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A rare case where I agree with an SC.
Now this is a rarity where I actually sympathized with the SC for once. And yes, I still sympathized with her even after the SC mode was fully activated. Here's the basic rundown...
A member had a wire in her backyard. My 'wire in her backyard', I mean that one of the high-tension wires running from pole to pole ended up cut and grounded somewhere between her back fence and her patio door. She had some nephews over and wanted them to play outside in the backyard (a rarity in and of itself nowadays; if this woman hadn't heard of the Wii, I'd personally nominate her for sainthood, but I don't wanna go to Fratching tonight. I really don't.), except the wire put them at a serious risk. I wouldn't want my kids going out back and possibly becoming corndogs just because they were playing tag and didn't see the wire back there.
Prior to my talking to her, though, she'd already spoken to someone else in my call center (or it could've been the Filipino call center; that part was neither clear nor even brought up), and the earliest we were able to set up a technician visit for her was tomorrow. She was understandably pissed, and demanded a supervisor from the first call... who put her on hold for roughly 15 minutes before she eventually said 'fuck this' and called us back.
This is where I come in: A guy who'd literally been sitting semi-idle for a half-hour prior to the call. Whether it was the end of the world or not doesn't matter because it was a relatively peaceful day until my phone alerted me to an incoming call.
Me: "Thank you for c--"
SC: (launches into a full-blown tirade regarding the story so far, mentioning her nephews so many times I thought I'd have had photos somehow shoved into my ear through my headset)
Okay, she's venting. Given the story, I don't blame her one bit for being pissed. I take the phone number off the caller ID on my phone and use that to look her up. Sure enough, a tech request was scheduled for tomorrow.
SC: "...and I believe it's bad customer service to make me wait until tomorrow for a technician to come out because it's a risk to my nephews' safety and it's a nice day outside, so I don't want them to spend it indoors!"
Me: "Mrs. Customer, I agree with you 150% on that. With a situation like that, we need to make sure to get that technician out as quickly as humanly possible. If you're willing to let me put you on hold for just a moment, I'll see if I can get that service call changed to an emergency status so we can get the tech out today."
SC: "...alright. You people have had me on hold for the past half-hour; a few more minutes won't hurt."
I put her on hold long enough to talk to Dispatch about the ticket and whether we can have it pushed through the system faster. Then I found out why we can't push her ticket up the queue: Even with every technician called in to bring the queue down, it'd be impossible for her to get the wire taken care of. Now I'm pissed. I thank Dispatch for the info and switch back over to Mama Bear.
Me: "Thank you very much for holding, Mrs. Customer. I just finished talking to Dispatch and although they understand the situation perfectly and have already flagged your ticket as an emergency, all of our technicians are already booked up. We even had to pull some off of their days off to--"
SC: "WHAT?! If the neighbor's house was on fire and the lines were brought down because of that, would you say 'We'll come out tomorrow to fix it'?!"
And that's the remark that earned her SC status. God knows why I still agreed with her about the severity of the situation.
Me: "No, ma'am. I'd be saying 'grab what you can carry and call the fire department while you run for safety.' And it's not even a matter of beaurocracy in this case, it's a matter of manpower; we're already stretched to the limit in your city."
SC: "You--"
Me: "Believe me, if I could jump over there and get the wire put back the way it's supposed to be, you'd have heard dead air for the past fifteen seconds."
SC: "So would I--"
Me: "And I do apologize for the wait time, on behalf of myself as well as <provider>, but there's absolutely nothing we can do at this point to speed your ticket up."
SC: "Th--"
Me: "And I do want you to know that I'm every bit as angry about the situation as you are, but the only thing we can do is wait. I'm sorry."
That got her to back off. Not enough, because she still wanted to speak to a supervisor at that point, but enough to realize that I was just as much at a loss as she was. Fuck, I'd be threatening to switch providers at that point if it were my own kids (which I don't have, and let's not go there) and I think that message got across crystal-clear to her. I put in a call for a supervisor, brief him on the call and everything I'd done at that point, and he backed me up on our end results. She eventually agreed that all three of us were at a loss for what to do besides wait and hung up.
I'm just lucky my first break of the day became available halfway through the call, because Jesus Christ was I pissed.
A member had a wire in her backyard. My 'wire in her backyard', I mean that one of the high-tension wires running from pole to pole ended up cut and grounded somewhere between her back fence and her patio door. She had some nephews over and wanted them to play outside in the backyard (a rarity in and of itself nowadays; if this woman hadn't heard of the Wii, I'd personally nominate her for sainthood, but I don't wanna go to Fratching tonight. I really don't.), except the wire put them at a serious risk. I wouldn't want my kids going out back and possibly becoming corndogs just because they were playing tag and didn't see the wire back there.
Prior to my talking to her, though, she'd already spoken to someone else in my call center (or it could've been the Filipino call center; that part was neither clear nor even brought up), and the earliest we were able to set up a technician visit for her was tomorrow. She was understandably pissed, and demanded a supervisor from the first call... who put her on hold for roughly 15 minutes before she eventually said 'fuck this' and called us back.
This is where I come in: A guy who'd literally been sitting semi-idle for a half-hour prior to the call. Whether it was the end of the world or not doesn't matter because it was a relatively peaceful day until my phone alerted me to an incoming call.
Me: "Thank you for c--"
SC: (launches into a full-blown tirade regarding the story so far, mentioning her nephews so many times I thought I'd have had photos somehow shoved into my ear through my headset)
Okay, she's venting. Given the story, I don't blame her one bit for being pissed. I take the phone number off the caller ID on my phone and use that to look her up. Sure enough, a tech request was scheduled for tomorrow.
SC: "...and I believe it's bad customer service to make me wait until tomorrow for a technician to come out because it's a risk to my nephews' safety and it's a nice day outside, so I don't want them to spend it indoors!"
Me: "Mrs. Customer, I agree with you 150% on that. With a situation like that, we need to make sure to get that technician out as quickly as humanly possible. If you're willing to let me put you on hold for just a moment, I'll see if I can get that service call changed to an emergency status so we can get the tech out today."
SC: "...alright. You people have had me on hold for the past half-hour; a few more minutes won't hurt."
I put her on hold long enough to talk to Dispatch about the ticket and whether we can have it pushed through the system faster. Then I found out why we can't push her ticket up the queue: Even with every technician called in to bring the queue down, it'd be impossible for her to get the wire taken care of. Now I'm pissed. I thank Dispatch for the info and switch back over to Mama Bear.
Me: "Thank you very much for holding, Mrs. Customer. I just finished talking to Dispatch and although they understand the situation perfectly and have already flagged your ticket as an emergency, all of our technicians are already booked up. We even had to pull some off of their days off to--"
SC: "WHAT?! If the neighbor's house was on fire and the lines were brought down because of that, would you say 'We'll come out tomorrow to fix it'?!"
And that's the remark that earned her SC status. God knows why I still agreed with her about the severity of the situation.
Me: "No, ma'am. I'd be saying 'grab what you can carry and call the fire department while you run for safety.' And it's not even a matter of beaurocracy in this case, it's a matter of manpower; we're already stretched to the limit in your city."
SC: "You--"
Me: "Believe me, if I could jump over there and get the wire put back the way it's supposed to be, you'd have heard dead air for the past fifteen seconds."
SC: "So would I--"
Me: "And I do apologize for the wait time, on behalf of myself as well as <provider>, but there's absolutely nothing we can do at this point to speed your ticket up."
SC: "Th--"
Me: "And I do want you to know that I'm every bit as angry about the situation as you are, but the only thing we can do is wait. I'm sorry."
That got her to back off. Not enough, because she still wanted to speak to a supervisor at that point, but enough to realize that I was just as much at a loss as she was. Fuck, I'd be threatening to switch providers at that point if it were my own kids (which I don't have, and let's not go there) and I think that message got across crystal-clear to her. I put in a call for a supervisor, brief him on the call and everything I'd done at that point, and he backed me up on our end results. She eventually agreed that all three of us were at a loss for what to do besides wait and hung up.
I'm just lucky my first break of the day became available halfway through the call, because Jesus Christ was I pissed.
. I said there is no way in hell he's doing that, call the electric company and he agreed....and I think she went out to fuck with it herself. Somehow she didn't get electrocuted.
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