Phone asshole

[DistantStar]

Oh, I've gotten a bunch of them, I've been cussed at a time or two, but somehow an incident last night topped the rest of them (at least in my mind).

I was substituting for the operator, which means (for those who don't know) I was running the fitting rooms and answering the phone. I HATE THAT JOB. But I had to do it. At least I'm pretty good at it. Eventually, I get one of the nice softlines ladies to cover me so I can go eat something.

I come back, and the cover person tells me that she was having a hellacious time getting people to answer their calls, telling me as an example that there was this guy who'd called back three times trying to find out the price of a computer printer cartridge.

So, a few minutes after I get back, the phone rings. "Thank you for calling *blank* Wally World, how may I help you?"

"I'm WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIItiiiiiiiiinnnnggg ..."

"Um...sir? How may I help you?"

"I'm still waiting to talk to somebody about the price of an ink cartridge."

"Oh. I see. I'm sorry, sir, I was on my dinner break. I'll transfer you to electronics." *hitting transfer and the extension number without listening for a response*

Thank the Goddess, they answered that time.

Note to SCs: IT'S NOT THE PERSON WHO ANSWERS THE PHONE'S FAULT IF ANOTHER DEPARTMENT DOESN'T ANSWER. Also, SOMETIMES YOU GET DIFFERENT PEOPLE ANSWERING THE PHONE, PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW YOU CALLED BEFORE. I only realized who this guy was when he said what he was calling about, and I suspect he only was mentioned to me because he was an SC to begin with!

Two more shifts in softlines. Two more.

Heeeellllllllp meeeeee...

[Moirae]

lol. Trust me, I know the feeling. Working the phones is a truly hateful job.

I actually got told off by a customer yesterday because she'd been waiting on the phone with a DIFFERENT department for 45 minutes.

Seriously, what are these people smoking because I want some. Why would this woman call me to complain about a department that I have nothing to do with?

The idiotic thing is that, if you get put on hold and then hang up, you have no one to blame but yourself. Yes, it's annoying to have to wait but welcome to life. If we're busy then you have to wait, we can't clone everyone on the phone when we weren't expecting to be busy and that department has been getting slammed since the heat wave started in North America.

Makes you want to throttle them doesn't it?

[Twotall]

Oh, yes, I've been there... several times a day, actually.

People call in (to a service desk, for a company with about a quarter of a million clients) and say "Yes, it's me again. It's still not working". Great. Who are you, what is not working, and why do you assume you have your own personal helper here?

Some are polite enough to give their names, but to say "This is mrs. [Smith, or similar generic name]" does not help.

But the worst I have encountered are those who expect the same person to answer their calls every time. I've even experienced people calling, getting me, saying "Oh, it's someone else this time" and hanging up, before dialing the same number again! In the hopes of getting the one person they spoke to last time, whose name they can't really remember, but "I think it was a girl...".

[JustaCashier]

Every employee in our Store is expected to answer incoming calls, if they are not busy. But, it seems to usually fall upon us Cashiers, if we actually have a little break in Customers. We can't transfer calls directly to another phone/Dept, so we have to page the call out. After about 90 seconds, the call rings back to the last phone to be on that particular line. It's just a rapid little beepbeepbeepbep beepbeepbeepbeep, but is still annoying. Trouble is since we frequently have gotten another line of Customers by then, we don't have a chance to immediately re-page it.

The worst I usually encounter is somebody who is (understandably) frustrated because they've been on hold so long, rather than someone ripping me a new one.


Mike

[Tito]

I feel your pain. The phones are not my primary job, but I sometimes have to back up my co-workers who are customer service if they are away from their desks. 99% of the time, people are okay with taking their voicemail, since I am unable to help them, but then you have the other 1%....

[Phone Jockey]

Wow DS, that really DOES sound like a phone dork. Like you know who s/he is by the person saying something random instead of telling you what they need. DUH.

[DistantStar]

It did just occur to me that the thread title is more than a bit rude. If a mod wants to edit "asshole" out of it that'd be fine. I wasn't posting really drunk or anything, but I'd had a beer or two and I didn't think.

I hate the way the phone system at the store bounces calls back to me, often far more quickly than the person at the other end could have gotten to it anyway. Then it's my fault.

Hopefully, while I fully expect to be forced to fill in on the phone occasionally in the future, I should be out of softlines and not the main backup operator person anymore after tomorrow. The dread I felt when I heard the one I was filling in for was going on vacation...not her fault, I hope she had fun, but oy, I didn't!

[Rapscallion]

Mild swearing is fine if not overdone. We prefer the stronger stuff to be when reporting a customer's language only, or in exceptional circumstances.

No problem with this.

Raspcallion

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I imagine they will be nasty for the real or perceived transgressions of another department.

I've been chewed out when working in TV stations over what other stations are broadcasting. Other, unafilliated stations, who they knew were not us or affiliated with us. As I've said in other posts, they would complain to me, the master control operator, who had no power over our programming, much less that of other stations. They would complain our janitor and our security guard.

They didn't care who they talked to. They just wanted to complain. I'm not entirely certain why they really even had to talk to someone in broadcasting, at that point. Why not just hit 0 and complain to the operator?

Although to hear my friend who used to work as a phone operator tell it, a lot of them did call him to just randomly complain about everything and anything.

People just like to bitch and complain. Bottom line.

[chainedbarista]

you've been phone-holioed; i also dread phones, not just because we get some jerks, but it's the dumb questions:

what are your hours?

do you have newspapers? y/n: if no-why not? (maybe because we've SOLD out? imagine that...)

do you have coffee?

i'd like to phone in an order; we're five minutes away (they show a half hour later...and we have to remake their drinks because of that extended five minutes)

i'd like to have you hold x pastry. (then they never show; sadly we could have sold that pastry, but this person HAD to have it held over. we've stopped doing this since then)

but no one can ever top the mighty pj; she's the leader in stupid phone questions!

[DistantStar]

Okay. Still, I do normally keep profanity out of titles. I certainly didn't want to get in trouble!

It's not like I can get up and go to another department and tell them to answer their calls. I do what I can. Most people understand this. A few don't.

I get "What are your hours?" all the time. Um, we don't close until Christmas Eve at 6 PM.

In some ways the ones that bug me the most are the ones that launch into a long story about some problem they're having with something they bought. I guess they don't realize that customer service doesn't answer every call, but then I'm stuck either listening to the whole thing and then transferring them where they will have to tell the same story over again, or interrupting them and risking them getting mad because I interrupted them! But I can't help them on return policies. I don't know the ins and outs of them. The people up front told me not to even try, just send the calls to them. So that's what I've done.

[Jet]

The problem with my phone system is, I work on the computer sales floor. When you call in to our phone Computer Sales/Hardware is #1 on the list. Computer repair is #6, reguardless to say 90% of my phone calls are for computer repair. So I generally have to try and interrupt them when they go into this 10 minute dialoug about what is wrong with their computer. Then of course they get flustered that they just talked to the wrong person for 10 minutes now I transfer them. Then maybe 5 minutes later the same person calls back with the same question and tells me no one picked up. I explain that they are still talking to the wrong person and the best thing I can do is transfer them again or they can call back and use option number 6.