Late Night Express
I get a call come in at 10:33 PM, one of my last of the night...
Me: Thank you for calling <red checkmark>, how may I help you?
SC: Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting?
Me: I don't have a timer in front of me, but I apologize nonetheless--
SC: It's ridiculous, I had to wait eight minutes before speaking to you. You think I just want to sit all night on the phone?
Me: I will do my best to take care of you as quickly as possible.
SC: That's ridiculous, I really do expect better service you know.
(Right, it's almost 11 pm, god forbid some of us would actually want to be at home with our families at a time like this!)
Me: We try to keep the call volumes low, but do bear in mind some of our departments are closed already so the calls they would otherwise take come to us.
SC: Why are they closed?
Me: Some departments have different hours than others, it's the nature of the business.
SC: That's very inconvenient, you should all be there 24/7!
(Oh please Mr. Customer, let me chain myself to my desk and spend my entire life here so I can be available whenever you need me!)
The rest of the call went on as normal, but of course despite the fact he was so mad about having to wait, he was willing to prattle my ear off complaining for five minutes before actually letting me fix his problem and get him off the line.
Let me grab my whip for you...
Ok, let's recap the situation:
- You aren't getting good service on your phones
- We quickly establish the reason for that is a tower outage in your area
- An outage that my company is already aware of, working on AND plans to have fixed within 36 hours
- You say you can't wait that long because you need your phones
- You say you can't wait that long because you have family with medical needs that MUST be able to contact you.
- You say you can't wait that long because your cell phones are your ONLY phones
- You say you can't wait that long because by golly you're paying us "Big money" and you expect something in return for it.
- In response to all of these things I tell you that we are aware of the problem and are working on correcting it but I have no way to make the network guys work faster. I mean, do you expect me to drive on out there and browbeat them personally?
- You say that is unacceptable.
- I repeat my previous statement
- You repeat again how important these phones are to you
- I repeat my previous statement
- You then ask for my manager
I put my manager on the line with you and...one guess what you get told?
But I've been with you forever!
I get some variation of this all...the...time. People will go there for everything, expecting me to give them the moon because they've been with us a "long time". I had a guy the other day whose wife had broke her phone three months after getting it and he wanted us to send her a brand new one free of charge because he'd been such a good customer.
Sure buddy, it's our fault your wife dropped the phone and our fault you didn't sign up for insurance when you had the chance, let me get right on that free phone for you
And on a related note, let me clear up a few things:
- Eight months is not "Forever"
- One year is not "Forever"
- Three years is not "Forever"
There are a few, FEW very particular circumstances where tenure comes into play but unless you've got at LEAST five years with us don't even think of going there.
I don't know if those idiots who give advice on "how to get what you want from CSRs" tell customers to do this all the time or what but it gets really REALLY old.
One bad Apple...
Ok, we've identified an issue with your iphone and you're still under warranty. Oh what's that? You don't like Apple? I'm sorry to hear that. You had a bad experience with their customer service? Again my apologies. You'd rather I just do the warranty claim for you? Sorry, no can do. Apple handles their warranties in house. Again you tell me how much you don't like Apple. Again I explain to you they are the only ones who can get this done for you.
Then you get angry, cuss me out and demand I replace your phone for you. I then tell you for what must be the 85th time that my system will NOT let me do that because we don't handle Apple warranties.
You then tell me where I can shove the iphone and hang up.
I get a call come in at 10:33 PM, one of my last of the night...
Me: Thank you for calling <red checkmark>, how may I help you?
SC: Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting?
Me: I don't have a timer in front of me, but I apologize nonetheless--
SC: It's ridiculous, I had to wait eight minutes before speaking to you. You think I just want to sit all night on the phone?
Me: I will do my best to take care of you as quickly as possible.
SC: That's ridiculous, I really do expect better service you know.
(Right, it's almost 11 pm, god forbid some of us would actually want to be at home with our families at a time like this!)
Me: We try to keep the call volumes low, but do bear in mind some of our departments are closed already so the calls they would otherwise take come to us.
SC: Why are they closed?
Me: Some departments have different hours than others, it's the nature of the business.
SC: That's very inconvenient, you should all be there 24/7!
(Oh please Mr. Customer, let me chain myself to my desk and spend my entire life here so I can be available whenever you need me!)
The rest of the call went on as normal, but of course despite the fact he was so mad about having to wait, he was willing to prattle my ear off complaining for five minutes before actually letting me fix his problem and get him off the line.
Let me grab my whip for you...
Ok, let's recap the situation:
- You aren't getting good service on your phones
- We quickly establish the reason for that is a tower outage in your area
- An outage that my company is already aware of, working on AND plans to have fixed within 36 hours
- You say you can't wait that long because you need your phones
- You say you can't wait that long because you have family with medical needs that MUST be able to contact you.
- You say you can't wait that long because your cell phones are your ONLY phones
- You say you can't wait that long because by golly you're paying us "Big money" and you expect something in return for it.
- In response to all of these things I tell you that we are aware of the problem and are working on correcting it but I have no way to make the network guys work faster. I mean, do you expect me to drive on out there and browbeat them personally?
- You say that is unacceptable.
- I repeat my previous statement
- You repeat again how important these phones are to you
- I repeat my previous statement
- You then ask for my manager
I put my manager on the line with you and...one guess what you get told?
But I've been with you forever!
I get some variation of this all...the...time. People will go there for everything, expecting me to give them the moon because they've been with us a "long time". I had a guy the other day whose wife had broke her phone three months after getting it and he wanted us to send her a brand new one free of charge because he'd been such a good customer.
Sure buddy, it's our fault your wife dropped the phone and our fault you didn't sign up for insurance when you had the chance, let me get right on that free phone for you
And on a related note, let me clear up a few things:
- Eight months is not "Forever"
- One year is not "Forever"
- Three years is not "Forever"
There are a few, FEW very particular circumstances where tenure comes into play but unless you've got at LEAST five years with us don't even think of going there.
I don't know if those idiots who give advice on "how to get what you want from CSRs" tell customers to do this all the time or what but it gets really REALLY old.
One bad Apple...
Ok, we've identified an issue with your iphone and you're still under warranty. Oh what's that? You don't like Apple? I'm sorry to hear that. You had a bad experience with their customer service? Again my apologies. You'd rather I just do the warranty claim for you? Sorry, no can do. Apple handles their warranties in house. Again you tell me how much you don't like Apple. Again I explain to you they are the only ones who can get this done for you.
Then you get angry, cuss me out and demand I replace your phone for you. I then tell you for what must be the 85th time that my system will NOT let me do that because we don't handle Apple warranties.
You then tell me where I can shove the iphone and hang up.
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