Scooby-Doo

[Arwyn Q]

This reminds me of my hatred for our corporate website. People go on there looking for products and there's a tool that allows you to see if your local store has it. At least twice a week if not more, I get someone coming in looking for a super-obscure toy that the website told them we had in stock. Sometimes it is something we have carried but haven't had in for a few months. Other times it's something I've never even heard of and have never seen. A few times people have gotten belligerent with me because "the website said you have it!"

Sorry snookums, the website is a danged liar.

[Rapscallion]

Ah, Velma...Fred can have Daphne. Velma has brains, and she's not danger prone.

Well, I always thought of it like this. Which of the ladies was more likely to have read the karma sutra?

Rapscallion

[xaenon]

A call center handling in-store questions called in by people outside the store?

That's magically dumbasslicious. There's no way the call center reps are going to know every store's product assortment.

I've been told that 'distant' real-time CS operations are the wave of the future. Apparently there's a fast food chain that has an 'order center' that services ALL their restaurants. Doesn't matter if you're buying a hamburger in Harlem or French Fries in Fresno - all orders are processed through this ONE place. I don't understand the logic of how it makes things better, because you still have to have employees in the actual restaurant to take the order and key it into a console, which then gets sent via internet to this magical service center, processed, then sent BACK to the restaurant for the people working the grill to fill.

[emt_cookies]

A call center handling in-store questions called in by people outside the store?

That's magically dumbasslicious. There's no way the call center reps are going to know every store's product assortment.

I think the first number listed when you Google our store routes it to the call center. The call center is a nightmare because no one ever knows they are talking to the call center. Sometimes they will insist they talked to a man last night in the toy department when there was no guy in that department or covering that department or at the service desk.

Occasionally the call center will tell us they were helping a customer, but most of the time they don't. More then once I've had a customer tell me that they want the person that was helping them before because they were walking to the floor to see if we had the item. Too bad that person was in the call center and they just transferred me.

[Racket_Man]

I've been told that 'distant' real-time CS operations are the wave of the future. Apparently there's a fast food chain that has an 'order center' that services ALL their restaurants. Doesn't matter if you're buying a hamburger in Harlem or French Fries in Fresno - all orders are processed through this ONE place. I don't understand the logic of how it makes things better, because you still have to have employees in the actual restaurant to take the order and key it into a console, which then gets sent via internet to this magical service center, processed, then sent BACK to the restaurant for the people working the grill to fill.

that wave is most likely already here.

a while back I read someplace that McDonalds was already doing just this ie. drive-thru orders were being taken not by in-store workers but were routed (however that was done either telco or internet) to some order center (not really a callcenter) and the order was sent to the store and processed and paid for.

I do not know how wide spread that practice is but it is all done in the name of saving labor $$'s.

my pizza franchise tried an unsucessfull "experiment" with call center ordering about a year ago that ended in very pissed off customer and poor over the phone "customer service". the "CSR reps" were rude and could not seem to get orders correct (we had approx. a 20 - 30% incorrect order rate hmmm not our fault) and really did NOT know our product line or mix. they spent SO much time trying to upsell shit that customers just asked to be passed to the store to speak with a manager.

Very bad times for us drivers as we and the "store CSRs" got bitched at constantly.