more then the bank call center job I currently have. Wish me luck!
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May 30, 2012 16:39
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good luck! Just finished our second week of training. I took two calls yesterday - not great but no major mistakes either. Got 100 pct on my second training quiz. Got 95 pct on the first one and don't have any attendance points yet so I should get the best work schedule.
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Jun 1, 2012 21:04
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One of our original team members just put in her 2 weeks, sad. Right now we're down to 6 original team members out of the 20 that formed this brand new team back in January of 2011. The funny thing? Nobody has been fired. All have left for one reason or another. Some within the first couple months, some after awhile, but not a single firing. This chick is super cool, and it'll be sad to see her go. As soon as she put in her 2 weeks, our supe said "I expect the same level of attendance as before", lol, she just took off on a road trip to Chicago with her husband, so cool.
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Jun 2, 2012 19:51
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So I read an article where it wrote out that call center workers were the last acceptable group of people to abuse in the service industries, likely due to our facelessness. I wonder how true this is. But apparently, being a helicopter parent is more important than me losing my job. Hint: If you can't trust little Timmy to deposit his financial aid, either use a check or don't send little Timmy to college. I'm not breaking federal law for you!
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Jun 4, 2012 07:23
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I dunno if it's my chilled out demeanor, but abuse calls are really rare for me. Maybe one a week out of 400+ calls. I know co-workers who get a lot more, and they seem to attract it with their tone and vocabulary selection. They talk about what is going wrong without saying that we're going to get it fixed, they don't empathize, they preach company policy like it's gospel instead. I understand the way we do business, and I agree with our policies and practices, but when someone forgets to sign a form, their premium spikes up $500 and their next automatic withdrawal goes from $75 to $160 and over drafts them, try to act a little more concerned for the poo poo storm they're currently enduring, eh? Okay, they say they never got x-y-z notification, but how much of your mail goes unopened? All it takes is a few empathetic statements to make people understand that 1) you know what happened and 2) you're going to fix it, rather than just be another useless policy spouting rear end in a top hat to them.
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Jun 5, 2012 03:43
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Loving Life Partner posted:All it takes is a few empathetic statements to make people understand that 1) you know what happened and 2) you're going to fix it, rather than just be another useless policy spouting rear end in a top hat to them. This is actually really good advice. My company has the policy of "fix the customer before you fix the problem" and we're required to get them on board with a solution before we go any further. I recommend a strong ownership statement to begin with as well. Some thing like "Like -t1's name- explained to you. I'm a Senior Advisor, I specialise in -whatever it is- and I'm going to be working with you until we get this issue resolved" Then it's a quick statement pertaining to whatever problem they have. I go with the "I know I would be frustrated if..." -> that would look like 'I know I would be frustrated if I just saw my monthly withdrawal almost double for cryptic reasons. So lets see what we can do about it today." It looks kinda lame when you write it down, but I've gotten people who've been charged 800 dollars+ to go from raving mad to singing my praises with this.
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Jun 5, 2012 05:01
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Lord Windy posted:This is actually really good advice. My company has the policy of "fix the customer before you fix the problem" and we're required to get them on board with a solution before we go any further. What's fun is when you really have no way to do anything to fix it. My company laid off a LOT of people in october, and as a result we had 1+ hour wait times for customer service. People would hang up and call sales, and since it's the slow time of year for us, we'd pick up right away. Now they were pissed they waited a long time AND they're pissed we picked up so fast. Some were reasonable, some weren't, and I love it when I tell the same person the "we can't help them over here, we literally don't have the system for it or any ability to, transferring you to people who can" thing three or for times in one day because they keep hanging up and calling sales. Some of 'em take it real personal, too.
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Jun 5, 2012 14:08
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It's hard to show empathy when you know they're lying through their teeth.
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Jun 5, 2012 23:35
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Boomer The Cannon posted:It's hard to show empathy when you know they're lying through their teeth. Yeah, it really is. I want to. I want to like this job. But I hate it so freaking much. :/
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Jun 6, 2012 00:15
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Boomer The Cannon posted:It's hard to show empathy when you know they're lying through their teeth. It's hard to show empathy when you're lying through your teeth.
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Jun 6, 2012 01:02
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Ugly In The Morning posted:What's fun is when you really have no way to do anything to fix it. My company laid off a LOT of people in october, and as a result we had 1+ hour wait times for customer service. People would hang up and call sales, and since it's the slow time of year for us, we'd pick up right away. Now they were pissed they waited a long time AND they're pissed we picked up so fast. Some were reasonable, some weren't, and I love it when I tell the same person the "we can't help them over here, we literally don't have the system for it or any ability to, transferring you to people who can" thing three or for times in one day because they keep hanging up and calling sales. Some of 'em take it real personal, too. Everyone has things they can't do anything to fix and they are never fun calls. "No sorry Sir, you bought this product in Hong Kong. We can't repair it anywhere other than Hong Kong. What's that? You're never going back? Too bad "or "You want to a refund for someone you purchased off our music store? You need to go to their support page and send an email. You already did that and nobody replied? Well sorry, keep trying til they eventually do. Have a nice day "I know it's very easy for me to say, but you might want to consider different positioning techniques. "So as I understand you've been waiting for over an hour to get through to our customer service branch for help in -said issue-. I can personally see why you're this upset and frustrated, I would be too if I had to wait this long for service. Why don't you explain the problem to me, and what solution we're looking for today and I'll personally see what can be done. Now we might need to go back to Customer service where they have the tools and training to implement the solution, but I'll do my best for you." Listen to what they want, identify if there is anything you can (in some cases there might actually be) do and come back with something like: "I think our best avenue today to get a solution for you would be to head back to the Customer Service department. You're obviously a busy person and since we're experiencing such long wait times we want to see what we can do to minimize the impact on your day and schedule. Calling up early in the morning is generally a lull point for us so you might be seen faster, or if your phone has a speaker function you can just pop it on that and just go about your day until someone is able to see you." Like I said, I know it's easy for me to say and my situation is most likely vastly different to your situation. I probably have a lot more time to work with than you, and more customer goodwill. But I was able to do something similar when I was much lower in the company and had stricter time limits (10 minutes still, but I had to fix problems and diagnose issues which generally took up that entire 10 minutes.) Boomer The Cannon posted:It's hard to show empathy when you know they're lying through their teeth. Aerofallosov posted:Yeah, it really is. I want to. I want to like this job. But I hate it so freaking much. :/ JackRabbitStorm posted:It's hard to show empathy when you're lying through your teeth. Again, easy for me to say and I don't know how different your situations are but this is mine. I don't get any bonuses in my job. It doesn't matter how well I do, I don't get any recognition for it. No gifts, cash or even recognition from our managers or executives about how well of a job I do. I also have ridiculous stats and KPIs I have to maintain. Nobody manages to meet them. It's impossible, so even if we did have rewards we couldn't actually get them. Coupled with the fact that the customers suck and my T1s are godawful at their jobs. It's enough to make anyone not want to come into work. In fact, a lot of my co-workers have basically given up and just try to do the bare minimum. Now, I know this all sounds like one big moan. But I've been through depression in the past and I don't want to go through it again, so I looked at the one part of my job that I could get something out of to make it fulfilling - and thats to be told I'm doing a good job by the people I'm helping and not hate them. And that is something I can control. So I do everything I can to try and make it so they want to like me. So I try to put myself in their shoes and work out why they're upset and tell them truthfully that I would be too and tell them that I will do my best to help them out. I then do whatever I can to fix it, all the while letting them know I understand why they are frustrated. At the end of the call I give them my contact details and I thank them for being great customers and working with me on it. At the end of the call, without fail, most are thanking me for being the most helpful person they've dealt with for a long time. I then also get emails. Oh the emails. There is nothing quite like going into work in the morning and seeing people took the time to email me: "Thank you sooooo much Sam." and etc. So that's why I show empathy. I know you all have different situations to me and I can respect that. But if your job is really terrible, but you don't want to quit and don't want to hate it - maybe you should look into something similar like this to make it more enjoyable. Hell, if you want to get into coaching positions or managerial positions it would be a good idea to start showing empathy whenever you can. You don't need to do it for job satisfaction. If anyone would like me to as well, I can talk about techniques you can use to work with customers and even other departments. I've done some research into, and I know some techniques that can help anyone in a call centre, regardless of position.
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Jun 6, 2012 02:27
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I hate calls when I can't do anything to help and they're basically screwed. If nothing else, this job has taught me how being financially disadvantaged leads to more problems. Payment bounced? Well the bank charged you anywhere from 29 to 35 for it, and since our bank charges us, we charge you $20 as well. Late on your payment? That's $10. Can't afford to pay the whole 6 months up front? Premium is higher, with installment fees tacked on. Credit history not the best? Hey that's a rating factor too, rate goes up! Today I had someone barely scraping by being insured, paying half a month after the due date and the other half on the last possible day, it was finally catching up with 2 full payments coming due in a week or so, and a cancellation 2 weeks later unless she can pay it all. All she could say is "I can't pay that much" and all I could say was "i can't extend the cancellation out, after the policy is cancelled we may be able to reinstate it, but we'd have to collect the payment in full". There was nothing I could do. She'll probably get cancelled for a week or something and then have an accident or something god awful.
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Jun 6, 2012 02:34
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I will say, the nice thing about working in insurance is you only deal with customers who have something worth insuring. So, while I get an unfair share of calls from crackpots and belligerent assholes (insofar as having to deal with even 1 crackpot or belligerent rear end in a top hat, ever, is unfair), I don't have to deal with the lowest rung of society on a regular basis. I'm betting it's a lot worse for employees in cell phone or cable tv call centers. Because no matter how broke-rear end a deadbeat is, you can rely on them "needing" their phone and television. It's gotta suck to deal regularly with people I never have to worry about, like the uninsurable, people who are too mentally deficient to get a driver's license, and people who are too financially irresponsible to buy a home or car. Still, I manage to be unfailingly nice, even to the borderline-retarded and the criminally-negligent. I talk to a lot of people who are both, unfortunately, since I take work comp claims every day. Rant time: some ruddy bint called claims today at 730pm and insisted on making a payment for her employer's work comp policy. I told her firmly (though apologetically) that customer service was closed for the day, and she would have to call back in the morning. But she is very upset with our horrible customer service! It's not her fault she called after business hours to make a payment over the phone on the last possible day before incurring a late fee! By god I am going to help her! She is not paying a late fee because billing just happened to not be open when she called!  gently caress off bint, call back tomorrow, there is poo poo-all claims can do for you. Unfortunately, my department is required to be open 24/7. We are the only department that functions this way. If you don't understand how this works, you should not be allowed to be responsible for paying your company's insurance bill.
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Jun 6, 2012 03:39
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