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Hi call center thread! I actually enjoy call center work! As long as it's exclusively inbound. If I'm ever asked to move from support to collections I'm outta here.
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Aug 1, 2016 23:13
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 22:55 |
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I just had the wonderful privilege of sitting across the aisle from a rep who took a 20 min call from a guy who's already called twice before and was told a supervisor would call him back. Over $.21. Some choice quotes since I'm sure everyone with call center experience can fill in the blanks. I'm amazed she didn't snap further. "My manager is unavailable at this time but like we already told you, he will call you as soon as he is available and has information to provide you in regards to a resolution." "No sir. I'm sorry, sir." "I understand, sir, but my manager is unable to speak with you at this time." "I am not trying to get you to hang up sir, I'm trying to put you on hold so I can further assist you." "I spoke with a second manager and she is unable to assist you at this time over the phone but she is also working to resolve your account." "What am I lying to you about??????" "I'm sorry sir I'm sorry sir I'm sorry sir I'm sorry sir" "No we do not hang up on customers sir." [mute]I'm about to hang up on this guy right now...[/mute] "We do not hang up on customers. I don't know what happened to the call but we did not disconnect."
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Aug 24, 2016 23:03
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Volmarias posted:To be fair, I wouldn't believe "my manager isn't available right now, but will call you back later" either. Would you believe it the 3rd time when a 3rd person gave you the same supervisor name and identical information? Like I get that we're a loan company, but we have REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY good customer service reviews everywhere you look. The only negative reviews I've seen are from people who don't understand how contracts and interest rates work. That's rare as hell for a financial institution!
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Sep 1, 2016 01:28
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I guess it's just me, but I wouldn't repeatedly call somewhere to speak to a manager once I've been told the manager is busy. Maybe call in an hour or two, but not continuously. Aaaaanyway, I've had a few customers get upset with me when I read our grace period disclaimer. Specifically the part where I say, "...nor will we report this payment as late to the credit agencies as a result of this change." "YOU CAN'T REPORT IT ANYWAY UNLESS IT'S 30 DAYS LATE" So I looked up the actual laws they're referencing. Doesn't apply to installment loans! If we wanted to be dicks we could legally report a late payment the moment it hits midnight. But we're not dicks and don't do that, which is why we have that statement in the disclaimer. But as a lowly peon I don't think I have the authority to actually tell a customer that. I referred someone to our compliance department for further elaboration but she refused their email address and demanded a supervisor anyway. I admit I sounded unsure, since I didn't know that actual law that she was claiming, so I just kept saying, "if that is indeed the law then that is the policy we follow." So I don't blame her too much for asking to speak to someone who knows what they're talking about. But don't refuse the contact the info of the ones who know what they're talking about! Another customer last night was pissed that I wouldn't accept a loan payoff with a credit card. Said he was completely satisfied with our service so why did we have to make it impossible to pay off his loan??? The part that most got on my nerves was when he said he was positive he could speak to anyone else there and they would take the payment with a credit card. No. They wouldn't. Because it's company policy and we like to keep getting paid. Then he paid it off with the bank account on file. He asked for my last name, I refused to give it to him (per policy!) And said I had no employee ID, but I'm the only one with my name there at that time, so feel free to send us an email in regards to the service I have provided you today! He ALSO refused the compliance email address when I said they could further elaborate on the credit card policy for him. People are dumb
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Sep 1, 2016 21:11
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In today's racist caller news, someone's on the phone right now with a gentleman who won't stop calling him Jerome. There are no letters or sounds in common with his real name.
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Sep 6, 2016 22:17
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"The earliest we can schedule this payment is tomorrow since ACH payments take 1 business day." "I shouldn't owe one more day of interest! I'm paying today! How much more am I paying?" "$3.15." "That's my $3. I'll pay it but this isn't legal. You're getting my money today, not tomorrow!" "Your account is being debited tomorrow." "But I'm paying today!" I get where she's coming from, but that isn't how ACH works. -- Had a mystery to send over to compliance. A caller with no applications or loans in our system, but we have her info and we've emailed her an application decline letter 2 years ago as well as a "would you like to refinance your current loan?" email a couple months ago...
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Sep 8, 2016 00:48
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Che Delilas posted:I don't blame her for being upset, the fact that it takes more than a whole second to transfer money DIGITALLY in this country is a goddamn joke. There was some discussion of this in the SH/SC threads just the other day, in fact, about how much human intervention is still required. It's insane. Especially since a debit payment from the same account CAN be done for the same day, but it's company policy that we can't accept card payments for a payoff unless the account is past due, so.... But it's only lovely, not illegal! When I'm 72 I hope I have something better to worry about than $3.
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Sep 8, 2016 23:26
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Bad news: We're outsourcing some of our calls soon. Good news: Just found out management can't tell when we hang up a call vs a disconnect!
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Sep 22, 2016 23:54
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reformed bad troll posted:If your company uses Avaya Centre Vu, they definatley can I have no idea what we use. I just overhead a manager telling an irate customer who said I hung up on him say, "I can't see if you were hung up on, sir. I can only when a call is disconnected." On another note:  It's really slow today. (I'm the 1. Everyone else was moved out of that queue...)
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Sep 23, 2016 23:32
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We just rearranged seats and I just discovered something wonderful. For the last 30 minutes of my shift there is NOT A SINGLE PERSON around me for 4 rows of cubes in all directions.
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Oct 22, 2016 02:19
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Why did I volunteer for UK payment shifts. It's 1am. I'm ON MY WAY TO WORK. I did learn that most people in the UK get paid on either the last Friday or the last day of the month so I guess that makes the rest of the month pretty easy.
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Oct 28, 2016 06:57
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I feel incredibly lucky to have been at my acceptable call center for almost a year now. For an 8 hour shift I get 15 mins or personal time to use as needed, a 15 min break, and 30 mins unpaid lunch. Our break room is filled with healthy snacks (fresh fruit, berries, Greek yogurt, hummus, espresso machine, freestyle coke machine) and the company culture is very relaxed. This past month I was moved to outbound and I thought I would hate it. But since I'm processing applications I actually really enjoy it (to the extent I can enjoy it). I get to brace myself and prepare for the call ahead of time, and usually the shitheads get declined for refusing to provide the info I'm requesting. Our company has started outsourcing but I'm coping with that by documenting all of their mistakes and forwarding it to management who actually does something about it!
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Apr 10, 2017 00:49
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Modern Day Hercules posted:30 minutes of paid break is pretty standard for an 8 hour shift and basically absolute minimum. Only people who take less breaks than that are probably like fast food workers. Call center workers should get more because it's one of the few jobs that is constanly "on" for lack of a better term. I guess some call center workers sit and wait for calls to come in, but I think more usually if you're not on break your on a call with a customer. Most other jobs aren't like that, I spend half my shift watching a machine do its job while I do nothing. Which is also how your boss probably spends his/her shift, except you're the machine. I would have literally killed someone for a few minutes of extra break when I worked in a call center. It really helps the experience feel less like a meat grinder. I sit by both my team lead and my section manager. My TL is actually in charge of auditing and QA for the outsourced people overseas, as well as auditing our own apps before decisioning. My SM does one on one weekly meetings with everyone on our team to do off the record call listening and coaching to improve our actual stats the company looks at. That's in addition to taking escalations. They both are pretty constantly swamped, but still help people who aren't even in their section.
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Apr 10, 2017 14:22
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My own personal hell is trying to verify employment for someone who works for an ISP call center. Part of my job is calling employers to verify our customer is actually a current employee where they say they are. Every so often I'll get someone who works for Comcast or Cox. Especially with Cox good luck getting a verifiable phone number straight to HR. We have specific requirements for what's a verifiable number, namely the number has to be found online as being officially associated with the company, so I can't just ask our customers, "hey what's the number for your HR" and dial away. Which leads me to 45 minutes of calling every number for Cox I can find only to be asked for an account number at every turn and spamming 0 of course hangs up instead of getting me a person. Get direct deposit, people. Save your potential lender's employees a headache. :| I'm not even calling as a customer and I still hate calling ISPs. I can reach the mayor of a town in Hawaii, and a US Senate committee member faster than I can reach Cox HR.
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Jun 19, 2017 14:54
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therobit posted:Typically a company that large will use something like Equifax's The Work Number. If you are working for a lender they should pay to access this resource. If they won't, find a better loan shop to work in. We have Work Number built in to our back-end but we are not allowed to call the number if TWN blocks our app, which sometimes happens.
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Jun 19, 2017 16:01
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I'm finally getting converted to an actual employee! It only 14 months when I was told 3 but hey, my pay stays the same, I get a daily stipend for lunch, and if my onboarding paperwork is right, over 200 hours of PTO which accrues at a ‰ per week.  My job is exactly the same but it feels more worth it now to be officially employed at a place that treats employees like people and doesn't vilify time off. I process loan applications and I will never tire of the people who talk themselves right into a decline because they mention they no longer work at their employer, or are technically self employed but don't file taxes, etc. BUT that doesn't top someone's employer doing it for them. Everything approved and good to go, then we call to verify employment and get told, "yeah he works here. Last day is next week though". 
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Jul 19, 2017 02:45
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Getting moved off the phones! I'm still on the call center floor but I'm basically auditing applications so no phone calls. Someone messed up? Undo it, notate, and send it back!
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Aug 23, 2017 23:44
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Fil5000 posted:Hey, moonsour, we're getting a big spike in calls, can you just jump on for a while? Also make sure you still get all that paperwork done. A higher volume of applications means a higher volume of work for my position as well. We offered up that exact scenario to the department managers and they confirmed the only time we would be working the phones is if it's SO slow that there's literally no applications that need to be reviewed. This is supported by that fact that my company is outsourcing everything they can without tanking customer satisfaction and error rates too much. Customer service and loan originations are about 75% outsourced to the Philippines (we found their company on GlassDoor and they make $350USD/mo) while loan decisions/issuance and payments/collections are staying completely in-house. The outsourced team screws up really often since you get what you pay for and some days I already go under my required 6 apps/hr processing because I have to re-review everything that was submitted by the customer, correct the math, etc. This position change essentially makes THAT my job, so I don't have to do the follow up, and I only get stuff when they mostly have everything they need already. It gives me manager access to credit reports and back end processes without any of the managerial responsibilities. <3
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Aug 25, 2017 01:53
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SpartanIV posted:Do you work for a mortgage servicer that recently rebranded by any chance? Our customers swear they didn't need as much documentation to apply for their mortgage!
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Aug 26, 2017 09:31
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Turns out my new position comes with a raise which lends credibility to the promise of no more phonecalls! I already make a livable wage so I'll be happy with whatever the amount turns out to be, tbh. Doesn't mean I haven't asked my manager how much I get though! Small flashback to around May this year when I'd been in my department a bit over a month. My manager sent me a message and asked if I could take inbound customer service calls the next day instead. I mention I haven't done US inbound since November but I guess I can? Next morning I run into my old UK department manager and while shooting the breeze mention I was asked to take customer service calls for the day instead of processing. His response was "lol what" Turns out he stopped being my UK department manager because he is now my boss's boss's boss. I was mysteriously told to not worry about changing queues and to process as usual. And that's how I accidentally squeaky wheeled myself out of stuff I didn't wanna do by bitching up the chain.
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Aug 30, 2017 21:29
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 22:55 |
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Our UK customers always jumped straight to the NATO alphabet when giving their post code or address. It was wonderful and something I miss about UK shifts.
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Jan 1, 2018 03:04
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