Well this is a LOVELY start...

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Insta-suck

I seem to get my worst calls AFTER the 10 PM hour.

I had a woman screaming at my last night. Why? Her brand new phone that she "JUST BOUGHT TODAY!" turned itself off and will not come back on. Ok, yeah, that sucks but no big deal. Just take the phone back to the store tomorrow and get an exchange or refund. Simple, right? Oh no...not for her. She completely lays into me about how the phone is a piece of crap, it's brand new it should work, etc, etc.

I look at her account and it's BRAND NEW. She just started service TODAY. But this gets even better, she's ALREADY talked to two other managers. Wow, <Red Checkmark> has a real winner on our hands here! And to top it off, both of the managers note the customer got very upset while talking to them.

I try one last time to explain to her that any new product, electronic or otherwise, sometimes doesn't work out of the box but that's an easy situation to rectify. She promptly calls me incompetent and useless and hangs up.

If I had the power to "fire" a customer right out of the gate, she would already be gone.

Take it to the limit...

Got a call from a guy protesting our activation fee. He has two lines, has been with us for a year and is past due on the bill. Initially told him no but kept perisisting and persisting. He just would NOT give up. Usually I don't mind wearing these people down and finishing them off but this particular call came very close to the end of my shift. So I decided to try and end the stalemate by offering to cut the fee in half.

Nope, not good enough! Guy keeps on trying and trying to get it all waived to the point of CRYING on the phone with me. WOW, some people really can't stand to lose $20 can they?

Five minutes AFTER I was supposed to be clocked out, it finally seems to dawn on the guy that he's not getting anywhere, so finally he scolded me for being heartless and hung up. I made sure to note on the account I had offered to cut the fee in half and that offer had been REJECTED. We'll see how far he gets next time he calls.

If I could turn back time...

Introducing Mr. Blameless! Mr. Blameless had an unlimited data plan, Mr. Blameless had his unlimited data plan removed in error by a store rep...last FEBRUARY. Mr. Blameless continued to pay his bills, apparently without reading them and only discovered LAST WEEK that his unlimited data was gone.

Now Mr. Blameless is on my line calling me many different four letter words because I am refusing to restore the data plan that was lost ten months ago. Despite my undeniable logic Mr. Blameless reassures me that he holds absolutely NO RESPONSBILITY whatsoever for failing to notice the change in his bill and that we'd better fix it now and fix it right or Mr. Blameless is going to march on over to Short Run wireless and take his "thousands of dollars" in business with him (there's that number again!).

I reiterate to Mr. Blameless there is absolutely nothing I can do for him and can he please calm down thank you very much. Mr. Blameless refuses to calm down. I politely tell Mr. Blameless this conversation is over and have a nice day.

If there is any justice in the universe Mr. Blameless is now a short run customer. I guess we'll find out...in due time.

[MoonCat]

Honestly, what did that first lady think you were going to do about this over the phone? I guess she believes you have a Magic Button you can push to instantly restore her phone. If only...

And Mr. Blameless is an idiot. I love these people who yell about the "thousands of dollars" they spend with any company. Usually when you look at their account you find out it's MAYBE a few hundred a year...if that.

[mathnerd]

As personal accounts go, I probably am a high value customer, with 7 smart phones and 2 tablets. Still, I wouldn't consider throwing that around if I run into trouble. I do think, however, that might have played a role in me getting out of a two year contract 10 months early in order to upgrade a broken phone. I didn't ask for it though. Actually, I'd called in for something else entirely and when the guy asked if there was anything else he could do, I told him the only other thing I needed would have to wait until I was upgrade eligible or I coughed up the money to pay full retail price for a new phone. He asked what was going on and I told him, and reiterated that I wasn't eligible for an upgrade on any line until November, so I was just going to have to hope that the bent phone survived that long. He put me on hold and came back saying he could do the upgrade. I was shocked. He didn't have to do that. I guess between actually being a customer who really does have a lot of lines and being polite and reasonable, good things happened.

[wolfie]

I had a woman screaming at my last night. Why? Her brand new phone that she "JUST BOUGHT TODAY!" turned itself off and will not come back on. Ok, yeah, that sucks but no big deal. Just take the phone back to the store tomorrow and get an exchange or refund. Simple, right? Oh no...not for her. She completely lays into me about how the phone is a piece of crap, it's brand new it should work, etc, etc.

Putting on my "psychic technician" hat. She just bought the phone that day, and it turned itself off and wouldn't come back on? Sounds like it's something she can fix for herself, using a tool that was shipped with the phone. Just hook it up to the General Lee overnight (wait - not that kind of Charger) - from my experience, phones are shipped with a very low state of charge.

Of course, SCs don't RTFM.

[Kogarashi]

I love these people who yell about the "thousands of dollars" they spend with any company. Usually when you look at their account you find out it's MAYBE a few hundred a year...if that.

If even that. Seems in anecdotes like these that "thousands a year" customer is getting discounts to the order of "thousands a year" due to screaming fits. Or the "I didn't pay my bill for half the year and then screamed about it until they waived the late fees" discount.

I guess between actually being a customer who really does have a lot of lines and being polite and reasonable, good things happened.

I've found that generally perks are more likely to come if you're a reliable long-time customer who doesn't complain. So basically what those "thousands a year" people are claiming they are, only without the screaming fits or trying to throw their reliability status around like a weight. I know I've gotten occasional discounts from our cell provider without asking, because we've been with the company for over a decade and pay the bill on time.

Putting on my "psychic technician" hat. She just bought the phone that day, and it turned itself off and wouldn't come back on? Sounds like it's something she can fix for herself, using a tool that was shipped with the phone. Just hook it up to the General Lee overnight (wait - not that kind of Charger) - from my experience, phones are shipped with a very low state of charge.

That's what I was thinking too. First thing I do whenever I upgrade to a new phone is immediately check the battery indicator and plug the phone in if it's reading low. And that's the only time I've ever had a phone just "turn itself off" on me like that, is when I've let the charge get too low.

[otakuneko]

Putting on my "psychic technician" hat. She just bought the phone that day, and it turned itself off and wouldn't come back on? Sounds like it's something she can fix for herself, using a tool that was shipped with the phone. Just hook it up to the General Lee overnight (wait - not that kind of Charger) - from my experience, phones are shipped with a very low state of charge.

Of course, SCs don't RTFM.

I got fooled by a phone I thought was charged once.

One morning I went to turn my phone on and it wouldn't come on. Try as I might it wouldn't come on, even popped the battery out and back in. I knew I had put it on the charger, so I didn't figure it could be just a dead battery.

I didn't have time to troubleshoot much, so I pulled the SIM and dug up an old phone for the day. Left the dead phone plugged into an AC charger and when I came home.. it worked again, like magic! Turns out it hadn't been charging from the USB hub I'd been using.

[Javarod]

Insta-suck

I seem to get my worst calls AFTER the 10 PM hour.

I had a woman screaming at my last night. Why? Her brand new phone that she "JUST BOUGHT TODAY!" turned itself off and will not come back on. Ok, yeah, that sucks but no big deal. Just take the phone back to the store tomorrow and get an exchange or refund. Simple, right? Oh no...not for her. She completely lays into me about how the phone is a piece of crap, it's brand new it should work, etc, etc.

I look at her account and it's BRAND NEW. She just started service TODAY. But this gets even better, she's ALREADY talked to two other managers. Wow, <Red Checkmark> has a real winner on our hands here! And to top it off, both of the managers note the customer got very upset while talking to them.

I try one last time to explain to her that any new product, electronic or otherwise, sometimes doesn't work out of the box but that's an easy situation to rectify. She promptly calls me incompetent and useless and hangs up.

If I had the power to "fire" a customer right out of the gate, she would already be gone.

Let me guess, it died because she never plugged it in, after all, its wireless.

[Dreamstalker]

Probably. I've had friends think that a laptop that's not plugged in shouldn't drain the battery because "I'm using the internet and it's getting power over my wireless network, right?"

I always charge new gizmos before using; if I want to play around with it I do so while plugged in (what a concept!).

[CyberLurch]

And Mr. Blameless is an idiot. I love these people who yell about the "thousands of dollars" they spend with any company. Usually when you look at their account you find out it's MAYBE a few hundred a year...if that.

It's the same 'logic' (also known as a defective grasp of reality) that afflicts customers in which a five minute wait becomes 'hours', and a two block drive becomes 'miles', how they've been doing business with a store for 'years' (even though the store opened only eight months ago), and having met the owner or manager ONCE six years ago becomes being the owner or manager's 'close personal friend'.

Embellishment is often the first strategy for customers attempting to scam freebies and discounts.

It's remarkable, really, how they also fail to grasp the concept of computers hooked to databases. I love it when a customer claims to have spent thousands of dollars when it only takes a few keystrokes at one of the magic information machines to blow planet-sized holes in their claim. When I did customer support, it was occasionally fun to call the customer's bluff, particularly the unusually persistent and/or obnoxious ones.

As for the first customer, I concur with the opinions of others that the issue was most likely due to the lack of charge on the phone. Of course, the customer will discover this on her own, but will she accept responsibility for her error? Hell, no, it's all the manufacturer's (or provider's, or the UPS guy, or ANYONE that isn't actually HER) fault she didn't read the damned manual.

[earl colby pottinger]

Second customer

Is going to be fun when he comes back demanding the fee be cut in half and be told that since he rejected the offer already the fee is now back to the full amount.

I bet I will know about his yelling without having to reading this thread.