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Goddamnit, I need another job. Not only am I sick yet again but I was more or less forced home early because of one customer. Stupid bitch would not listen to a word I was telling her about taking her through the rest of the first part of the process and screamed at me for a couple of minutes before I tried yet again {almost in tears at this point mind you because I was feeling so lovely} and she hangs up on me after screaming at me again. I get the feeling she's gonna try to put in a complaint against me {not that it'll get anywhere, the call centres are on a national network so no one can really tell who is who unless it gets escalated}. All this over me trying to explain why she needs to go see an adviser to complete the process {and I never even got to explain why she needed to go. I'm guessing she assumed she'd be forced to look for work or something}.
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Jun 3, 2010 13:59
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I enjoyed the last thread, hilarious. I used to work dial-up internet tech support grave yard shift 1998-2001 at a company that focused on areas where they were the only game in town  So bear in mind with what I share customers were paying 25% more then what they would for AOL at the time and we knew they had no other option for Internet access.  Worse our company was less then competent, for example we managed to NOT renew our domain... it ended up being purchased by a spammer who used the 3 days they held it to harvest all of our active email accounts. As a result our spam went up 1000x once we regained control after 2 weeks! Another point of management genius, when I started there at my 6 month review my most negative comment was that, I was working to fast. My daily call average was 60-80 calls a day with nearly zero call backs and no customer complaints. My boss explained despite rocking his own metrics, I really couldn't be doing a good job if my average was over 24 calls a day... Up until then I had thought the senior techs were being lazy since I seemed to handle so many more call then them... So after that review I made a point to never take more than 32 calls a day. My next review I got almost all 5's and was complimented on being fast and a team player  On top of that we had some real gems working for us in tech support, 'Ma'm I'm not calling you an idiot... but I really think you need to go buy the book, 'Internet for dummy's'. Yes this guy said this ALL the time to customers, so we really weren't all that surprised one day when a customer came to our office and attacked the front door with a golf club screaming for that tech to come out and face him man to man (we also sold internet access in the town we were located in).  Then there were our sales people... I once had a salesmen try to get me fired via my boss for cancelling a new account her had just signed up... because the sales men managed to sell internet access to a guy with a typewriter! Sure that is some world class salesmanship but how the hell am I supposed to get him online? But when you consider our customers... maybe some of them deserved it. Pretty much every call started with, 'NO WORKIE! WORKIE! Why is your loving service always down!'  I learned a great tactic for not taking this kind of abuse personally, I took my headset off and would place it on my desk muted and would wait until the screaming stopped... 'I appreciate your frustration, and I'll be happy to help you with X'. With dialup tech support it usually only took 2 sentences for me to know what the problem was and how to fix it. So usually I was playing a rom while repeating the same instructions I'd already given out 10 more times that evening... The worst calls were the lonely guys who called after 1am, and just wanted to talk... Followed by the cheap bastards calling in to complain that their ping times were poo poo in their Quake game because of our lovely service, while simultaneously bragging about their MCSE, and that they got such a great deal on their Rockwell HCF winmodem. These calls were torture, a Rockwell HCF modem call took about an hour because inevitably you ended up having to reinstall Dial up networking, and TCP/IP just to prove to the caller that it was their crappy e-machine with their lovely modem that was the problem not our service.  Although, I did love it when customers demanded credit for their own self-inflicted problems; Management policy was to credit them 25 cents an hour they were effected and were scripted to tell the customer 'You have been credited for the loss of service'.  life lesson, always ask how much you are being credited. Another way we got back at ahole customer was to sign up their email for the most depraved porn mailing lists/ or for religious visits. The funniest call I ever got, came in at 5am, woman called to tell us she was always getting disconnected from our service. I checked our logs and saw that she was being disconnected every 6 hours like clockwork (our max connection time), so I explained that was our policy. She responded that sucked because we were interrupting her P2P downloads. I apologized and replied with my standard closing, 'Okay then, have a good day, I'll watch your connection after you hang up and I'll give you a call back if I see you get disconnected before 6 hours... ' She replies, 'OH MY GOD YOU CAN SEE MY HAIR!" *click* 
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Jun 4, 2010 22:05
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Actual question and correct answer from when I was trained two years ago: When are you permitted to transfer a customer to tier 2? A. If a manager gives you permission. B. If a tier two agent gives you permission. C. Never. Policy as of this morning: When is tier two allowed to refuse a customer transfer from tier one? A. There are no other options. loving never. God loving dammit. Worst part is I think this goes way over all of our heads. I can scream at my manager until I'm blue in the face and I don't think she has a god drat choice in any of this. High-level maneuvering at it's god drat worst.
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Jun 9, 2010 04:33
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Oh goddamnit. Why do I have to have such awesome managers in this place? It just makes it too hard to want to leave. I'm looking for something else at the moment since the job is no longer suiting me, but my Team Leaders' line manager has to make me feel bad for doing it by telling me to take a comfort break after every call to rest my voice, screw the stats {I've got a case of tonsilitis that is getting better, but the voice still croaks a bit after dealing with a 30 minute call}. Honestly if it weren't for the people I work with on a daily basis I'd have gone long before now. Saying that, I did get a few appreciative folks through today that really made my day.
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Jun 9, 2010 19:13
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Chipolte_Away posted:Then there were our sales people... Back when I did customer support 9 out of 10 of the worst calls we'd get would be from sales claiming that we would do physically impossible things for the customer. It was bad enough when the customer called to try to collect on the promises; what was worse was when the salespeople themselves would call in looking for someone to bail them out of the hole they'd dug themselves into. No, we can't ship a new unit from out of state and get it installed and set up within 2 hours on a Sunday afternoon. Oddly enough, the threat that you'll lose your customer over your phony promise has no effect on me! A lot of problem customers would just be people trying to get free poo poo, which was always hilarious. I always loved their ultimatums: "yo, either you give me this for free OR I'M NOT GOING TO BUY IT FROM YOU."
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Jun 9, 2010 19:57
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I thought I'd chime in and say that I do IT for a larger Call center, I doubt anyone has questions. What do some of you call center employees think of your co-workers? I mean if you are posting here on SA, you know how to use a computer, so what do you think of your "I can't use a mouse" co-workers and such? How are your call centers IT group(s) setup? Do you feel this has been working well with regards to meeting your needs as an agent on the phone? Do you have the ability to IM (vs raising hand or clapping to get your supervisors attention)? If you do, are you also allowed to freely chit chat on the IM system with your co-workers? Pens / paper / cell phones on the floor, allowed? Are you allowed to decorate your desk as you see fit? Do you share your desk with anyone else? Assigned seats? or are you regularly swapping seats and such and don't really have a set seat on a day to day basis?
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Jun 11, 2010 03:56
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zero0ne posted:I thought I'd chime in and say that I do IT for a larger Call center, I doubt anyone has questions.
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Jun 11, 2010 05:09
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Why the gently caress do our Tier One agents insist on loving arguing with me? No, I'm not going to give your customer a free accessory just because he's mad he missed the deadline for our sale. Yes, I realize you told him we would. Guess what? Now you get to explain to him that you lied. I also love getting a customer transferred to me to RMA their product. With no notes on the ticket other than "it dont wokr." Ugh. Sometimes I wish I was back on the front lines. Only sometimes though.
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Jun 11, 2010 06:00
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I work in a call center for a bank...My department are pre-screening monkeys for home lending...I am actually decent at my job, but I have a couple co-workers who tend to get so irritated with customers that they say things they shouldn't. One such guy usually gets away with it because he's not being quality monitored one those calls much...HOWEVER, he got in trouble for not explaining to a customer what a FICO or credit score was. He kept telling the customer to either check our website, or talk to the three credit bureaus (which my co-worker named). We constantly have a battle with our customer service department, which isn't in the USA but we're a USA bank...That same co-worker has apologized to a customer for having to transfer them back over to CS. "I'm sorry ma'am. I'll see if I can get a different representative that knows how to do their job" Now, by accident, I got to hear that. I've had several customers get mad at me for our customer service department reps who aren't in the USA and can't speak very well English. One was an older woman, "Oh my land! Someone who speaks English! I'm so very glad. Maybe you can help me!" She rants a bit about her situation and I'm going to transfer her to where she needs to be, "I don't think you people should have hired out of the US. I don't care HOW CHEAP she is, if she can't understand English then she needs to be fired! Thank you so much for your help, sweetie" Honestly, it made me mad how she said that...I also detest customers who call you kiddo, sweetie, honey, etc...I've had only 2 MARRIED MALE customers hit on me and want me to call them, an a 3rd who would rather have talked to me for hours...but too bad my call handle time has to be around 7 mins or less.
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Jun 11, 2010 06:38
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zero0ne posted:I thought I'd chime in and say that I do IT for a larger Call center, I doubt anyone has questions. We have to use one side of our baffle boards for work purposes {i.e for having things like script updates, call outcome codes and interpreter call codes} the other side can be decorated as we see fit as long as it doesn't have questionble content. Small toys are also allowed on the desk as for some reason management acknowledge that our job is stressful enough for some of us to have something to bash around when we get frustrated.
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Jun 11, 2010 21:34
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I know this is technically a double post but no one else has posted again yet and I need to rant so... Anyways we just got told on Thursday at the team meeting that we aren't meeting out customer service targets because apparently we're refusing to say "have I fully answered your query?" at the end of every call. Now we all knew we had to do it for jobsearches but we have *never* been told we had to say it after general enquiries or actual claims. Queue a lot of confusion and resentment because the team I'm with is apparently the only one that got told we had to do this no matter what, no excuses. I can see my Team Leader's point, after all we can only change the way things are done if we can show we simply cannot reconcile a much faster talk time with actually reading the whole script as is {and that means actually reading the whole script every time}. My only problem is that since other teams are apparently not doing this, it's making us look bad in the stats compared to the others because they're apparently not looking at people reading the entire script  . Plus the way the thing is worded is actually making us give terrible customer service, but no one really cares about that.
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Jun 19, 2010 07:24
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Oh hello thread, wondered where you went. man thats gross, glad to hear you have supportive management for the most part. I too feel the same way and agree: it's a living. My managers aren't brilliant but are honest about when I do screw up and generally supportive. I'm lucky to have a great trainer who hates the customer aspect and lots of the stupid policies at the company but does still enjoy helping people get better at the job; they're not shy when it comes to being up front about yeah, certain people in management are fuckups but the only thing we can do is our job (and report to her in confidence if it keeps happening). The middle of the month is almost always slow for a power company, meaning the idiot questions stand out a hell of a lot more. My recent favorite, conducted with a customer for whom English was a second language, went like this:  You're sending the bill to the wrong address. Oh, sorry to hear that. *required identification script* Okay, what's your address? *gives the same address on the account* And we're mailing to that address, should we update it? NO. It's the wrong address! It's not MY BILL YOU'RE NOT LISTENING. I am listening, however I'm sorry I don't understand the question... *flash of insight in the face of language barriers* May I ask, what's the account number on that bill? *reads off totally different number* This account isn't in your name. THAT'S RIGHT! Do you recognize the name on the bill? It's my brother-in-law. Did you ASK him why he gave your address to us for mailing? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? WHY WOULD YOU MAIL HIS BILL TO MY ADDRESS? ...it's not our business to ask why a customer wants a particular address, only to ensure where they ask us to mail to is correct. Why that bill is going to your home is a question for your brother-in-law. ...ok *click*What I wanted to say and didn't was "and if you can't stand the guy tell your spouse to talk to their brother."
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Jun 20, 2010 20:48
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:Oh hello thread, wondered where you went. Well at least they're honest and that's pretty much all you can hope for. It's quarterly review time here so we have to fill out this little form about how well we think we're doing in our job. I hate filling out those things because the questions are never clear about what it is they're looking for  . I'm muddling my way through mines at the moment before my meeting on Friday morning, I just hope that it's what they want.I got a cracker of a call today though {in a good way that mde me laugh for ages}. Accent is more or less included because that's part of the charm.  : Right can I get your postcode and number or name of your property please: It's *begins to reel off phone number*: Can I just interrupt for a second? I asked for your postcode. : Oh! Sorry hen, My minds awa' with it the day.: That's not a problem, it's getting late in the afternoon and its pretty hot out there today.: Yeah it isnae half. *give correct information this time*.Later on : *reels off statemet about emergency payments at post offices*: But I have a bank account.: Yeah, but this just in case we have a problem with our computer systems.: Oh I know the feeling, computers can be pretty iffy at times {note: the tone in her voice indicated she thought I was having computer problems now}.: Actually this is just in case the banks don't like our direct debit for some reason.: Oh hen, I'm so sorry. I must be goin' deaf in my auld age *laughs* you must think I'm a right idiot the way I've been going on today.: Not at all Mrs *blah*, it happens to the best of us, especially when we need to do something as stressful as sort this kind of stuff out.: Aww, you're a right wee star. It basically made my entire day and I don't think I stopped grinning for a good 15 minutes afterwards.
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Jun 22, 2010 20:50
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So. At the call center I am currently working at, when you're trying to basically end the call you say, "Is there anything else I can help you with today?" I actually wrote down a few of the funny replies I've had to that: Sure. Can I get a margarita? I'm sorry sir, we can't do alcohol over the phone It never hurts to ask!Another customer was a bit upset about not getting to do something with their account with the bank, but they were nice about their answer: Yes, can you give me a million dollars? I wish I had it myself.I tend to get odd customers that get snippy at me when I do ask that, but another one was similar to the last one: Ya have a winning lottery ticket number???? I'm sorry sir, I don't play the lottery.(That guy was very weird)
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Jun 25, 2010 06:22
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Well it looks like my call center has changed to commission pay instead of hourly. We get .97 for each call taken, and .47 of every dollar in revenue. The thing is, is that by doing the math these numbers seem crazy high. For example, if I take 10 call an hour I am at 9.70 (I was getting 10.30/hr before) and that isn't even counting a sale. I work in retentions for a cable company, and saving someone with a promo is worth $100 so I will get $47. Now I seem to get 3-6 of these a day, and then there are also other dispositions worth other amounts (disco inquiry is worth $20 for example) If these numbers they gave us are true, then I don't see how they can afford to do it. They say they were losing a lot of money before and doing it this way will weed out the people that don't work and reward the people that do. The other thing is that before if you missed hours or failed a qa you wouldn't get bonus, but now that we are commission we do get the money. Also, if my generated revenue comes out to less then &7.25/hr then I get the 7.25 to abide with minimum wage laws. These is kind of cool and something I tried to get them to do before as I feel that if an agent knows that each call = money instead of each hour they will work much harder. I used to sit in after call a lot, but now I won't be because I want the next call for more monies. The downfall of all this is that I have no idea at all what my checks will look like each payday. I can't even say "I worked 40 hours so my minimum is 40*7.25" as we don't punch in ever, and are not clocked in during breaks/restroom time. What is everyone's thoughts on running a call center based on commission vs hourly, and if anyone else gets paid on commission how they feel about it?
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Jun 25, 2010 20:36
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Had my first full day of 'nesting' today at my new call center job, and it went fairly well. I deal with inbound cell insurance claims and most of the c ustomers were pleasant, even when I couldn't authorize the claim. It was a lot nicer than I expected. I did have one or two frustrated customers but, over the course of 50-60 calls today, it wasn't all that bad. Plus, I only occasionally made small mistakes, such as forgetting to verify a cell number once or twice). Overall, I was pretty accurate, and only had to ask the trainer a couple of questions. Side bonus: The day flew by! Hopefully, all the days go like this. We have one more week of nesting and then we 'go live' on July 5. Yay! MrMoose fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jun 26, 2010 |
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Jun 26, 2010 00:23
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you know what I hate, assholes on islands in the middle of no where that expect their services to work...gently caress you! I would also never work at anything for 100% commision
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Jun 26, 2010 05:55
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I hate that they put our chat link on the front page of the site. This is clearly the caller/chatter's queue to use us as google for every drat thing ever. Oh, and instead of /fixing/ the applications, they revamp it with shiny graphics! Yay! I also wish people would read. Please print this page as it is your confirmation/temporary driver's license means just that. It is not my fault, nor the DMV's that you'll have to wait because you couldn't be assed to copy+paste the text, save the page or print out a screenshot. You should be grateful the DMV even bothers to bail you out by e-mailing you a temporary license. But gratitude is apparently beyond some yokels. Oh, and they even list having a printer ready as a necessary step. I hate that people act like I'm holding out on them and if they give me a sob story/yell at me I'll do something extra for them! Maybe. If it's possible and you're super awesome? /Maybe/. But if you spend 20 minutes yelling at me, the government, and God knows what other pent up rage your infantile mind can pull up - do you really think I want to go the extra mile for you and risk supervisorly wrath? No. Not really. Unless there's extenuating circumstances, I gotta stick to my call protocol ... things. I get it. You hate brown people, Mr. Caller. Personally? I don't care what color someone's skin is. That cop did his job and you're just gonna have to suck it up instead of trying to have your buddy cheat the breathalyzer on your car. Yes, that is illegal and they do record our calls. And yes, I will get my supervisor if you keep whining at me. I'm pretty sure you getting enough DWI/DUIs has nothing to do with that fact you're white and becoming a minority. Suck it up buttercup, you broke the law. Repeatedly. It boggles me as to how many godawful drivers call in who have no regard for the fact they could /kill people/ in a heartbeat; like the girl who wanted to know how many times she could take driver's ed and gleefully responding 'Oh I'll just take it till I pass'. Do you even care you're pointing a 2000lb hunk of steel hurtling at at least 35mph at people? Or the nonstop drunk drivers who seem confused that people are offended by this behavior? Or the teenagers who get tickets on graduated licenses then whine about the delay? Or the ones who get ticket after ticket for speeding, running red lights, etc.? You could /kill people/. It only takes a moment. But no. They don't care. They gotta have. And it makes me genuinely ill. Or the ones who rant about illegal immigrants getting driver's licenses while having several holds on their own license. To these people, it's mere inconvenience. I'm burning out fast and our workload keeps getting worse.  I put my two weeks' notice in mid-July or early August. Give me the strength not to shiv the next person who asks in a petulant tone whyyyyyy can't they have their driver's records noooooooooooooooow. They cut our lunch spots, increased call volume, really won't let you use vacation time and - gah, I don't know.
Aerofallosov fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Jun 30, 2010 |
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Jun 30, 2010 00:53
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I worked in a call center for just over a month before I wanted to set myself on fire. Definitely not the right job for someone with confidence issues. I applaud anyone who can handle that type of job.
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Jul 1, 2010 10:09
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I'm pretty happy that we are getting commision now. I was wrong with my numbers before though, we get $1.02 per call and .04 cents to the dollar. I was making $10.30/hr before but I am averaging about $17/hr now. I think it is retarded for any call center to pay based on hours. I work so much harder and better now that we get paid in commision. I usually work 8 hours a day and maybe 10 minutes of break all together (bathroom/getting coffee) I've worked here for 4 years so I can easly take 8 calls an hour. For every customer that calls in upset on their cable rate and I give them a discount I make $4. I can easily do 2-3 of them an hour. This place dicks me over a lot though, so I'll believe I'm getting paid this when I see my check. I can't wait though, and if I am getting paid $17/hr for this poo poo job I can see myself staying here for a very very long time.
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Jul 1, 2010 15:49
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Harminoff posted:I'm pretty happy that we are getting commision now. I was wrong with my numbers before though, we get $1.02 per call and .04 cents to the dollar. You really think it's stupid to pay based on hours? I take your point that you get a dollar a call now and you can work faster, but you know there'll be people there that'll try and game the system, right? Someone always finds a way that'll work for a little while, then management will stop it and you'll loose a little bit of the freedom you had to deal with your calls. Or maybe they lower the commission rate because they figure people are doing too many discounts. Either way, you'll find yourself having both your wage and your autonomy whittled away until you've got none left.
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Jul 1, 2010 20:11
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I am sure eventually things will change, but we will see. I doubt they would be mad about promos though because we can only give people $5 and sometimes $10 discounts and it is a retentions department. Even if, we also do outbound calling, which I used to do all day long. If retentions turns to poo poo I will just do outbound where selling something like cable+internet+phone is worth $50. I'm sure I won't make this much every day. I've worked here four years and understand that the winters suck and I will be making much less then.
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Jul 2, 2010 06:54
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Last year a main water pipe burst which caused the call centre I was working in to have no running water whatsoever. Rather than provide replacement facilities/send us home as the law requires we were told to continue working and not to worry there was anti-bacteria hand gel in the loo. It was quite a hot day so all the water in the drinking fountain ran out quickly. The toilets utterly stank of piss within an hour, it was truly vile. 8 hours in a building without water is just horrid. Got to keep the clients happy. I no longer work there.
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Jul 2, 2010 13:48
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Beep Street posted:Last year a main water pipe burst which caused the call centre I was working in to have no running water whatsoever. Rather than provide replacement facilities/send us home as the law requires we were told to continue working and not to worry there was anti-bacteria hand gel in the loo. It was quite a hot day so all the water in the drinking fountain ran out quickly. The toilets utterly stank of piss within an hour, it was truly vile. 8 hours in a building without water is just horrid. Got to keep the clients happy. I no longer work there. Last year was an unseasonably cool summer but of course during the only weeklong stretch where it got up to about 90 each day, our AC broke and was down the entire week. We were allowed to wear shorts and had fans going everywhere but when temps are reaching 85 degrees inside, it makes the job that much more difficult to put up with.
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Jul 6, 2010 22:17
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On Friday I got the most amazing customer: Tech support, froglet speaking, how can I help you today? Uh hi, I have a problem with my voip... *goes through standard troubleshooting* This is taking too long, can I talk to one of the guys? Uh... had you previously been speaking to one of my coworkers? Do you know his name? No offense or anything, but I'd rather talk to a guy. Sure, all the guys are on calls now, but I can make a note and one of them will call you back when he's available.I like to think I was considerably restrained when she came out with her gender-bias crap. Apparently because I'm female I'm incapable of helping her with her. v v
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Jul 11, 2010 06:05
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froglet posted:On Friday I got the most amazing customer: Wow, another woman threw you under the bus? I thought you all were supposed to stick together, girl power and all that.
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Jul 11, 2010 13:30
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Hughmoris posted:Wow, another woman threw you under the bus? I thought you all were supposed to stick together, girl power and all that. Nope. It's surprisingly common. I had one woman go 'can you transfer me to a tech? I want my husband to do this, but he can't talk to other women'. Buh. because I totally want to steal your husband. Lemme tell ya. Or even just 'I want a male tech please'. >
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Jul 12, 2010 06:54
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Aerofallosov posted:Nope. It's surprisingly common. I had one woman go 'can you transfer me to a tech? I want my husband to do this, but he can't talk to other women'. Buh. because I totally want to steal your husband. Lemme tell ya. Or even just 'I want a male tech please'. > I'm constantly surprised at how many blatant loving racists are out there too. I remember dealing with an escalated call once, calming the customer down and getting ready to return him to the original agent (black guy with a noticeable but not impenetrable Jamaican twang) to deal with the outcome: "Now I'm just going to transfer you back to Agent X and he'll get all this noted on your account." "<significant pause> Could you transfer me to someone else instead?" "<even more significant pause> And why would that be, Mr Y?" "Well... I... I couldn't really understand him very well. You know what I mean?" "Really? Oh, well in that case I'll be sure and tell him to explain things very carefully then." "That's not what I..." "I know. Now, the only agent free at the moment is Agent X; should I pass you back to him to get this resolved or should we leave your account in it's present state?" "<sullen> Pass me back." "Thank you, I'll just transfer you." It may have been my imagination, but I think the agent turned his accent up a couple of notches for the duration of his call with that guy. I'm thankful that I was in an environment where we were allowed to shut people's accounts down for being abusive towards staff so we never felt utterly powerless.
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Jul 12, 2010 07:22
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Fil5000 posted:I'm constantly surprised at how many blatant loving racists are out there too. I remember dealing with an escalated call once, calming the customer down and getting ready to return him to the original agent (black guy with a noticeable but not impenetrable Jamaican twang) to deal with the outcome:
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Jul 12, 2010 15:00
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Built 4 Cuban Linux posted:That doesn't sound racist. He probably just had difficulty with that guy's accent. I'm terrible with other people's accents sometimes but I'm pretty sure I'm not racist. I have to toss my hat in with this guy, I wouldn't say that man in the story is being a racist. Maybe the details were lost in translation... On a side note, I'm really beginning to burn out. I've took 5,700 calls since the start of 2010, which is 25% more than the average rep here. I think I'm doing too good of a job, perhaps its time to throw it on cruise-control. Hughmoris fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Jul 12, 2010 |
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Jul 12, 2010 15:32
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Yeah, unfortunately almost all the guys who supported the ISP I took's antivirus were all from India and inevitably I'd get 'I don't want a brown person/can't understand 'em/GIVE ME A PERSON NOT A GUY FROM INDIA'. Which is hilarious given the occurrence of mush-mouthed Louisiana accents, Alabamans and other 'flavors' of the south. Dude from India is just trying to do his job so he can pay his bills. He's not out to steal your jobs. He wants to /eat/. Or people who think it's awesome to complain about illegal immigrants (One guy was like omfg I have to go IN to the DPS office to get my license while some Mexican can get his online?? Well, sir, if that fellow has all his log in info, yes, yes he can. Deal with it) because apparently they magically get welfare, SSNs, free stuff and wear little top hats while eating free burritos. It goes both ways though, and I hate it when a caller yells ESPANOL loudly into the phone. Y'know, there is a press 2 for Spanish option... Not even a hello, or 'Do you speak spanish/translator please?' just ESPANOL! I'm now half deaf and have to explain to the interpreter that no, I don't know what you want - but you want it now and loudly. Indoor voices please...
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Jul 13, 2010 04:20
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Built 4 Cuban Linux posted:That doesn't sound racist. He probably just had difficulty with that guy's accent. I'm terrible with other people's accents sometimes but I'm pretty sure I'm not racist. Fair enough, I've not related it well then - there was definitely something off about the call, and like I said, the guy is perfectly understandable.
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Jul 13, 2010 06:17
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Ugh. Gotta' go back in tomorrow after a week off. I really don't want to. One week off, and my skin has magically cleared up instead of being the acne cesspool it was becoming. I also feel...better about myself. Been there for over 3 years. I'm bored as hell with the job, and I'm looking elsewhere now. I gotten to the point where I flat out don't like MYSELF when I'm there...I feel mean and exhausted and impatient. My co-workers are mostly nice enough, the pay is really good for the kind of work it is, but the job itself has gotten brutal and exhausting. Part of it is just general burnout, part of it is due to new standards on the phone that make you spend most of your time arguing with everybody and practally penalize you for NOT giving completely lovely customer service, and part of it is just a slow, steady increase in corporate bullshit. My new manager also kind of drives me nuts. My QA average has dropped 5% in the past 2 months since he took over. And when I DID get a perfect score on a QA, he still included a note in the comments on how "this isn't the most complicated call we take." He's nice enough to my face, and generally honest, but there's something about him that makes me DREAD any facetime or feedback from him. I kind of get the feeling that everything I say is being stored to use against me at a later time. I'm not alone in this. So, yeah. It's greener pastures time. I'll continue to do my job competently. I'll even do some OT, but only because I have to pay for a crown for a tooth I probably broke due to gritting them so much at work. But we're done pushing.
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Jul 13, 2010 06:28
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Fil5000 posted:Fair enough, I've not related it well then - there was definitely something off about the call, and like I said, the guy is perfectly understandable. I'm Canadian and live in Australia, and have a VERY hard time understanding Australians on the phone, especially males. It's to the point where I will almost always get my husband to make phone calls if possible because I just can't understand them on the phone.
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Jul 13, 2010 09:15
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Jesus Christ I am sick of these lying sack of poo poo agents who keep calling in from the Retard department. "I did blah blah blah, I checked the SMSC number, it was okay..." (For the uninitiated, the SMSC number is the phone number of the service centre wireless phones sent SMS messages through. If you have the wrong number program, poo poo don't work) So I ask "what was the SMSC number set to?" "Well, basically (this is always a warning sign; bullshit invariably follows) the customer couldn't find it, but I read them the number in our KB and they said it was the same on their phone." "How did they verify that if they couldn't find it?" "Well, do you know where it is on this phone?"  --- "They already tried it on a different phone and it did the same thing." "What model phone?" "The Sony M55" I look at the customer's equipment page, there is a Siemens M55 dated from 2002 which reads as "SIE M55" in our system. Generally, Sony devices read "SE". An easy enough mistake to make if you're grabbing the info from our billing system, but not if you actually ASK the customer. "The Sony M55?" "Or the uhh... it was a Nokia... I think... No, the Sony." "Did the customer tell you this?" "No, I got it from the equip page." "So how do we know if this is the handset they tested with just now just because it's on their equipment page?" "... I apologize." Fuuuuuuuuuuu- I have to wrench every last loving piece of information out of these incompetent loving nitwits. They just read their troubleshooting tool verbatim -- nevermind whether they actually loving followed it or not -- and give you every answer they think you want to hear to try to get rid of the customer faster by getting us to create another bullshit escalation to add to our mountain of poo poo tier one agents from other departments I deal with could fix while in a loving coma.
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Jul 16, 2010 05:02
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I wish they would let me fix stuff in tier one, it would take 10 seconds but I have to transfer you. Also gently caress you to the crazy old man who kept me on the phone an hour and a half after my shift because their was no way for me to fix the manufactures OS and hardware for you. I called them, it can't be done (was not an iphone)
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Jul 17, 2010 19:01
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sbaldrick posted:Also gently caress you to the crazy old man who kept me on the phone an hour and a half after my shift because their was no way for me to fix the manufactures OS and hardware for you. I called them, it can't be done (was not an iphone) Fuuuuuuuuck that. If I'm here even 1 minutes after my shift, I go into a silent rage. Hughmoris fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jul 17, 2010 |
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Jul 17, 2010 19:19
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Working escalations for a lovely credit card company is the worst job. The customers are terrible, the other agents are terrible, but mostly the company is terrible. They have this awesome process wherein they grant cards to people that have no business having cards with stupidly low limits that max out when you buy some gum, and then as soon as they use it, they suspend the account and force the customer to send in a shitload of personal information to reactivate it otherwise it'll be closes. The process takes about a week IF they fax it in straight away and actually call us to find out wtf is going on, otherwise it's much longer, and if it isn't done within 30 days the account is closed. The documents they send us are always declined for arbitrary reasons which they never care to explain. Several times a day I have to defend this lovely process to several people who have pumped gas, gone on a vacation, are trying to rent a car, trying to pay for food at restaurants. Another awesome thing is they have these offers for balance transfers that are listed confusingly in the system and so often agents will offer these balance transfers thinking they're 0 percent interest instead of the actual 17.9 percent they really are and then I get to talk to these poor people 2 months down the line wondering what the gently caress, and all I can tell them is to send us some documentation proving that the offer was in fact 0 percent otherwise the terms will stand. The best thing of all I think is that the collections team are ruthless bastards who will arrange payments in excess of what was agreed with the customer. Stupid poo poo like arranging 150 bucks to be paid on the 26th, and then 150 bucks on the 28th. Or even better, arranging 2 payments for the same amounts on the same day but via different methods, like cheque over the phone and debit card. When these people get pissed that we overdrew their checking accounts with payments they didn't authorize, I get to apologize and offer to refund the money, which they'll see back in their bank in around 20 days or so. A lot of credit card companies will be upfront about your credit limit and when they can increase it for you, or why they can't. Not ours. Scripted decline response, expect a form letter in the mail with confusing general reasons about your credit. I loving hate working here. The only redeeming thing is the idiot customers, like the one guy who kept yelling about how he was being "raped by corporate America"
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Jul 18, 2010 08:24
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I got kept after the end of my shift for over 20 minutes on Friday. I was livid. It was the money capper to a lovely day in general - my boss was off which means everybody comes running to me with all their poo poo so I can't get any of my own work done because I'm too busy wiping everyone else's rear end for them. About 25 minutes before I was supposed to leave, one of my reps came over with the old, "I have someone on the phone who refuses to let me assist - she will only speak to a supervisor.." Great. We really don't have supervisors - we have a few leads and we report directly to the department manager, so we get all the elevated calls. I get on the phone and the situation was nothing I had any control over in the first place. Her last two payments to us were declined by her credit card company. She demanded that we call her cc company and iron it out. Our accounting department won't do that (they route ALL their "stuff that needs calls" to CS and act like they're allergic to picking up the loving phone), so she demanded I do a conference call to them. So in the interest of getting this poo poo settled so I could get out of there on time, I did. Of course, she demanded a supervisor there as well and then proceeded to be a rude bitch to that poor lady as well. The credit card company lady went into this long explanation about the whys and whats to the situation and that THEY would need to make an outbound call to "the merchant" (us) to verify some stuff. So what happens? They call in and get the same rep that gave the original call to me in the first place. She got with our payment processor seemed to be getting it sorted out. This is when I notice I've been listening to this poo poo for nearly an hour and so I just quietly dropped off the conference call and left in a lovely mood. I think that's the straw that broke this camel's back. The company a friend of mine works for is hiring and as much as I hate to start over fresh at a new job (I just started getting 3 weeks vacation), I'm going to do their online application in a while.
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Jul 18, 2010 20:31
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Is call center work as bad as you are all making it out to be, or does it just seem that way because this is the rant thread? I was thinking of getting a job in a call center with Shaw Cable but you are making me think twice. I've got some questions, I don't know how many you can answer with any accuracy but it would help me nonetheless if someone would take a stab at any of them: Would you recommend against working in a call center? Do I have a fair chance of making $14 an hour? $16? How boring does it get? How rampant is the abuse from customers? From supervisors? How stressful in genenral is the job? Do you get much down time between calls? How casual/enjoyable does the atmosphere tend to be? Do your fellow employees tend to be cool or insufferable? How exhausting is the job?
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Jul 19, 2010 05:19
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