Call center vent

[Cloudy Sky]

I mostly enjoy working at my call center - really, I do. But today was just one of those days that had me biting my tongue for more than half the day. I really need to let it out somewhere. So, here are complaints/advice about customers

1. If you are calling in with some questions about your account, please have an account number handy! Duh! How difficult is that concept? And don't expect your account to magically pop up with just a name - are you really so self involved that you think you are the only John Smith or Jane Jones in all of Canada?

2. Addendum to above : Don't take it out on me if it takes longer than .005 nanoseconds to pull up an account when we don't have an account number. I;m doing the best I can on the little you're giving me.

3. When you know you want to write down the answers to the questions you ask, here's a novel concept - have a pen and paper at hand. Here's a typical scenario:

SC What's my balance?
Me $xxx.xx
SC Hang on minute - gotta write this down *rustle, rustle, rustle* Can't find a pen - be right back
*several minutes pass, and I'm wondering if the customer has forgotten about me*
SC Ok, what was that again?
Me $xxx.xx
SC Damn, pen doesn't work - hang on
Me *silent fume*

And this is most likely the same customer who complained at the beginning of the call about the long wait for a rep. Grrr.

4. Find a quiet place to make your call to us. Please? This just common sense - how do you expect to hear anything with your TV/radio/kids/ machinery/rabid budgie so loud that I am holding my earpiece away from my head?

5. When you ask me a question about your services, I do my best to explain it to you. Can you do YOUR best to LISTEN?? Interrupting me every two words to complain/add/or just tell me about you Auntie's latest operation will slow the process down considerably. Oh, and BTW, SC? I DO know what I'm talking about - I've had several weeks of training, not to mention update training on a regular basis on your services. I think I do know more than your cousin/best friend/hairdresser/guy you drink beer with. So JUST SHUT UP AND LISTEN A MINUTE!

Vent over. I'm feeling a bit better now, and am going in search of chocolate and booze (hmmmm...chocolate booze???)

[Darkforge]

I know how you feel, I have to work on the phones enough at work to have experienced all of these.

Vent over. I'm feeling a bit better now, and am going in search of chocolate and booze (hmmmm...chocolate booze???)

try some double chocolate beer, its a favourite of mine

[lobo94]

Reply to call center vent

Share your pain. And be richer for the sharing.

Some others.

1.)If you're a business customer, and you delegate responsibility, at least give whoever you have call us the basic information we need. It'll make their job and ours a lot easier.

2.)If you have to have your personal assistant call in regards to your non-business related stuff, make sure they have the same basic information.

3.)If you have your spouse or other relative call in for you...

4.)Know your password or pin #. At least set up a hint. If we can't verify your identity, we can't help you.

5.)Speak clearly and slowly.

6.)If you have more than one concern, at least wait until I've finished the one we're working on before throwing out the next one. I can only do so much at once.

7.)Keep the noise down. Your average call center is a large room with cubicles with a lot of people packed together. It can get loud on our end. Having the kids screaming or everyone in the background talking loudly doesn't help.

8.)If we have to read disclosures to you about various things, there's a reason for it. If you don't want to listen, fine, but if it comes back to bite you, it's on you.

9.)Don't assume. Assumption is the mother of all screwups.

10.)Improper planning on your end does not mean an emergency on our end.

11.)Keep to the subject at hand. Most call center reps are subject to average handling time quotas. Get to the point, don't throw in all the other stuff about Suzy Creamcheese's surgery or Harvey Hoehandle's going back to college.

12.)Don't be indecisive. Going "Um...umm...oh..." takes up time

[AnqeiicDemise]

My favorite is when you work at an institution that has to deal with highly sensitive information so you can *only* speak to the authorized account holders and no one else (unless said auth. accnt holders are on the phone to say its okay). I love dealing with the following:

1) children of account holders who get annoyed when I tell them I can't help them unless Mom and Dad are there to say its okay.
2) Spouse of account holder: sorry, I need your spouse to say its okay. I know its a pain in the ass but if you don't like it and he don't like it, HAVE YOUR NAME ADDED TO THE ACCOUNT!
3) Account holders that call in pissed off because their children called and we didn't let them use the account.

I'm sorry, but that's right up there with credit cards being used without checking ID. You think its an inconvenience and you think its bull shit but when we effectively stop fraud you're thankful.

I mean.. fuck.. I'd be happy to know that my 160k investment is being treated as such by the company I invested in, y'know?

[PCGameGuy]

Vent over. I'm feeling a bit better now, and am going in search of chocolate and booze (hmmmm...chocolate booze???)

Or you could try some wine

http://www.blackmesawinery.com/produ...?products_id=8

[MoonChild2007]

11.)Keep to the subject at hand. Most call center reps are subject to average handling time quotas. Get to the point, don't throw in all the other stuff about Suzy Creamcheese's surgery or Harvey Hoehandle's going back to college.

The pisses me off the most, My job is on the line because of that bullshit.

Actually, another gripe about call center is how customers ask for supervisors over dumb stuff. One of my coworkers had a woman ask for a supervisor because he couldn't give her the confirmation number...and she used our automated system.

[MsCrankypants]

I mostly enjoy working at my call center - really, I do. But today was just one of those days that had me biting my tongue for more than half the day. I really need to let it out somewhere. So, here are complaints/advice about customers

1. If you are calling in with some questions about your account, please have an account number handy! Duh! How difficult is that concept? And don't expect your account to magically pop up with just a name - are you really so self involved that you think you are the only John Smith or Jane Jones in all of Canada?

THANK YOU! I work in a call center environment as well (social services - PUBLIC social services, for that matter). I can't tell you how many times I get clients who don't know their case number, and then they don't come to the phone with their state benefits ID number, or their Social Security number, or...well, any information at all. This goes double for my Spanish-speaking* clients, who, 95% of the time, have to scrabble through what sounds like their entire house looking for some kind of information to identify their case. Honestly, who gets on the phone without that information? Oh wait...that would be my clients.

Oftentimes I don't bother sitting there and waiting - if they've got me on hold more than 3 minutes while they're digging up information on their case number, I hang up - more than that, and my call stats would be messed up (yes, we get dinged for excessive call times).

Then there are the people who give me their birthdate and expect me to be able to look up their cases using just that. Nothing else. Not even a name. Unfortunately, my psychic powers have been turned off due to California's severe budget cuts, so I can't glean who you are on that limited information.

My pet peeve are the people who can't figure out why they're even calling. They either tell some long, meandering story, out of which you're meant to tease out the details of why they're calling (out of a rambling story about some insignificant shit that happened 12 years ago); or else they're calling because "they (who??? The voices in your head???) told me to call" and they really have NO earthly clue why, so you have to sit there and figure it out. Once again, people, MY PSYCHIC POWERS HAVE BEEN TURNED OFF DUE TO THE BUDGET CRISIS. As a consequence, we DO have to play this game of Twenty Questions, and it's not my fault you're pissed off because of it. I can't read your mind, so shut up and answer the questions I ask you, and don't talk when I am talking.

And while we're at it, ANSWER THE QUESTIONS I AM ACTUALLY ASKING, not the question you think it should be. I have noticed my Spanish-speaking clients are notorious at talking circles around a question. I often have to stop them and re-direct them to the original question multiple times, until I get frustrated and break it down for them: "This is the question I am asking. I do not need the details. I just need a simple, one-word answer: yes or no?" THEN, they will say one or the other, and launch into a long explanation. DUDE. I just TOLD you, I don't need details, I just need to know X or Y. Yes or no. Ones or zeroes. It's THAT SIMPLE.

Wow...I think I need to fix myself a drink and relax. 'Scuse me while I go do just that. *slinks off*

*Disclaimer: I should note that I am of Hispanic descent, and a native Spanish speaker (although I'm U.S.-born), so I deal mostly with Spanish speakers. If it seems to me that these issues are more prevalent among these clients, it's possibly because I deal with them more on a daily basis than I tend to deal with English speakers. I don't have any real way of knowing.

[Pinkie]

4. Find a quiet place to make your call to us. Please? This just common sense - how do you expect to hear anything with your TV/radio/kids/ machinery/rabid budgie so loud that I am holding my earpiece away from my head?

I have to add to this one, working in a call center myself. Please, for the sake of all that is or is not holy, please do NOT chew in my ear, or use the toilet while on the phone with me!! I hate to hear in the middle of the call **flush**!! I'd rather not know that you were on the toilet while discussing your utility bill!

[MsCrankypants]

Believe it or not, Pinkie, they do it with us, too. That, or while they're washing dishes, or listening to loud (usually annoying) music...one time I'm pretty sure the client was on the phone, DISCUSSING THEIR WELFARE BENEFITS, during sex. I can't confirm it (and I'd rather not), but those moaning sounds were...a little odd.


Oftentimes, people call us while they're driving. Um...wouldn't you think that your benefits are important enough for you to wait for a moment while you're not distracted with other things (like, I don't know, maybe the road)??? Plus, oftentimes I have to give information that the client has to write down. Not really a smart idea to do that while you're driving.

OK, um...maybe I should really go get that drink now...

[calulu]

It's nearly a full moon and I can tell from here. Getting all creeps, weirdos and oddballs tonight.

another one - Don't call and give me a competitors order number while insisting it is ours, get shirty with me when I explain 50 times it's from another company and then huff and puff out the product code and say 'Are you Company So-N-So' after I've explained 50 times you've called the wrong freaking place. The first time I tell you that order number is sequenced by our competition please say thank you and hang the fuck up without further drama!

[MsCrankypants]

I get something along similar lines - the 800 phone number we use for our county only used to be a statewide 800 number. So I'll get people in other areas trying to call for stuff about their case, and although I keep telling them I have no access to their case data and they need to call their county directly, they keep insisting I can indeed pull it up on my magic computer, and why can't they use this number like they used to. Um, because it's no longer 5 years ago and THINGS HAVE CHANGED. Get used to it, get a piece of paper and a pen and take the number I'm about to give you. Or better yet, stop flailing about like a helpless one-celled organism and get a damn phone book. Just please, please, get off my fucking phone already!

[Blade_Raver]

Working various customer service/tech support jobs, when I ask for their phone number, they rattle it off (including area code) at a rate of 10 million miles per second. And then when I didn't get it the first time they get upset at me.

Or when they tell me the phone number except for the area code.

[smileyeagle1021]

Vent over. I'm feeling a bit better now, and am going in search of chocolate and booze (hmmmm...chocolate booze???)

*offers Choclatini*

and I hate the people who expect psychic powers... I still get it at the hotel even (though not as much as at the call center)

the only other pet peeve I have to add to the list is the people who clearly aren't fluent in english yet refuse to be transferred to a speaker of their native language... look, I know you are trying to learn english and I think it is admirable... but this isn't a language education center, it is a business, just talk in the language you are most comfortable conducting business in so we can get this transaction over with and move onto the next one, kthnxbye.

[Anriana]

2) Spouse of account holder: sorry, I need your spouse to say its okay. I know its a pain in the ass but if you don't like it and he don't like it, HAVE YOUR NAME ADDED TO THE ACCOUNT!

But I've sent you guys a check with MY name on it for the past 30 years! That's redickulus!

The pisses me off the most, My job is on the line because of that bullshit.

"Ma'am, I apologize, but we do have other customers in line and we don't want to make them wait."

"Sir, I'd like to get you your information as soon as possible so you can enjoy the rest of your day."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Your balance is $XX.XX."


I would always say stuff like that when I was working on AHT. Now I just ignore them and do other things while mumbling an occasional "mhm."

[MsCrankypants]

Ugh. I dread calls from those non-English speakers who don't speak Spanish. Even with an interpreter, the call takes 3 times as long as a normal call because the interpreters don't understand our line of business either, so you waste a lot of time explaining basic eligibility stuff to them so they can explain it to the client. And the clients always have a billion questions, and you end up having to repeat yourself about a billion times.

The interpreter service my employer uses isn't very good, either - the interpreters get in arguments with the clients and will hang up mid-call without warning, they'll conduct business for other jobs while on the phone, and don't exactly go out of their way to create a quiet environment - sometimes we'll hear pet birds tweeting, kids playing or music blasting - and it's the interpreter's (they're home-based).

From what I've heard, though, the Spanish interpreters are the worst - so I'm glad I don't have to use them, ever.