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I just wish customers would stop threatening to cancel their services every time they don't get exactly what they want because they think their threat will get me to do the impossible. "Oh I'm sorry I didn't realize that your TV service was so important to you that you are going to switch to DirecTV because a tech isn't available until tomorrow. In that case let me contact local dispatch again to make double-sure that they aren't sending anymore techs out this evening due to the blizzard going on in your area." gently caress you. I guess I just get really sick of that threat because it's never legitimate or warranted when I hear it. I've pulled up accounts that have made my head spin in terms of how bad the service they have received is due to line outages and poo poo like that, and I just do what I'm supposed to do and while they let me know they are frustrated, they never threaten to cancel or move to another company. The only people that do this are people who can't get a third extension on their huge past due bill, people who say they call in all the time yet haven't called in months, etc. I'm a guy on a phone who has to follow policy to the letter. I just wish there was a way to tell people "Now that you've threatened to cancel your services because I can't pull a rabbit of a loving hat, I have to transfer you to retention who will tell you exactly what I just did. So all you've accomplished is hurting my transfer metric for my scorecard. Thanks for loving me." I really really wish that handle time wasn't an issue because there are a few customers who are quite friendly and don't mind spending a long time on the phone shooting the poo poo with a stranger. I like those customers 
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Feb 1, 2011 22:09
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That's one thing I like about Progressive, they don't use handle time as a metric, mostly it's callbacks, the biggest metric is "one call resolution", so handling every piece of business they have without them having to call back for, I think 3 weeks.
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Feb 2, 2011 03:09
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fret logic posted:I really really wish that handle time wasn't an issue because there are a few customers who are quite friendly and don't mind spending a long time on the phone shooting the poo poo with a stranger. I like those customers I've sacrificed my handle time a couple times last week talking to awesome old ladies about their pets or their awesome island vacations or whatever. Figure if I'm not talking to someone pleasant for 30 minutes, I can argue/do real work for 30 minutes with a tough customer instead, then make it all up on big paperview nights selling boxing events every 50 seconds.
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Feb 2, 2011 05:24
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Loving Life Partner posted:That's one thing I like about Progressive, they don't use handle time as a metric, mostly it's callbacks, the biggest metric is "one call resolution", so handling every piece of business they have without them having to call back for, I think 3 weeks. I'm with Progressive for insurance and talking to their CC reps is always pretty smooth. I even took their customer satisfaction survey once.
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Feb 2, 2011 06:13
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Tennis Ball posted:I even took their customer satisfaction survey once. This rant is not anything against you, at all, please don't think that. Our monthly bonuses are dependent on a lot of different metrics, handling time, hold time, calls per hour, not ready time, and QA monitoring scores. They are also dependent on how many customers we get to take our surveys. IF we don't get above a certain percentage, we don't get any bonus. It does not matter how awesome we did on all our other metrics. What really gets me is the people that call in 5 or 6 times a day for their balance, or to go over the same transactions for the 5, 6th or 7th time, but refuse to take the survey. Or, they'll say that they took the survey last week, they don't need to now. I know people could give a poo poo less about the phone jockey on the other side of the 1-800 number, but it literally takes 30 seconds. Our management does not even care if the customer does the survey, they can hang up as soon as we transfer them to it, as long as it shows the call went into the system, we get credit. And this isn't me sperging out because I don't get a bonus check at the end of the month, our bonuses are abysmal compared to what they used to. I used to get 300-400 dollars monthly on my bonus. Now a 100% on all metrics and what not nets you 65-75 dollars. The issue is that if we don't get our bonus then we are viewed as not doing our jobs and then we start getting in trouble. All over loving customer satisfaction surveys.
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Feb 2, 2011 18:43
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JackRabbitStorm posted:This rant is not anything against you, at all, please don't think that. That really sucks.  . Is there anyway as a customer I could voice my opinion on this and tell them to knock it off?
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Feb 2, 2011 20:05
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When I worked at [large UK telecoms company] I tried to transfer a caller to the survey, but there was a screw-up and I ended up in the survey myself with the caller being hung up on. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I awarded myself top marks. I made bonus that month by one survey. A few weeks later, they discovered people had been doing this, and chose a random week to check up on for disciplinary action. I escaped getting the sack by one day, if they'd started the reporting period a day early, I'd have been gone.
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Feb 3, 2011 00:09
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Tennis Ball posted:That really sucks. Unfortunately no, even when the feedback from the customer is that they shouldn;t be hounded for feedback, that is viewed as getting feedback, so the surveys must work! Or if you actually talk/write/email a supervisor about it, they will pass it along to their supervisor, who passes it along, yadda yadda yadda. The surveys are here to stay. Some call centers don't hold it against the reps if they have low survey numbers, some do. I just agree to take 30 seconds to 2 minutes out of my day to take the survey if I need to call into a call center.
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Feb 3, 2011 00:42
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Apparently they're shooting for an 80% transfer rate with our survey. Most people are pretty cool about taking it, especially if you just helped them with a complicated situation. Solving insurance problems is nice since they can lead to legal problems with the state.
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Feb 3, 2011 01:20
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I always want to take those things because I always happen to come across really helpful people, but I never get them
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Feb 3, 2011 02:07
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My call centre is about 6 months from close. I don't really care as I don't plan on being there, but I feel bad for the lifers. The worst part is that no one really seems to see that it's happening.
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Feb 7, 2011 17:30
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dustbin posted:I've sacrificed my handle time a couple times last week talking to awesome old ladies about their pets or their awesome island vacations or whatever. Figure if I'm not talking to someone pleasant for 30 minutes, I can argue/do real work for 30 minutes with a tough customer instead, then make it all up on big paperview nights selling boxing events every 50 seconds. Wish I got commission for that, it's just entering the PPV's for no credit. I can live with the surveys, now were being rated on a question that asks about the customer's opinion of the company, NOT the question that asks the customer about whether or not they felt the agent was helpful. When it was a metric getting people to take the survey it was easy all you had to do was tell them you were transferring them to a recording then bam fire them off to that survey with a hardphone transfer.
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Feb 8, 2011 05:10
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JackRabbitStorm posted:Ever since I got a job where getting the good word from a customer I've always stuck around for the survery just so I can help the poor guy on the other end, and reading through this thread I'm always sure to be nice to call center reps no matter how mad I was at the moment. Then usaully thanking them and telling them to keep up the good work blah blah.
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Feb 9, 2011 14:09
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The Downfall posted:I work in the Grocery Industry and alot of the time customers will say 'O <me> is a great worker blah blah give him a raise blah blah' Thank you on behalf of the call center phone jockeys you talk to. In other news, had my 3 year review, and rocked it. Apparently I got 46 compliments in the year of 2010. Hell yes!
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Feb 9, 2011 16:06
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I had a guy the other day threaten legal action for asking him to sign a form that he already signed... 10 years ago. Okay, I dunno why the original form isn't still valid, maybe the ever changing world of car insurance dictates we need a new one, just freaking sign it and send it back. I went into the policy later to read how the escalation handled it, and he said if we raised his rates for not signing the form, he'd start a lawsuit  I will never be able to understand the mindset of these people, their thought patterns are completely alien to me. "Sign a form!? I signed that form 10 years ago!! This is bullshit!"
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Feb 9, 2011 17:54
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Loving Life Partner posted:I will never be able to understand the mindset of these people, their thought patterns are completely alien to me. I think they just have an exact idea of what they want before they call and freak the gently caress out if it doesn't go that way. "I'm going to call, he's going to fix my services over the phone or have somebody out here TODAY, and I'm going to get a $x credit for this!" So then they call in and oh looks like you're in an outage, nobody in your area is receiving service, we're doing our best to fix it. This is the point they break down and starting asking repetitive and sometimes stupid questions. I had a lady call me today trying to get her install appointment moved up from friday to today. Not an unreasonable request, let me check, ah nope no appointments until Saturday, better keep the appt you have customer. She didn't flip out or get angry, she just continued to restate she wanted her appointment moved up. I was dumbfounded, she didn't threaten anything, she just kept asking. After telling her no with an explanation for literally the 6th time, I firmed up and finally got her off the phone by asking her if she'd like to postpone the appointment she had set up already, that did the trick. I love that trick too, gently threatening the customer with some vague bs that scares the hell out of them is great for getting them to listen to what you're trying to say. This was after a 10 minute round and round: "No, I can't give you back the channels you've had for a year that you haven't been paying for and have not been on your account. I wont charge you retroactively for the service you werent supposed to receive, but I can go ahead and add it to your account if you'd like that service back."
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Feb 9, 2011 22:01
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fret logic posted:I love that trick too, gently threatening the customer with some vague bs that scares the hell out of them is great for getting them to listen to what you're trying to say. This was after a 10 minute round and round: "No, I can't give you back the channels you've had for a year that you haven't been paying for and have not been on your account. I wont charge you retroactively for the service you werent supposed to receive, but I can go ahead and add it to your account if you'd like that service back." Haha I love that trick as well. When I listen in to some of the account managers calls at our place they are always using it and it never fails to make me laugh. The account managers have a certain amount of leeway to give discounts to corporate schemes, although this leeway is based on each schemes profitability, so some we'll bend over backwards for, others we'd be quite happy never to do business with again. When the second type call up looking for us to change something or do them a deal "OR THEY'LL CANCEL" its always great to hear the account manager check into their details, see they are basically draining us of money anyway and say "so what date do you want your scheme to end?" nine times out of ten they get "erm..uhhh...I'll call you back".
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Feb 10, 2011 12:45
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Haha I love that trick as well. When I listen in to some of the account managers calls at our place they are always using it and it never fails to make me laugh. Ha - I've been one of the "OR I'LL CANCEL" guys before, but I go and do the research beforehand so I know that I actually CAN get a better deal somewhere else. With my phone/cable/internet company I usually just quote two or three other deals I've seen somewhere else that are better and I get a better deal. And I try not to be a dick about it too, which probably helps.
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Feb 10, 2011 13:24
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Fil5000 posted:Ha - I've been one of the "OR I'LL CANCEL" guys before, but I go and do the research beforehand so I know that I actually CAN get a better deal somewhere else. With my phone/cable/internet company I usually just quote two or three other deals I've seen somewhere else that are better and I get a better deal. And I try not to be a dick about it too, which probably helps. From what I hear, some people schedule themselves regular calls to telcos to renegotiate their price plans with cancellations. Say you want to cancel, tell cancellations you can get x, y and z with so-and-so, they knock $5-10 off your monthly statement, rinse and repeat until you've got the richest wireless plan in the known universe. That I get. That I have no problem with. But threatening to cancel because the tech support agent who spends all day answering phones can't magically fix a region-wide outage two provinces away... I just don't understand that mindset. It's completely irrational. It's not going to get fixed any faster, you're just going to ruin your day and the day of a few strangers on the phone by whining and complaining like a petulant child.
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Feb 10, 2011 18:22
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Well, you're kind of answering your own question. Oftentimes things can go your way if you're willing to complain enough about it.
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Feb 10, 2011 18:38
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I just finished a interview at the Bureau of Collection Recovery call center in Eden Prairie. It's collections work, but it's $11.00 and 40 a week, so it would get me out of retail. Any advice for a first-timer?
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Feb 10, 2011 18:53
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BigDave posted:I just finished a interview at the Bureau of Collection Recovery call center in Eden Prairie. It's collections work, but it's $11.00 and 40 a week, so it would get me out of retail. Any advice for a first-timer? Prepare for sob stories, angry people, and people who are generally not fun to talk to.
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Feb 10, 2011 20:24
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less than three posted:Prepare for sob stories, angry people, and people who are generally not fun to talk to. And don't get involved. You're there to do one thing - secure some kind of payment. Deadbeats are often wonderful at weaving marvellous tales of woe as to why they couldn't pay their cable bill, but you have to be a hardass.
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Feb 10, 2011 20:27
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Well, you're kind of answering your own question. Oftentimes things can go your way if you're willing to complain enough about it. Any time I bothered to stick around to hear a bit of those conversations, they usually started with "okay sir, I see you're under commitment and it would therefore cost $380 to cancel your wireless line" followed by more yelling and nothing changing. Network operations doesn't start typing faster. The site tech doesn't drive any faster. But multiple people will be made angrier and/or sadder.
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Feb 10, 2011 20:45
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BigDave posted:I just finished a interview at the Bureau of Collection Recovery call center in Eden Prairie. It's collections work, but it's $11.00 and 40 a week, so it would get me out of retail. Any advice for a first-timer? Echoing what others have said as well as this: stick to the facts. If you can see that a customer has promised to pay four times before and hasn't, so you don't think they're going to meet a deadline this time, tell them so. Tell them why you think so as well. If you're trying to figure out if they can afford a repayment plan and they give you an earful of "My income is none of your business!" then remind them that whether or not they get a plan rather than a default notice is down to how this conversation goes. Same for if they're abusive. All of this can be done without being rude, abrasive or raising your voice. The only phone environment I've ever taken calls in was collections and if I had to go back to taking calls that's where I'd do it. I've heard calls for bank customer services, credit card calls, mortgage calls, utility company ones, etc., and out of them all, collections is still the only one that appeals to me. At least where I worked, you had some authority to go with your responsibility, there was more to it than just hitting a button and moving on, and something like 90% of the time I felt like I'd improved someone's day by helping them sort out their money. Of the remainder, 9% of the calls were harmless enough and only 1% were wankers that had no intention of paying or doing anything other than calling up and making whoever they spoke to miserable.
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Feb 10, 2011 21:01
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man thats gross posted:Any time I bothered to stick around to hear a bit of those conversations, they usually started with "okay sir, I see you're under commitment and it would therefore cost $380 to cancel your wireless line" followed by more yelling and nothing changing. Network operations doesn't start typing faster. The site tech doesn't drive any faster. But multiple people will be made angrier and/or sadder. Yeah, but you are always listening on on the side of the company. On the other hand, these people know that if they walk into any business and start whining, there's a, say, 50% chance that they will get their way.
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Feb 10, 2011 22:08
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Yeah, but you are always listening on on the side of the company. On the other hand, these people know that if they walk into any business and start whining, there's a, say, 50% chance that they will get their way. Yeah, you're right... This is something which has always bugged the hell out of me. I try my best to give good service to people who are polite, or at least not overtly hostile, as politeness appears to be a rarity these days, and do only what I am required to when people start treating me like poo poo. It's not a perfect solution, and I'm sure it's more than a little immature, and there are always going to be supervisors who will make me look like an rear end, but I just couldn't stand knowing I was part of the reason people kick up a stink whenever they want something. It creates an atmosphere of hostility and animosity between customers and employees and puts us all in a combative frame of mind, rather than a cooperative one. "Is there anything you can do to help?" has gotten a lot of people to get me to bend over backwards trying to figure out a way to get them to the front of the line. "You get this phone working NOW!" has only ever yielded stonewall after stonewall from me.
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Feb 11, 2011 02:13
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The most amusing part of my job so far is dealing with situations where you fully expect to get justifiably reamed out by a customer due to another rep's misinformation or something like that, and they're just cool with whatever the situation is. I had a rep tell someone it'd only cost 500 dollars to get her policy caught up to date, but in reality, between the past due balance, fees, and the policy renewal it was more like $1550. So I had the fun task of telling her that not only was her policy NOT up to date and paid for, but she owed another $1000 on top of that. So as I'm crunching numbers and explaining the situation to her and no matter what I do, I get 4 digits to throw at her, I'm pulling at my collar and finally "I need to collect a payment of $1,026 today to clear the past due balance and renew the policy" .... ... "Okay well lets do it cause I can't drive around without car insurance" PHEW, then I just launch into all the ways I'm going to save her money afterward, god.
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Feb 11, 2011 04:37
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Well I just got offered a new job. You know the guy up in corporate that makes the final decisions on complaints etc, that's going to be me. No idea what the regulatory system in the US is but over here financial services (investment banking apart) is heavily regulated and customers, individual or business, have a set route of complaint. You complain to the company, they have a chance to sort it, if you're not happy you go to the ombudsman and if he agrees that you've been hard done by the company gets hammered by fines. Thankfully our company isn't one that bends over backwards and as long as the guys on the front line do everything right we turn down more complaints than we uphold, and do a proper investigation rather than just agreeing to avoid the hassle. I'm looking forward to it, and especially looking forward to sticking up for the little guy on the phones It also means I'll spend my day looking and working on things that could probably all end up in here!
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Feb 11, 2011 18:27
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Best call of the day. Guy calls up, dumped into my queue, doesn't have an account with us, bought some phone off some guy and wants us to perform some unmentionable service which we only perform for existing customers who meet a litany of requirements. First among said requirements, you have to be a customer. I explain this ad nauseum. His parting words were "I guess I'll just go to the [company] store so I don't have to deal with idiots like you." I wish wish wish wish WISH I could be a fly in the wall in that store when he finds out that our stores couldn't do what he's asking for even if they wanted to, and that of the thousands of people we employ, only about a dozen of us can do what he's asking, all of them are within spitting distance of myself, and not a single one of them will lift a finger unless he opens up an account. The primary reasons being that we CHARGE MONEY for the service he's asking for, we CAN'T waive the charge under any circumstances, and YOU NEED AN ACCOUNT IN ORDER FOR US TO CHARGE YOU. Of course, I could have told him all this and even suggested some of the most cost-effective ways he could get what he wants if he hadn't called me an idiot and hung up on me.  Edit: On an even more positive note, I may be poised for a position in product management if I play my cards right. I thought I was out of the running, but got a promising voicemail out of the blue. Please god let this be my ticket off the phones. man thats gross fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Feb 11, 2011 |
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Feb 11, 2011 19:56
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Well, I did it. I interviewed last Monday, and got an offer over the phone today. I'll be starting on the 4th. I can't even express how happy I am right now. I am leaving the call centre for a real job. I won't have to commute for two hours every anymore. I won't have to take phone calls anymore. I won't have to talk to assholes who rip me a new one for following policy. I'll be writing the god drat policies. I have to say, as much as this place hurt me some days, I had a chance to show what I could do and managers that actually encouraged and helped me to succeed. I have a few years of college, but no degree, and no certs. Before I started here I was making $10 per hour in a bar kitchen. I was barely making ends meet every month, and I was living at my mom's paying like $300/month in rent. This is going to be a hard job, but I'll finally have a chance to put my thumbprint on something. I can't loving wait.
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Feb 23, 2011 18:18
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I've never worked call center before, and I had to leave early today because I'm sick. I've never called off work sick, I usually just soldier through it, but after 10 calls with multiple mutes for coughing, and my voice disappearing in the middle of important information, I knew I wasn't going to make it through another 75-80 calls. What's the seasoned pro procedure? If you got any problem talking consider the day a lost cause? Ugh.
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Feb 23, 2011 18:24
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Loving Life Partner posted:What's the seasoned pro procedure? If you got any problem talking consider the day a lost cause? Ugh. Depends on management. Most won't mind if you show and leave early, since it will probably be pay-minus rather than paid sick time. Some are dicks either way. I'd recommend going home if you don't think it'll cost you your job or anything.
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Feb 23, 2011 19:27
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man thats gross posted:Depends on management. Most won't mind if you show and leave early, since it will probably be pay-minus rather than paid sick time. Some are dicks either way. Check what the policies are as well. My company has a policy of moving to disciplinary procedures if you have more that four occasions OR 20 sick days total in a rolling 12 months. If the workplace is like that, make drat sure you're better before you come back or you could wind up with two occasions instead of one occasion lasting 3 days.
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Feb 23, 2011 20:01
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Loving Life Partner posted:What's the seasoned pro procedure? If you got any problem talking consider the day a lost cause? Ugh. Go home. Smart supervisors will realize that you'd rather have one person home sick rather than a dozen.
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Feb 23, 2011 20:52
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Fil5000 posted:Check what the policies are as well. My company has a policy of moving to disciplinary procedures if you have more that four occasions OR 20 sick days total in a rolling 12 months. If the workplace is like that, make drat sure you're better before you come back or you could wind up with two occasions instead of one occasion lasting 3 days. I got a write-up for taking four days off in a row. Four days count as short-term disability. The short-term disability stooges called me, I told them the doctor I saw, the prescription they gave me, the dosage, what was wrong, what my average day was like, etc., and they said based on our conversation and history, my STD claim was good. I still got a write-up because >3 days off every quarter = write-up. Even if they were all in a row and qualified as STD, or even LDT, apparently it's still a write-up. My supervisor said it was bullshit because I never take time off and she knows it, but it's still a write-up.
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Feb 23, 2011 21:34
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Loving Life Partner posted:I've never worked call center before, and I had to leave early today because I'm sick. I've never called off work sick, I usually just soldier through it, but after 10 calls with multiple mutes for coughing, and my voice disappearing in the middle of important information, I knew I wasn't going to make it through another 75-80 calls. The call center where I work offers same day PTO if it's available. It's there if the site ends up over staffed and to help with vacation planning, and since it's planned time off, it doesn't work against you. I usually use it to take off after lunch if I feel too fed up with the job. Maybe your site has a set-up like that?
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Feb 23, 2011 21:51
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We have same day vacation time usage, well, vacation isn't correct, cause vacation and sick time are bundled into one (admittedly generous) package. I put in a request but it got denied, so I just invoked my right to go home sick, cause I wasn't going to make it the whole day without puking up phlegm or something godawful.
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Feb 23, 2011 21:54
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man thats gross posted:I got a write-up for taking four days off in a row. Four days count as short-term disability. The short-term disability stooges called me, I told them the doctor I saw, the prescription they gave me, the dosage, what was wrong, what my average day was like, etc., and they said based on our conversation and history, my STD claim was good. Well that's pretty lovely.
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Feb 23, 2011 22:59
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My company was stupid enough to threaten my employment in my file for being sick. I love living in Canada and the ability to blackmail them because of that
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Feb 24, 2011 05:18
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