Important Thing To Omit.........

[TelephoneAngel]

So here is the story of today's most annoying and sucky customer.Now I've eaten and chilled out a bit.

The customer was very polite but he gave me a rambling story about what the problem was which took me a good twenty minutes to decipher.Then it took me a further ten minutes to locate a technician who might be able to help with the problem.

And the technician said "oh yes he called earlier. (There were no notes on the comuter system telling me this) And I told him I would call him in an hour when I had checked what the problem was."It had only been twenty minutes since he called.

So I went back to the customer and said "Did you call earlier and did they say they would call you in an hour after they had looked at the problem?"
Customer replied that this was correct.

I replied that he must wait till the technician called him after looking at the problem as he had already been advised.


And not once in the twenty minutes of trying to determine what his problem was did he tell me he had already spoken to a technician this morning.

[PatchO'Black]

Ah, yes, I recognize that classification of "customer". It is a cross between "The Ramblin' Man" and "Time is Relative (to what I think it should be)".

[Dave1982]

He was probably hoping to get a different answer.....

[bainsidhe]

Oh I hate that! We're a small company and there are really only 3-4 of us answering phones during the day, yet a customer will call and ask 3 different people the same question, because he/she didn't want to wait for an answer. Keep in mind, the reason for the wait is because we have to check with production or another department and we haven't responded because we don't have an answer yet. So instead of one person waiting for an answer, three of us will be working on it and then *other department* gets annoyed because 3 of us are asking the same thing. Nothing like doing double-work, grr.

[Hyndis]

Oh I hate that! We're a small company and there are really only 3-4 of us answering phones during the day, yet a customer will call and ask 3 different people the same question, because he/she didn't want to wait for an answer. Keep in mind, the reason for the wait is because we have to check with production or another department and we haven't responded because we don't have an answer yet. So instead of one person waiting for an answer, three of us will be working on it and then *other department* gets annoyed because 3 of us are asking the same thing. Nothing like doing double-work, grr.

Yup, same with me. We're not a big company. Everyone sits right next to each other. Generally there are only 2, maybe 3 people answering phones. If you call back again and again you're going to keep reaching the exact same person.

Oddly, often times people don't recognize that they are talking to the same person even though they called less than an hour ago.

We also have a trouble ticket system to request help. The trouble ticket system is by far the most efficient way to get things done. Without it it simply would not be possible to get to everyone each day. With a trouble ticket I can handle most problems, from start to finish, in 5 minutes.

Trying to do things on the phone is a nightmare. It often times takes the person 5 minutes to even start to describe the problem. I could have resolved their entire issue in that time if they had bothered to create a ticket. Also I can't actually do anything without a documentation trail, which is why the ticket system exists. So all that time they spend blathering about me...okay, thats nice. But I can't do anything. You're wasting your time and my time. Make a ticket and you will get the issue taken care of.

I'm literally 400-500% more efficient on the trouble ticket system than through the phone call mostly due to the inability of people to describe what is going on, or to even accurately convey important information. Like their name and address. At least with the ticket system there is a proof that it was in fact the customer who screwed up and provided incorrect information.

Yet people endlessly call back, again and again, trying to line jump. I can't actually do anything over the phone. Company policy. Phones are for tech support only. Don't have a tech support issue? Make a ticket. Its very aggravating. Sometimes I just feel like doing this:

"I'm sorry for the delay, but it is taking longer than usual due to repeated inquiries about the status of tickets. These inquiries are answered by the same people who do the tickets which delays the entire process. I apologize for the inconvenience."