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I just got my first call center job with Progressive Insurance about 3 months ago. The atmosphere and training are actually really great, and 95% of callers are easy to deal with and I even have fun on some calls, but man, there's that minority that can just ruin your day. I had this grumpy fuckhead the other day who was whining about how our automatic withdrawal overdrew his account because the money was withdrawn a day LATE, so he knew about it, spent the money, now wants to whine, whines about our returned payment fee, whines about installments fees, whines about how everyone is picking his pocket, I do my best gritted teeth explanation of e-mail reminders, oh yeah, he wants his e-mail removed because he doesn't want us to have it, and he didn't get the reminder either. Most of my calls are pretty much like the commercials, I answer questions/make changes to the policy, then have fun giving away discounts, but when you get those belligerent people who haven't paid a freaking bill since October and want to know why they're cancelled, and they never saw anything ever about it in the mail etc., makes you want to claw at your eyes. The indignation they can conjure up is offensive to me. Why would we extend service to you if we're not getting paid!? "Oh hae, you made a partial payment of $40 in October and got into a $50,000 wreck today, here's a big fat check" *goes out of business*.
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Jan 12, 2011 23:12
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Aww, I graduated academy training today at Progressive and they gave me a plushie IRV: I know the general consensus of a call center is a toxic environment, but I've really never worked at a better place, everyone is so cool and upbeat.
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Jan 18, 2011 04:40
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I had a great moment the other day. The insurance police added a livein boyfriend driver to someones policy when she called in to get a quote, was quoted an increase, then said "no thanks". So she calls in furious, never had her authorization to add him, etc. (read your contract some time people), and I let her know we sent numerous memos indicating that she could provide his correct information and exclude him from coverage if she wanted. Her: But then if he gets into an accident I'm screwed! This fantastic awkward silence ensues and I just kinda say "well you could pay to cover him on the policy..." like it was this CRAZY idea. Anyway, escalated up the chain, so dusted my hands of it.
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Feb 1, 2011 14:32
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That's one thing I like about Progressive, they don't use handle time as a metric, mostly it's callbacks, the biggest metric is "one call resolution", so handling every piece of business they have without them having to call back for, I think 3 weeks.
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Feb 2, 2011 03:09
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Apparently they're shooting for an 80% transfer rate with our survey. Most people are pretty cool about taking it, especially if you just helped them with a complicated situation. Solving insurance problems is nice since they can lead to legal problems with the state.
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Feb 3, 2011 01:20
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I had a guy the other day threaten legal action for asking him to sign a form that he already signed... 10 years ago. Okay, I dunno why the original form isn't still valid, maybe the ever changing world of car insurance dictates we need a new one, just freaking sign it and send it back. I went into the policy later to read how the escalation handled it, and he said if we raised his rates for not signing the form, he'd start a lawsuit  I will never be able to understand the mindset of these people, their thought patterns are completely alien to me. "Sign a form!? I signed that form 10 years ago!! This is bullshit!"
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Feb 9, 2011 17:54
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The most amusing part of my job so far is dealing with situations where you fully expect to get justifiably reamed out by a customer due to another rep's misinformation or something like that, and they're just cool with whatever the situation is. I had a rep tell someone it'd only cost 500 dollars to get her policy caught up to date, but in reality, between the past due balance, fees, and the policy renewal it was more like $1550. So I had the fun task of telling her that not only was her policy NOT up to date and paid for, but she owed another $1000 on top of that. So as I'm crunching numbers and explaining the situation to her and no matter what I do, I get 4 digits to throw at her, I'm pulling at my collar and finally "I need to collect a payment of $1,026 today to clear the past due balance and renew the policy" .... ... "Okay well lets do it cause I can't drive around without car insurance" PHEW, then I just launch into all the ways I'm going to save her money afterward, god.
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Feb 11, 2011 04:37
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I've never worked call center before, and I had to leave early today because I'm sick. I've never called off work sick, I usually just soldier through it, but after 10 calls with multiple mutes for coughing, and my voice disappearing in the middle of important information, I knew I wasn't going to make it through another 75-80 calls. What's the seasoned pro procedure? If you got any problem talking consider the day a lost cause? Ugh.
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Feb 23, 2011 18:24
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We have same day vacation time usage, well, vacation isn't correct, cause vacation and sick time are bundled into one (admittedly generous) package. I put in a request but it got denied, so I just invoked my right to go home sick, cause I wasn't going to make it the whole day without puking up phlegm or something godawful.
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Feb 23, 2011 21:54
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I'm just glad handle time isn't a metric at my job. 55 minute website registration marathons are my little breaks of heaven.
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Feb 25, 2011 00:08
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Cracked 100 calls today. gently caress my life folks.
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Mar 1, 2011 04:54
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I'm really getting into rate change battles with customers, especially piddling amounts of rate change. I was arguing with a customer for about 25 minutes about why his rate went up $18 for 6 months. No, not $18 PER month, over 6 MONTHS. You can explain the concept of insurance, risk, how it's not a zero sum game, a personal thing, etc. but if someone doesn't want to understand they never will. They assume that if they personally have no accidents or violations then their rate can't POSSIBLY go up, nevermind every other factor in the world, which is what we use to stay in business. Oh well, they're fun calls.
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Mar 2, 2011 20:02
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I was surprised when I learned we do use gender as a rating factor. I guess there's enough statistical data to override the seemingly obvious bias factors. I wonder if there's a "wish list" of rating factors that insurance companies are salivating at getting passed into use. But yeah, it sucks trying to explain to an elderly couple on a fixed income that their rates went up $48 for 6 months cause they got a year older. Credit score, or "financial responsibility" is a lovely one to explain too. "Hey, we ordered a credit report and it dropped like a rock from A1 to J1, enjoy paying $500 more a year!"
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Mar 2, 2011 21:23
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I like how people magically think that rating factors are going to vary wildly between companies. I can guarantee most companies have similar rates, it's just what incentives they offer to first term customers, and probably how they internally rate against you for accidents. But every insurance company is regulated the same by their state's dept. of insurance, so wild variance is impossible. I love when people tell me they're going to walk across the street to get a better deal because we raised their rates on their next term because of their 2 speeding tickets through school zones. Hey I hope you quoted your new insurance with your violations and that accident we waived for you as well, enjoy the rate hike once they run your motor vehicle report! Eughc.
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Mar 7, 2011 02:39
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It's never a plus that you drive all the time. Some states have surcharges and discounts based on the amount of driving you do. In california your (estimated, no proof required) annual mileage directly affects your rate. "Responsibility" is a huge factor in rating in general, that's why we use credit score, education, and in some instances, your industry/job as a rating factor. The actuarial gods have decided that responsibility in life = responsibility in the car, which = less risk in accidents, which means less premium owed for insurance.
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Mar 8, 2011 16:50
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Kitsch! posted:I have an interview for a CSR job tomorrow morning with a Groupon-style website (Coincidentally, just saw a banner ad for it at the top of the forums. Maybe that's a sign.). The pay is meh, but full benefits after a month. Pretty much looking for any full time job at this point though, plus discounts on merchandise is always a perk I suppose. Depends on your ability to depersonalize what's going on within the calls. People are going to say "You", "You people" and etc. and blame you very angrily for things at times. As long as you remember that "you" are a multimillion dollar company and be a conduit for the guidelines and regulations and let it go as soon as you hang up, you'll be fine. Sometimes there are people who can just, I dunno how to explain it, make you loving red line as soon as they start talking. These spectacular douches are few and far between though, some kind of weirdo loner who has an aura of anti-social angst that can probably make a baby deer cry out at 50 yards. I had a guy the other day who made me take a ten minute when I was on a good roll. He was whining about a problem or other, and I explained to him what was going on and why, and that it was just a system thing, and he kept saying "I know what you're saying about what the system is doing, but it shouldn't do that", and he just kept saying that it shouldn't do that, until I finally got him off the line. I was ready to explode by the end, just the way he said it and what he was saying, rargh.
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Mar 10, 2011 04:26
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We have an automatic withdrawal dealie at my job (with a discount!), which gets people into all kinds of poo poo, which bugs the gently caress out of me. We send various notifications that a withdrawal is going to happen, they agree to the terms and conditions that if there aren't enough funds, it's their fault, etc. And still I get people abloobloobloo'ing about NSF fees. I had a guy complain once because the money was withdrawn a day LATER than he expected. This just boggles my loving mind, do you think because we didn't take it out right away (because the withdrawal day was a Sunday), that somehow you dodged your insurance payment and you're free to go buy a few six packs at Walmart and or whatever dumb thing you did? It's literally always our fault if they get overdrafted. On top of that, nobody ever reads their mail, nobody ever received the voicemail, nobody ever checks their e-mail, they never knew, nobody told them etc. It's this magic barrier that customers can put up and it's such a pain in the rear end when they do, because you can't refute them on it, so you have to get around it the best you can.
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Mar 10, 2011 20:26
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Had my first hardcore curse out today, was pretty amusing. Essentially, this guy's policy cancelled after about 4 weeks of non-payment, we let him reinstate the policy with the past due balance, since he did this so late in the game, we sent him an invoice for February and March rolled into one payment (policy was a few days from cancellation again by this point). So he calls wondering about the HUGE amount due, I explain that since he recently reinstated, and we didn't have enough time to send out an invoice for February, we AS A COURTESY, extended the February payment a full month into March and gave him until his March due date to pay both. He starts yelling about the reinstatement process, indicating that because he was cancelled for a few weeks, that his payment should have paid for 30 days of coverage going forward, rather than reinstating the policy without a lapse for payment owed backward. I explained reinstatement without a lapse, why we offer it, the benefits, etc, but he came up with some flimsy analogy to cable television, and how he essentially paid for something he didn't "need" or "use", and it was a ripoff, etc (I guess we should start refunding premiums at the end of terms when they don't have a claim!?  ), anyway, by the end he was just lobbing 4 letter words at me, and just to be a dick, cause the language doesn't really bother me, being born and bred in Philadelphia, I reiterated the cancellation process going on, and disconnected him,  So fun.
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Mar 15, 2011 02:02
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I'm working a 4x10 schedule, so I work Mon/Tues, get Wed/Thu off, then work Fri/Sat and get Sunday off. It's actually loving great.
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Mar 21, 2011 13:13
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Abuse calls are kinda fun, I had one click on the line at 5:05 and just let him vent it all out until 5:29, then reiterated once more why Progressive did what it did (we were totally in the right) and told him if I wouldn't listen to anymore of his abuse and considered our business finished. Oh yay, 5:30, time to go home 
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Mar 24, 2011 04:10
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So this old fruitcake called in, started the call by asking me my last name, so I knew it was going to be good. I give her my extension number. She wants to preface everything she's about to say by having me note that she's a good customer who pays on time all the time, etc. I acknowledge this. She then proceeds to tell me that she will be canceling her insurance policy as soon as possible, because she heard Peter B Lewis (a "chairperson" and figurehead, essentially of the company) is donating 8 BILLION DOLLARS to the American Civil Liberties Union, being (literally) a card carrying member, I was delighted to listen to this crazy dingbat. She essentially said they're an awful terrorist organization that is seeking to overthrow the US Federal Government. I started reading a "Peter B Lewis" script we have, because these calls happen at times, she interrupts me halfway to go ".. and in your latest commercial, Flo says 'power to the people', so you can see where THAT'S going" Then she proceeded to tell me that she's a very influential person and when we get THOUSANDS of calls to cancel policies because of this, don't be surprised. *click* Anyway, yeah, fantastic.
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Apr 3, 2011 01:07
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Bovine Delight posted:You must work in CRT. Naw, just regular old schmoe servicing policies. It was clear right from the start of the call that she just wanted to say her dumb speech and get on her merry way. What the hell ever. I'll kick them to CRT when it's worth a shot.
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Apr 4, 2011 04:10
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I just got eligible for overtime and it's pretty much as soon as I put it on my schedule it's approved, so I have about 16 hours worth the next 2 weeks..... sigh. I'm going to be so burnt out so fast, but I can't resist that fat check.
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Apr 14, 2011 21:18
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I hate when people get indignant that their card was rejected. Dude I dunno why the hell your card was declined, it doesn't says "REJECTED: CARDHOLDER IS A BROKE LOSER gently caress", you don't have to go "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE, THAT ACCOUNT HAS FORTY SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS IN IT!" why don't you just assume there's something wrong with the card part and call your bank instead of having me try to run it 3 times. We process about 50,000 credit cards a day, and we like making money, I'm sure our system is working. tia.
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Apr 20, 2011 14:18
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If you've never done call center before, you'll learn in time how to deal with angry customers. At first you just apologize a lot and fall over yourself to try and appease them, but with time you'll learn when to push back on them a little, chastise lightly, and get them under control to get their problem solved. It's a confidence thing that will only come with time. In the meantime, if someone is angry just let them vent it all out. There's a couple types of anger, one is the emptying balloon, where they'll calm down, the other is the filling balloon, where they'll just get more steam until they explode. The latter usually have to get escalated no matter what, even if your company is in no way wrong.
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Apr 21, 2011 14:17
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 Why is my bill $300 You missed march's payment, so as a courtesy, we rolled the march payment into april. oh, I see, can I get this extended if you pay the march balance, we can extend april's out for you i may call back and do that, it's really hard to get these bills under control *generic sympathy statement* btw, do you have any kind of insurance for custom parts? sure, we have coverage for equipment and custom parts permanently installed on the vehicle i want to insure my rims how much coverage do you need? they cost $4500  okay
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May 3, 2011 20:40
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Yeah, one of the best phrases to hammer into someone is that something is "system determined". Why is my rate x? System determined. Can you stop this cancellation? Sorry, system determined. Why am I being surcharged x dollars? System. Determined. It's not a lie, but it's something more than "No, I can't/won't do that for you.", and if they still pushback, then explain that you can't do anything in your position, but, someone higher up than you may be able to *hint hint, please ask to escalate so I can dump you in their lap*. Course, you can't escalate EVERYBODY, but for that one call a day where they just don't want to understand, want you to explain it anyway, and won't hang up until they get the result they want, hey, let escalation handle it.
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May 4, 2011 13:48
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Another trick I've learned is to tell them to grab a pen and paper (if its a dollar and cents issue). I'm an expert at reading billing transaction histories, and complicated ones are my favorites, but it's hard sometimes to relay that information completely over the phone, even if you go step by step, so have them write it down along with you. After that, the only barrier they can throw up is misinformation (they told me my last payment caught me up, etc), or righteous indignation. It's hard to argue with the facts when they're staring you in the face.
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May 5, 2011 11:30
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My wave was 5 people and only 1 got fired. The biggest wave that came through when I started was 17 people, 12 of them are still there, and most of them just quit or walked off the job. I know "high turnover" is a Thing with call centers, but a lot of it is people walking off once they realize they can't do the gig. RE: Misinformation, it's pretty easy to get a call pulled at my job if someone is saying they were grossly misinformed and it comes down to dollars and cents. I had an assist rep walk by my desk and stop to tell me he had the pleasure of pulling a call I was on, and playing it for the customer over the line where I gave an explicit and detailed billing change breakdown so there was no way we were on the hook for his overdraft fees, good times.
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May 10, 2011 12:58
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man thats gross posted:God I would have loved this. There were honestly like 10 forms, three phone calls, and at least one hand-job involved in getting a call pulled in my centre. It was infuriating to be placed in a "my word against yours" situation over and over and over again. Even when it was noted the customer would just accuse the rep of lying. That would drive me nuts, I only get pushback on pulling calls occasionally, and even that annoys me. Things like "well maybe the rep misinformed them at the time, but we sent an e-mail about the new payment, we did our part to notify them", it's like, that's not the point, I don't know where that e-mail went or who read or didn't read it, what I do know is that it can be conclusively answered if we just listen to the danged call, grrr!
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May 11, 2011 03:03
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I'm kinda frustrated lately. Apparently my "aux" time is a problem (time off phones), but I answer about 60% more calls than the rest of my team. I take on average, 95-105, and the team average is about 65. Handle time isn't a stat at my job, instead they care more about first call resolution, and aux time. I've been told time and again that my handle time is too low. I average around 3-3.5 minutes, whereas the team average is 5.5-6 minutes. Okay! So I see where/why I take so many more calls. Does this bother me? Not really. My one call resolution stat is in line with requirements, and exceeding a bit, so I'm taking twice as many calls and handling them just as well so where's the problem? Well apparently I take too much time between calls, and/or off of the phones. Just because I can fire out 3 calls in 10 minutes, then take a breather for 2-3 minutes, my aux time gets a little out of whack, and it's beyond what it should be. I'm an outlier because even though I take the average amount of time per call between calls, because I take so many calls, it's too much. GO FIG. I kinda think that since my productivity is wildly better than expectation, I should get some slack cut in this area, but I'm on a program to get my aux time reduced about 40% in the next 2 months, so basically I can look forward to jacking my average calls per day up into the 130's and 140's, and having no time to unwrap my brain after each call. I don't waste time not understanding the problem of the transactions, I don't waste time calling assist, or putting people on hold to confirm things. I know my job, I do it really well, and it's not good enough. EDIT: Forgot to mention that it's the peak call season right now. Which means if you go into queue, you are GETTING a call. There is no mystery about it, as soon as you hit that button, BOOP BOOP, you got a call. The only time there's even a breather while in queue is in a lunch time lull or near the end of the day when people finally stop loving calling, but I leave about 15 minutes after that slowdown.
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May 14, 2011 03:27
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I've asked coaches, I've asked my supe, I've asked coworkers: how the hell do I increase my call time? Do I put people on hold for no reason and take my breaks there? Do I make bullshit small talk about things they don't care about/I don't want to talk about? I take my time on fun calls when someone is receptive and playful and wants to have a back and forth, you know how many calls that is? 1 out of 20. I dunno what else to do, I'm already hiding my time between calls in other places, if they catch onto that, I'll have to quit for being too good? I dunno.
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May 14, 2011 03:51
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Maybe. I guess I just assume everyone is like me and wants to get off the line as fast as possible. I've learned a few tricks to get a breather. Once the "peak call season" crap dies down, it'll probably be more manageable.
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May 14, 2011 03:59
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Well, I had a metrics meeting today with my supervisor, where I basically diplomatically went on the same rant I went on in here, and she was actually very receptive and understanding. Especially since the numbers jibed with what I was saying (twice as many calls, exceeding target for first call resolution, i.e. getting peoples business done accurately and completely) She basically flat out told me that I need to take less calls, there's a system in place beyond me and her that we need to work within in order to be "great" employees, and even though I'm doing well, I'm not going to get recognized (i.e. bonuses) unless I work more in the system (which means getting my aux time down). She's going to give me help getting my call time up, show me how to do more thorough account reviews, things like that, so I don't burn out. All in all, I'm pretty satisfied with how that went.
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May 15, 2011 17:39
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Nope, insurance company. They're more interested in a "complete customer experience" rather than how fast you can get em off the line.
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May 17, 2011 04:38
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I guess it can always be worse! Yikes! We have a "services" advertisement webpage that pop ups showing what offers are available to the particular customer we're talking with, but it's more a nuisance than anything. They expect us to attempt to fit everything into the call, but they don't really enforce it very strictly. The most it will do is ding you if that particular call gets audited. They understand that most calls you can't really fit in a pitch for renters insurance, or whatever. And as much as I hate our quirky policy editor, sheesh, 60 seconds to update an e-mail? Holy cow. EDIT: And I'd like to get licensed and actually try the sales side of the business, but unfortunately it came down from on high that if they need "blended" reps in the future, it's going to be done with sales -> service, rather than the other way around, which makes sense I guess, since licensing is the expensive part. With that door closed, I'll probably start drifting into other skillsets and specialty groups once my year in the trenches is up. Loving Life Partner fucked around with this message at 06:26 on May 19, 2011 |
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May 19, 2011 06:24
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I used to feel bad when people were set on automatic withdrawals and we would withdraw hundreds of extra dollars due to whatever dumb reason. Your situation sounds harder to deal with, in my case it's usually because they ignored a sales representative/agent who told them to sign everything they got in the mail, they ignored the packet we mailed them, they ignored the reminder memo, the final memo talking about the increase, the e-mail stating that the withdrawal would be considerably higher, and they usually missed a phonecall about the whole process. The only time they want to talk/listen is after we've already withdrawn 300 additional dollars 3 days ago.
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May 19, 2011 18:58
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There was so much fraud at my company in New York state we had to institute ridiculous provisions to prevent it or else we'd have to pull out. Basically there was a ring of people headed by a shady doctor bilking us out of millions in PIP claims. Most of the vehicles we were insuring for them never existed or were VINs gotten from junkyards. Fun times.
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May 25, 2011 03:11
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I hate doing online site troubleshooting because there are so many ways to inadvertently insult intelligence to try and get to the bottom of the issue. The biggest landmine is making sure people typed the name of the website right. I can't do anything if you typo'd or misspelled the company name and are on some dumb parked domain with a bunch of bullshit links.
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Jun 1, 2011 20:57
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 16:03 |
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Hahaha, I hate the "NAME RANK SERIAL NUMBER" people. HI THIS IS JOE BLOW, 112 MAIN STREET, SOCIAL 123-45-4444, BIRTHDAY THE 4TH MONTH THE 7TH DAY 1953!
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Jun 1, 2011 23:24
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