Callgirl Confessions

Intelligence Not Required

2006-06-14T23:14:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you've just gotta wonder about how this person managed to apply for a credit card in the first place...

There's a charge on my credit card bill I want to dispute. I've already paid it.
Do you have your receipt for the other payment?
Of course I do!
OK, what form of payment did you use?
I gave them my credit card.

And then what?? You thought Friendly Credit Company was handing out free money on the day you sent in your application? Who in the hell doesn't know that when you make a charge you eventually get a bill for it?

Someone, obviously.

Fate

2006-03-05T10:42:00.000-05:00

This was pretty funny. It happened at the beginning of my call center "career".

I was working for a very large company, with 4 call centers and numerous retail locations around the country. A lady called because she could not understand something on her bill. It was really pretty simple, and everything she needed to understand it was on the one statement, she didn't even need to look at past statements to make sense of it. She was older (probably as 'old' as I am now, hehe) and didn't have a good grasp of the english language, so that may have been part of the problem.

After a half-hour of trying to explain it to her, I was so exasperated that I finally told her to bring the bill in to one of our retail locations and ask a salesperson to look at it and show her what I was trying to tell her. The location closest to her was in a shopping mall.

About a week later, I answer the phone, and here is the exchange:

me: Hello, Customer Service, this is Callgirl.
her: Yes, I'm here at the mall, now where do I go to find it?

Just like that. No name or explanation or anything. Out of the thousands of people who could have answered the phone, by some miracle it just happened to be me who got her call. And she had no doubt when she dialed the phone that I would be the one to pick it up. Maybe she thought I was the only person working there, who knows?

I had to wonder what would have happened if someone else had answered. Would she still have assumed it was me? How would anyone else have figured out what she was talking about?

Ahhhh, fate.

War stories

2006-02-26T08:43:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure why, but I still seem to be getting a lot of hits here on the site, even though I haven't been working or writing.

Since people seem to be interested in these kind of stories, I'll try to recall some more of them from the years I spent in the trenches (much as I'd like to forget those years, LOL) and jot them down here occasionally.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

One guy I remember being especially offensive, even more so than most rude people. He was vulgar and abusive to everyone, and wasn't happy until he had whomever he was yelling at in tears.

A few days after my first encounter with him, I answered a call. While I typed in the account information, I asked for the caller's name. When he said the name, I immediately became involuntarily paralyzed, and not a word would come out of my mouth. It was him, the same guy!

He says "Hellooooo.....is there something wrong?" Ummmm, well...yes there is...I felt like screaming "You're a jerk who shouldn't be allowed to use a telephone!", and hanging up on him.

But of course we can't do that, so I quickly recovered and asked how I could help him. Although he was still his rude self, he wasn't as bad as usual that day.

I think maybe he realized why I had turned into a mute upon hearing his name.

And that's the end of that!

2006-01-03T11:22:00.000-05:00

The reason I haven't been blogging is simple....I am finally out of that rat-trap.

I just couldn't take it anymore. My health was suffering emotionally and physically.

I have enough of a financial cushion to ponder for about 6 months over the direction that my life should take now. I'll tell you, although I may end up in some type of customer service position, it will not be the same one I was in. I will never again work for a company that makes you ask permission to go to the bathroom, or tells me to "train myself" to go on my scheduled breaks.

At first I was scared, and questioning if I had done the right thing. But over the last two months I have seen my health improve. My family actually enjoys being around me now. My back pain is getting better. My doctor has decreased the dosage on my medicine, and I don't take Xanax anymore.

I'm working on my resume, and I have a bright outlook for the future.

Yes, I did the right thing.

You know you hate your job when

2005-10-16T15:28:00.000-04:00

You know you really need to start looking for a new job when certain things start happening.

Walking down the hall towards your desk in the morning feels like a death march.

You have to take a very deep breath before you push the 'auto-in' button to start receiving calls.

You wish there would be another natural catastrophe, so that people would be riveted to their TV screens and nobody would call customer service.

You fantasize about having a bad car accident on the way to work so that you could take some time off, or even better, become disabled.

You keep a bottle of Xanax in your desk.

Your stomach turns every time you hear a beep tone.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

It's time. Or it's just been a really rough week.

I remember now...

2005-10-15T22:12:00.000-04:00

Today was the day for wierd calls, but this one took the cake...

I think someone stole my account number. There are five airline tickets on my bill and I don't know how they got there!
Have you ever bought a ticket from FlyByNight Airlines?
No, I never bought any tickets from anywhere.
The passenger name on the first ticket is Joe Schmo. Do you recognize that name?
Where did they go?
All five are round-trip tickets on the same flight from Thiscity to Thatcity on Sept 19.
Ohhhh, yeah....I remember now. Those charges are OK.

PUH-LEEZE!!!!

How can someone "forget" that they bought five airline tickets? This is not a person who charges a million dollars a month, or who buys a lot of plane tickets. Even one ticket I could understand, maybe you let someone use your card if they don't have one of their own, and you forgot. But five?

Whatever drugs these people are on, they're better than any that I have. ;-)

I'll get you over to....

2005-10-06T23:43:00.000-04:00

One phrase that really bugs me when I hear it, is a rep saying, "Let me get you over to (such-and-such department)", while transferring a call.

It sounds so harsh and cold. Doesn't it sound kinder to the customer if you phrase it something like "Let me bring my colleague from (such-and-such department) on the line with us to assist you further", which also serves the purpose of letting the customer know that you aren't going to drop the call blindly somewhere else. Or even "I can connect you with a specialist in (such-and-such department)" sounds better.

But, "Let me get you over to"? I even hear training instructors teaching people to transfer calls that way. Yikes! As a customer myself, hearing that would make me feel like a non-person.

Maybe I'm just too sensitive. Does that phrasing bother anyone else?

Error? What error?

2005-10-06T23:30:00.000-04:00

It's been a long vacation. Well, not really that long, but I've been too tired to blog ever since I returned to work. This job is sucking the life right out of me.

Got a call today that I couldn't not blog about though...

I'm trying to pay my bill on your website, and it won't let me. Why?
What error message are you getting when you click the link?
When I click, it won't let me pay the bill.
I understand. If you tell me exactly what the error message says, I can tell you why and I can fix it.
It just says 'you can't do this'.

AAARRRGGHH!!!!

Vacation

2005-09-16T14:08:00.000-04:00

Ahhh....finally! I´m on vacation, I get to forget about that place for a while.

I´ll see you all when I get back!

Micromanagement

2005-09-01T17:49:00.000-04:00

I
cannot
stand
having
my
adjustments
scrutinized.

I gave a longtime customer $25 today. Not only did she deserve it, but it was for interest charged on.....well, you don't want to hear the whole long story.

My "trainer" (I use the word loosely) cancelled the adjustment, and told me to call the lady back and tell her she had to pay it.

First of all, because I know you are such a hardass, I wrote a book explaining why I gave her the money.

Second, I already told her she had it, and if you won't approve it, I'll go over your head. (I know how)

Third, the whole thing was OUR fault, and we could lose a whole lot more than $25 if this lady really thought about it.

Soooo....stop giving me a hard time. Every time I offer someone money, I feel like it's coming out of my own pocket. And if they don't deserve it, they aren't getting it.

So, stop making me explain everything twice, and just approve my adjustments the first time.

Please.

user ID

2005-08-24T17:30:00.000-04:00

Today a guy calls and says he's having trouble registering on our website, it won't accept his user ID. I tell him I'll register for him.

What user ID would you like to use, sir?
Brian. (oh, no, I can see where this call is going already)
Just Brian? That may be already in use. Do you have a second choice?
Already in use? By who?
Another website user named Brian probably.
OK, BrianR.
I tried both of those and they're already taken. Do you have another one?
Wow, I can't believe it. Try RBrian. (You can't believe it? I can't believe you're such an idiot as to think that on a website with over a million users, you'd be the only Brian)
That's in use also.
OK, use my whole name, briansmith. (no joke, the guy's name was that common)
That one has also been taken already.

And so it goes, he reels off a list of choices...brianrsmith, 2brian, brian2, even brian123 when I told him he should try to use something more unconventional to decrease the chance that someone might already be using it.

What a waste of my talk-time! We finally ended up settling on something that didn't include his name at all. He'll probably forget it and call back tomorrow.

Where's the love?

2005-08-22T20:09:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I just can't blame people for being mad.

I talked to a customer today who has had a problem ongoing for two years. For some reason, every time he makes a payment by computer, even though they are always on time, the system is showing his account as delinquent.

Because of this, his account is being charged interest at the default rate. (an ungodly amount that should be illegal)

He has called about this many times, and has asked us to lower his interest rate, and every rep he has spoken with has refused to do it. Why? I don't get it. It is well documented on his account that he has been trying to get this corrected. So, I told him to give me a few hours and I'd call him back.

Of course, I have to try and fix this on my own time, since we don't get a millisecond of time to spend off the phone during our work shift. No wonder there wasn't a previous rep willing to help him.

It took me two hours after work, but I did find a supervisor who was kind enough to reduce the guy's interest rate, provided I promise to advise him to mail his payments until we can fix the problem. (sometime in the next century, I suppose)

Now, sometimes when you call customers back to tell them what you've done, they just act like they don't appreciate your efforts and you wonder why you even tried, but when I told this customer that although I was unable to fix the computer-pay problem, I had reduced his interest rate, he actually cried out, "You did? I LOVE YOU!". That alone made it worth the time I'd spent.

If only more customers realized how much a kind word said to a customer service rep could mean to that rep. It doesn't have to be something as effusive as this customer's exclamation, but a simple 'thank you' or 'I really appreciate your time', goes a long way.

Wrap-time

2005-08-18T17:00:00.000-04:00

I've been working so hard at trying to reduce my wrap-time so I can get on to my regular schedule, and I just can't do it.

I totally stressed myself out one day, by concentrating so much on shortening the calls that I felt like I was giving horrible customer service, plus I caught myself making a bunch of quality errors because I was just rushing through my calls. By the end of the day I was almost in tears, and I promised myself I would never do that again.

If I just concentrate on learning how to navigate the system faster, and becoming more familiar with it so that I can do two or three things at once, my wrap-time has to come down on it's own eventually.

Doesn't it?

Comp Call

2005-08-15T13:03:00.000-04:00

YAY! I got a comp call today.

It was one of those that began "I need to speak to a manager, right now! I've already called three times, and I want this fixed!"

I did manage to diffuse the customers anger, and fixed up the mess on her account. Now, we had been taught (yes, there's that nasty word again) that in any case, if a customer asks for a manager, even if you end up handling the call, we must ask at the end if they still want to speak with a manager, because under no circumstances can we refuse or ignore their request. Makes sense to me.

So, while I had the customer on hold and was working on her issues, I told the person in charge of our class that day about the customer's request, and that I had fixed everything, but that he might have to speak with her because I would be asking her if she still wanted a manager. He tells me not to ask her that. Another arguement ensues as we discuss whether I should be doing as I was taught, or as I am told. He asks why he should "waste his time" talking to her if I've already taken care of everything. I said because if that is what she wants, he should, and besides, it will be an easy call for him because I've already done all the work, so all he has to do is listen. He says if I ask her whether she still wants a manager, and she says yes, he will not take the call.

By now, I am so mad that steam is pouring out of my ears, so of course, when I get back on the phone, I ask her if she still wants a manager. She says yes, but that now the only reason she wants one is to let them know that I've done a good job. Well, I'm not letting that compliment go to waste, so I go over the head of 'person-in-charge', and ask a real manager on the floor if he will take the call. He takes it, with no complaints, and I end up getting a complimentary call for my file.

Now, why would it have bothered 'person-in-charge' so much to take that call?

I'll tell you, when I took this position I thought that I would hate it because of the customers. Even though they do some dumb and funny things at times, they aren't nearly as bad as I'd anticipated. I think I hate trying to work within the corporate bureaucracy and the ridiculous rules that are set up here even more.

I can't wait until I have more job knowledge so that I can work more or less autonomously.

Conflicting information

2005-08-15T12:28:00.000-04:00

I received a quality error today. It's not as big a deal as it could be, since I'm still technically in training. Once you're out of training, if you get a quality error, it'll haunt you forever.

Back to the reason why I'm writing about it though.

The error I made was transferring a call to the department that handles the information the customer asked for instead of answering the question myself. There are three things that bothered me about it. 1) In most cases, I will not transfer a call unless I absolutely can not find the answer, because as a customer myself, I hate being transferred; 2) I have been told numerous times to stop answering so many questions, even though I could locate the answers, in order to reduce my wrap-time; and 3)We had been told in training specifically to transfer this particular question. I had asked at that time why we couldn't just answer the question, since the information is readily available on our screens, but the instructor said because if we try to answer, it would only increase our wrap-time, plus the customer would then probably begin asking more detailed questions about that service and we would have to transfer the call anyway.

So, when they brought me the error to sign, I told them why I had done it, including that our instuctor had told us to do it that way in classroom training.

The reply I received? "Well, XXX is just an instructor. He hasn't been on the phones in a long time, so he doesn't know."

Wait a minute here! What is "just an instructor"? If this person is teaching us how to do our job, then shouldn't he be up-to-date on procedures, and be teaching us the right ones? Are they telling me that no matter what I was taught, I should disregard it all and try to figure out the proper procedures on my own? And, because of all this BS, I'm the one who gets penalized when I do as I was taught and it turns out to be the wrong thing?

Let's just not even add to this mess the fact that on any given call, if I ask 5 people how to handle it, I will get 5 different answers. So, whether I get a quality error or not depends more on who is monitoring the call than on how I handled it.

So, now I have to go through sort of an "appeals" process to see if I can get the error reversed. I'm not even sure if it's worth all the time it will take. Time that I could be spending on the phone, making more errors by doing as I was taught.

Computer illiterate

2005-08-10T17:03:00.000-04:00

Some people just shouldn't even have computers....

After the call opening and normal pleasantries:

Can you help me get to your website so I can make a payment?
I'd be happy to. (little do I know how UNHAPPY I will soon be) Our web address is www.ourcompany.com
OK. W....W....ourcompany? Then what?
WWW, there are three W's, dot ourcompany, dot com, C-O-M.
Hmmmm, I put it in US Search, and I got a lot of choices. Which one do I pick?
You don't need to search. I'm giving you the address. Just type this into your address bar.
Address bar? What is that?
It's the white box where you normally put the name of the website you are going to.
I'm on AOL. Where is it?
It's very near the top of the screen. It's a long white box, with a small arrow and the word GO to the right of it.
I don't see anything like that.
(What, is this guy using AOL 1.0 or something?) It probably has some writing in it now, maybe something beginning with HTTP.
I still don't see it. What's it called again?
It's called the address bar. You use it to go to a website.
Does it say address bar?
No, it's just a white box.
I always use US Search. Can't I just use that?
I'm sure you can, but I won't be able to help direct you to our site that way.
OK, tell me the name of your site again.
www.ourcompany.com (as you can see, it's really difficult to remember)
And where do I type that?
In the long white box at the top of your AOL browser.
Should I click SEARCH first?
No, since you have the address, you don't need to search. Just type in the address that I'm giving you.
I still can't find the place where I'm supposed to type the...what is it called, the "address"?
I am giving you a web address, the place where you type it in is called the address bar.
I can't find it. Let me call my son in here, maybe he can show me where it is.

Good idea, buddy, why don't you do that? Better yet, why don't you just MAIL your effing check in? So, he gets his son in there, the son shows him where the address bar is, and now I still have to spend the next 20 minutes helping him to log in. Then I have to go kill myself.

Like I said, some people shouldn't even have computers.

Back to work

2005-08-05T17:36:00.000-04:00

I'm back at work, but we had a training class today, so I was only able to take calls for an hour and a half. Great, because one of my calls was half an hour long, so now my wrap-time is shot for the week. Probably for the month too, since I was out so long. Oh, well, nothing I can do about it.

Also, they came around giving out cookies today. "No reason", they said, just to thank us for working hard. Ummm, sorry, but if you believe that one, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. There's either bad news on the horizon or an employee survey coming up, I guarantee it.

Sorry

2005-07-30T14:34:00.000-04:00

I apologize for the lack of posts. I had a family emergency this week. Things will be OK, and I should be back at work sometime next week, and back to posting.

See ya soon. Keep checking back.

Idiot of the day

2005-07-21T13:52:00.000-04:00

And now, after that long rant, I award the prize for the idiot call of the day. (see? I don't love all of my customers) Any of you who have worked a tech help desk have heard this one.

After resetting a customer's internet password...

"OK, it's telling me to put my user ID in this box. So is that where I put in my password?"

No, that's where you put in your user ID.

Idiot!

Quantity vs Quality

2005-07-20T12:19:00.000-04:00

I will probably write fairly often about the quantity vs. quality issue, as it is one of my biggest pet peeves in this profession. A company thinks that they are saving money by forcing everyones wrap time to be less than 200 seconds (or whatever number for your company) so that, theoretically, more calls can be handled in a shorter time by less representatives. But, are they really saving anything?

Consider this. A rep is trying to keep their wrap time low so that they meet their metrics, so instead of taking the time to really help their customer, they try to give them another phone number to call, give them any quick answer to get them off the phone, or transfer them to someone else. They will reset someone's password, but not explain what to do next, so the customer is calling back 5 minutes later. When a customer has to call back four or five times to get the correct answer to a simple question, what has the company really saved? Sure, everything looks good on paper because the the company can say "All of our calls are handled in 200 seconds or less", but if the customer has to call four times to get the right information, then in reality, it has taken 800 seconds to handle their inquiry. If the call had been handled properly in the first place, and the customer didn't have to call back, the call center volume could be cut in half, and the company could then save money on staffing.

I don't believe I am exaggerating. I can't tell you how many times I have helped a person with something and they tell me that nobody ever took the time to explain this to them before. Now that person will never have to call again, because from now on when they get their bill every month, they will understand it. I have also had customers thank me for spending an extra minute or two to clarify everything, and tell me that usually when they call they feel like the rep just wants to rush them off the phone.

Yes, my wrap time is higher than it should be, but I am doing my best to provide customer service, which, after all, is my job title. I have been made fun of at work (not in a mean way, it has become a standing joke) for caring about my customer. There have been times when I have asked for guidance in handling an unusual situation, and been told by a supervisor just to transfer the call if I can or give the customer another number to call and not bother with it. When I say that if I do that, I know that the customer's issue will not be resolved, the supervisor has said "Why do you care if it gets resolved? Just think about your wrap time". What???? One reason I care is because I have been in the customer's place, having to call a company more than once about the same problem, and it isn't fun feeling like I am just being pushed around. Another reason is because, as a rep, I certainly don't like taking a call and having an irate customer on the phone after they have spent far too much of their time dealing with a situation that should, and could, have been fixed four calls ago. It's actually kind of ironic, that providing good customer service is my act of rebellion in a way.

I know that there are some calls where I should not spend the time, and I have to work very hard at making those calls as short as possible so that they average out against the others. But, I am the kind of person who, if I hear some doubt in the customers voice, will ask them if they would like me to go over it again. My coworkers think I'm crazy. I guess they're right. I am, because I'll never be one of the reps who gets a month-end bonus for having one of the top 25 shortest wrap times.

But at least I'll still have my pride.

Are people really this dumb?

2005-07-16T21:31:00.000-04:00

caller: I'm going away for the whole month of August, I need you to send my Aug. 11 statement early. I want to get it by the end of July so I can pay everything off.
me: I can tell you the balance, or you can go online and print your charges to date, but an actual statement can't be printed mid-cycle.
caller: What does that mean, "charges to date"?
me: If you are leaving Aug. 1, you can go online if you'd like on July 30 or 31 and look at or print the charges you've made up until that time.
caller: Well, that's not good enough. What if I make more charges between July 30 and Aug. 11? I need to know before I leave how much my balance will be on the Aug. 11 statement.
me: We can't give you a total on July 30 for charges that you will be making after that date.
caller: Why not?

Is this guy serious???????????????

caller: I sent a payment for $200 and a payment for $150. Did you receive them?
me: Yes we did.
caller: OK, so that means I paid $345?
me: No, we received $200 and $150.
caller: Oh, I paid $365?
me: No, $200 plus $150 is $350, that's how much you paid.
caller: $350? OK, thank you.

Apparently a math test is not required to get a credit card...

Here I am

2005-07-12T17:05:00.000-04:00

Well, here I am, to take a phrase from Sinned Often, in the flaming hell.

Yeah, I knew that's what it was going to be, so I only have myself to blame, but WHY does it have to be so bad from EVERY angle?

Yesterday, first day on the phones, was kind of OK. The regular gamut of easy calls, idiot callers, and the occasional off-the-wall call that I had to ask for help with.

But today, I had a mouthful to tell the training staff. They gave us a cursory 2-hour training course about their online services, and then stuck us on the phone, by ourselves, to take tech calls. They had ONE person answering questions for 14 of us, none of whom could take a call without asking one. She was getting mad at us for being impatient to get our questions answered, while we had customers on hold, mind you.

If there is anything I do not like, it is feeling like an idiot. And even more, looking like one. So I was especially frustrated when I had to put one customer on hold three times, because he asked three questions, which should have been simple ones, and he knew that. When he asked me to wait while he attempted using the password I gave him, I said sure. Then I was told not to do that, because it would ruin my talk-time. "Get 'em on, get 'em off"

Well, you know what? At this point in my learning curve, I'm more concerned with making sure I've given the customer the right information than getting them off the phone. My talk-time will fall into place later. I told the bitch trainer as much, and also what I thought about them throwing us on the phones with no knowledge at all. I guess I've really endeared myself to her now.

Ah, she can go to hell. She might as well join me there.

Still here

2005-07-09T20:15:00.000-04:00

I haven't given up on the blog already. I'm still here, finished training yesterday. On to the phones starting Monday, I sure don't feel ready, but I know that the only way you really learn is by doing it.

So, we'll see what surprises are in store for me next week.

One week finished

2005-07-01T22:34:00.000-04:00

Well, we've got a week in.

Just another week of class and online training, then we'll be on the phone, so I'm sure I'll have more interesting stuff to write about then.

Have a good weekend.

One (almost) down?

2005-06-29T23:33:00.000-04:00

I think I've pegged the first hire to drop from training.

It's not the fact that she says she was fired from her last job for missing 45 days of work during her short career there.

Or that when asked by a visitor from management on Monday why she had chosen to work here, she said she "heard it was a bitchin' company to work for".

Or that she spent most of yesterday explaining loudly and to all within earshot about the process involved in getting a piercing in a very private spot, and the many benefits she now enjoys with it.

Or even that she's speed-reading through the computer training so that she's light-years ahead of everyone else, and absorbing nothing.

But, she didn't show up for work today, and then didn't call in. So when they called her, she said she was out because she had dropped a hammer on her foot. But not to fear, she's got a doctor's note. From her ex-father-in-law. She couldn't remember the work phone number, being so new and all. She had it written down, but left it at work. She's been warned that one more no-call/no-show, and she will not be able to complete training.

Gotta wonder how she got hired in the first place.

technorati tag-
customer service

Starting anew

2005-06-27T12:45:00.000-04:00

Today is propaganda, er, I mean orientation day.

We learned all about the company, what our training will be like, signed our life away on a million different forms, and met some of our management.

The class is a mix of people who have worked in other call centers (I never knew there were so many in this area!) and people who have never done this before (boy, are they in for a treat!). Most of the hires are in their twenties, but there are a few who are closer to my age. Women outnumber men by 4 to 1.

As I gaze around, I wonder what percentage of the class will make it through training, and try to guess which are the ones who will drop out.

And so it begins....

technorati tag-
customer service

The big leap

2005-06-24T15:36:00.000-04:00

OK, I'm making the big leap. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. I was recently offered a job that I had interviewed for a while ago, and I start Monday. It's at another call center (am I a glutton for punishment, or what?). This one is at a bank, and I will be providing customer service (or their version of it...) to their credit card customers. The pay is much better than what I'm making now, but I'm sure there's a reason for that.

Today being my last day at this company, I pretty much goofed off and said goodbye to people all day. Why worry about statistics when it's my last day on the job?

I'll report on how training goes beginning next week.

I knew it!

2005-06-23T14:37:00.000-04:00

I can always tell when there's a full moon. I don't even have to go outside.

I think I had every wacko in the world today, including someone who called three times and I answered the phone each time! Now what are the chances of that, with all our call centers including one in India? And what did they want? (oh, yeah, it was a husband/wife team, you gotta love those calls) They wanted the IP address of whoever changed their password on our website. And they weren't giving up in their quest to get it.

I also had the guy who kept me on the phone forever, even though his problem did not concern our company in the least. He actually wanted me to tell him what actions another company had taken on his account with them last November. "I can't tell you something that I have no way of knowing. That would be like me asking you the same question. I am not going to guess what they may or may not have done and present it to you as fact." Yes, I really said those things. I should hang my head in shame. I came as close as I ever have to blowing my cool, when I finally had to use a very firm tone (ok, more than very firm), "Although this matter does not involve us in any way, I have given you several suggestions of things that you might try to remedy your situation. I am not able to assist you in any other manner, as I have told you several times".

And then the guy who "thinks" he might have been late paying his bill. Yeah, it was $7,000 and we sent it to a collection agency two years ago. Hello! Where has he been all this time?

Finally I leaned over my cubicle and asked my coworker if today was the full moon. It had to be. But he said no. Still, after more of these ridiculous calls I knew something was up, so I checked Weather Underground, and sure enough, it's a 95% moon tonight.

I can always tell.

technorati tag-
customer service

Take this call, please!

2005-06-22T13:14:00.000-04:00

Sometimes my worst enemies are within our own company.

Today, for instance, Joyce from our collections area calls me to help her with a customer. Or, should I say, pawn a customer off on me. The customer had bought items several months ago, and never made a payment to us.

Joyce says that she had called the person to collect on their bill, but they need customer service help. OK, I tell her, do you know what the customer needs help with?

"She needs you to send her a list of everything she bought, and meanwhile she says the items are in dispute, so she isn't paying the bill we sent."

And why are they in dispute, I ask Joyce. Did the customer not receive them? Were they returned, or broken?

"Oh, no, she has it all in her house. She just wants us to send her a listing of the items she bought because she can't pay for it all and she needs to decide what to return. Meanwhile, she doesn't want to be overdue, so she says they're in dispute."

Uh, Joyce, you're the one in collections. You need to tell her that the invoices are valid until she returns some or all of the merchandise and then calls us back. Remember, collections=hard-ass, money-hungry, demanding; and customer service=nice, sweet, and charming. It's your phonecall. I'm not relieving her from paying for things that she bought from us, says she has in her house, and admits she can't pay for. Who even knows if they're in any kind of shape to be returned? I know she bought them at least three months ago if she's talking to collections.

I tell Joyce I'll resend our original invoice on the items, but I will not remove anything from the amount the customer owes us right now.

So, I refuse to take the call off her hands, and now Joyce is mad. She probably called back in and pawned it off on some other customer service rep. Better another rep than I.

A Real Call

2005-06-21T20:57:00.000-04:00

me: Hello, thanks for calling xxx, this is xx. How may I help you?
lady: I bought some furniture from you, and you billed me twice for one of the tables.
me: I'll be glad to take a look and correct it if neccesary. May I have your invoice info, please.
lady: (gives info) See, I bought one table, and you billed me $90 twice.
me: I do see that there are two charges. I see, though, that we issued a credit for $90 on 5/31. Do you have your invoice right there?
lady: Yes, I can see the credit, but you still billed me twice. I bought one, then returned it because it didn't look right with the other furniture. Then I ordered another one from the catalog, and you billed me again.
me: That's right. The credit cancelled out the original charge, so the net effect is that when we billed you for the catalog sale, you are only left with one $90 charge for the table.
lady: But there are two on my invoice.
me: Right, and one credit. So two charges plus one credit equals one charge. You do have the table, right?
lady: Yes, I have it, but if there are two charges there should be two credits.
me: If there were two charges and two credits, then that would equal out to zero, and we wouldn't be charging you for the table.
lady: I still don't understand how two charges can be right if I only have one table.
me: The reason it's correct is because the first charge is cancelled out by the credit. A $90 charge plus a $90 credit adds up to zero, do you agree with me there?
lady: Yes.
me: OK, so that means at that point, we were at zero, and then after that, we billed you $90 for the catalog sale, for the table that you still have.
lady: Right, but you still billed me twice.
me: If you add up all the charges relating to the table, $90 plus $90 equals $180 billed, and then subtract the $90 credit, and the net amount you are paying for the table is $90.
lady: I still don't understand it, but I've been doing business with you for a long time, and you sound like you know what you're talking about, so I'll pay it, but I still think I got charged twice.

AARRGGHHHHH!!!!!!!

technorati tag-
customer service

Hacking

2005-06-18T20:58:00.000-04:00

"I saw it on the news, about the credit card thing. I paid with a credit card. Did you send my number to that place? Did someone get all my information? Do I need all new cards? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?"

Well, even if there were anything I could do, which there isn't, yelling at me isn't going to help matters any. 40 million other people are in the same situation as you, including myself. So keep an eye on your statements and get over it.

This hacking thing is getting worse and worse. It seems like every time I turn on the news, somebody's information has been hacked into. And the number of people affected each time just keeps going up.

Is this the price we have to pay for the convenience of doing business by phone or internet? Or even just for using a credit card?

Almost makes you wish for the "good old days" of cash only. But even that, I'm sure, would not stop idiots who want to yell at me about things that are out of my control.

Customer service?

2005-06-07T01:54:00.000-04:00

I have to wonder why it's called "customer service", since the main objective of the job is to get the customer off the phone as fast as possible. We are even taught to speak faster, in order to speed up the pace of the call. And if you can't finish your calls fast enough? Well, that's easy. You're fired, and replaced with someone who cares more about quantity than quality.

Most companies allow their phone reps an average of two to three minutes per call. Sometimes that's an easy task ("When is my order being shipped? OK, thanks, bye.") and sometimes it's impossible ("I need to discuss all of my orders for the last six months, because something isn't right here, and I don't know what it is. Can you go over that again for the 100th time? Because I didn't understand it the first 99 times, and you're too stupid to explain it correctly"). Yeah, maybe you shouldn't be ordering things in the first place, Mr. Customer, if you're too stupid to figure out which items you did or didn't receive. I don't have ESP. And I can't get him off the phone. He refuses to hang up, figure out what he's missing, and call us back, so now my wrap-time average is ruined.

But of course we can't get mad at Mr. Customer, or we risk losing our job. So, I pleasantly say "thank you" as he calls me a moron while I am trying to explain that he needs to tell us which item he didn't receive before we can help him find out what happened to it.

ASSHOLE!

First things first

2005-06-04T06:58:00.000-04:00

I suppose the first thing I should do is explain how the occupation (theoretically) works. The short job description, in a nutshell...

A customer calls a toll-free telephone number, and reaches a person sitting in a cubicle, just like the ones you see in the Capital One commercial. This is assuming, of course, that the customer has navigated the hell of automated voice response well enough to reach a live rep. If the customer is lucky, that rep's cubicle is located at the company they have called. If the customer is not so lucky, the cubicle is located in India, to which many of us are losing our jobs. The customer asks a question, the representative answers it. The rep then tries to sell the customer another product or service of the company. (this is becoming 'de rigueur' at just about every call center) The customer accepts or declines, and the call ends. And that's it, supposedly.

Sounds quite simple, right?

One of the objectives of this blog, and my rants, is to show you how often things do not follow this pattern, and calls go very horrendously wrong, in one way or another. Another objective is to educate you, the consumer, to the cattle-call mentality at these centers.

It is my hope that once you read these stories, you might show a shred of kindness to the person who answers your next call for assistance.