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rolleyes posted:So here's a question, call centre goons. I have on occasion had to phone up and be angry with the company (most notably Vodafone UK who outright tried to defraud me) but when I do that I always try to make that distinction - i.e. "the company" this or "vodafone" that, rather than "you". This is a huge pet peeve for most of us. 'This isn't directed at you, but the company you work for is terrible and I hate it.' isn't something anyone wants to hear. Just present your problem in a calm manner and ask for help. Most phone reps will bend over backwards to help someone who's asking for it and not prefacing it with all their reasons they're mad. We know you're upset, that's why you're calling. No one calls when they're not having problems.
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Aug 10, 2011 14:26
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JackRabbitStorm posted:"Hey, I know it's not your fault, KOMI, so don't take it personally, but I am really upset about this 12.00 charge. Everytime I turn around it seems like there more charges and fees. I am really sick of all these extra charges, and they piss me off to no end. Why did I get an extra 12.00 charge this month?" You could go that way but "Hi, there's a 12.00 charge I don't recognize on my account, can you explain why it's there?" not only frames your question/issue just fine, it's shorter and you don't have to explain how pissed off you are. Again, whoever answered the phone knows there's a problem and you're upset. That's why you called. Here's the parts they can do nothing about : "Everytime I turn around it seems like there more charges and fees. I am really sick of all these extra charges, and they piss me off to no end." They can't help you with that part besides offer a sincere-sounding but ultimately hollow apology that they gave to 50 other people that day. 
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Aug 10, 2011 18:03
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I know.  Keep fighting the insanity if you can. I'm a little mad I forgot about this thread since I might actually be leaving the phone floor soon.
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Aug 10, 2011 18:11
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kells posted:Some guy gave me a detractor on our feedback surveys. The call lasted three minutes, I solved his problem (he was trying to log into his email @company.com instead of @company.net), and I was perfectly polite and so was he. Yeah, I learned today that I got a 20/100 score because some old lady didn't understand that '1 is bad, 5 is good' when doing the survey. These people are the reason I'm desperately trying to escape this job after 8 years in the trenches. My performance and livelihood are in the hands of the mentally infirm.
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Aug 13, 2011 18:55
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I can attest to that. I did a stretch working 8am-7pm with Fridays, Sundays, and Mondays off. I was pretty wound up by Thursday afternoon and being able to take it easy before Saturday was very helpful.
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Aug 14, 2011 20:27
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Harminoff posted:I had one person say they bought a generator and have their fridge, cablebox, and tv connected to it. All that is important to them. We call these people 'Generator Geniuses' in my center as the grid in this state sucks and windstorms will knock power out. Cable signal transmission doesn't use electricity, it uses magical fairy dust, apparently. Speaking of the hurricane, what's the craziest poo poo you've heard concerning service outages? We once had an outage caused by a train hitting a stalled-out semi-truck on a railroad crossing, ramming the semi into our fiber node.
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Aug 30, 2011 15:33
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Yeah, "Things work until they break" is something I say at least once every day and it's rapidly becoming one of my biggest pet peeves to hear 'It was working fine yesterday!'. Of course it was. If it broke yesterday, your dumb rear end would've called us yesterday.
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Sep 10, 2011 13:30
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My call center decided today that they're going to take away our ability to mute our phones, advising us to instead put the customer on hold (and use proper hold procedures such as asking for their permission) if we need to mute the phone for any reason. I'm sure this'll improve our customer experience. 
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Sep 20, 2011 13:52
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That's really the crux of the matter for me. I'm surprised, since I've been doing this for 8 years, that I can still be offended by our policies but it's pretty offensive that we're no longer regarded as living things that perform biological functions, like sneezing/coughing/burping/blowing your nose. But I guess if it helps management not have to work harder, it's worth it.
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Sep 20, 2011 17:44
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There is, at least with an Avaya system. My management gets a report of calls with excessive periods of dead air already, but I don't know the details of the system.
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Sep 20, 2011 17:55
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What have your supervisors said when you reported him?
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Oct 4, 2011 20:11
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Does anyone else's center or company have problems when it comes to promoting or shifting people to different departments? Specifically in the amount of time it takes? I applied for a position in the billing unit of the company I work for and it took about 5 weeks to get an interview. That first interview was 7 weeks ago and no one who interviewed has gotten a 2nd one yet but all of our applications are rated as 'Still pending'. Just wondering if anyone else has waited 4+ months to find out if they got a new position or not.
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Oct 24, 2011 15:42
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You're pretty hosed. I'd at least go talk to a higher tier supervisor like an area manager about it and see if there's nothing that can be done before HR fires you.
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Nov 6, 2011 14:49
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fret logic posted:Customers are generally irrational petulant children who always want more and always want it for absolutely nothing. It's a shame we're not allowed to tell people exactly how it is, because it's absolutely poo poo. Yeah, a boss once told me that we're here to provide the customer with what they want. I answered that it seems the customer wants everything we offer, for free, immediately, can we do that? That got a dirty look.
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Nov 12, 2011 19:12
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That's awful. poo poo, at least my place has protocols for when customers threaten to shoot us. I've never been threatened with rape but I'm a deep-voiced dude. Do you have any sort of 'Emergency' button on your phone that can flag the call? If we get something like that, we're supposed to flag the call and immediately alert a supervisor so they can notify our security department. Customers that threaten violence are usually disconnected and made non-serviceable. Also, if you're really getting down in the dumps, see if your company has mental health services. Mine has a hotline and I once got 2 months of short term disability approved due to stress when I was breaking down into tears after every other call.
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Nov 16, 2011 15:42
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Good luck to anybody trying to get out! I was contacted yesterday about the job I interviewed for back in August, the HR rep asked if I was still interested. I had to resist using a lot of caps and exclamation points. I'm waiting to hear back about scheduling an interview with the director but I'm hoping against hope that I get it.
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Nov 16, 2011 18:30
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I think the thread jinxed me. One of my first calls today was a guy frantically screaming into his phone about... something, I think it was an appointment? Anyways, I asked him to try to calm down but then he screamed 'HELLO, CAN YOU HEAR ME?' and I answered him (Something like 'Yes, sir, I can.') and then he screamed the same question again. He did this about 35 times in a row. Finally he just started calling me dog fucker, mother fucker, rear end in a top hat, the boss :?: and then started back on asking if I could hear him a couple dozen times. I finally hung up on after 3 warnings because it didn't seem like his insanity would allow him to do anything else and it wasn't funny anymore.
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Nov 19, 2011 16:47
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But if you aren't taking calls non-stop, you can't witness the Dunning-Kruger Effect in full force.
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Nov 29, 2011 17:13
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You may want to look at your phone provider and see if they offer anonymous call rejection as a feature as well.
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Dec 6, 2011 14:08
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AA is for Quitters posted:I love my mute button, but that's because it lets me do things like sneak a piece of candy/a pretzel or something while a customer is talking about their problems. Or sneeze. Or cough. And now we're all risking losing our ability to mute because of dumb oval office. Our mute button got taken away in September, across the entire division, and only now are problems beginning to crop up. You know, because it's winter and people get sick. I love driving my hold up so I can blow my loving nose.
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Jan 10, 2012 17:21
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My call center has decided that, due to business needs, they're going to be putting split-hour shifts in our next bid. So some people are going to be working from 9am-1pm and 6pm-10pm each day. I guess in a bad economy, you can just do whatever the gently caress you want with your employees.
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Jan 31, 2012 20:25
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Yeah, either through Run if they're still on XP or I just have them punch in https://www.whatever.com into the search bar at the bottom of the Vista/Win7 Start menu. It's astounding that the concept of an address bar is alien in 2012 but nothing really surprises me anymore.
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Feb 13, 2012 16:44
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It's the irate customers that really make the job special, in my mind. I don't even get upset anymore, I turn it into a game of seeing how nice I can be so they completely lose their minds. I can't even understand the mindset of 'I need help so I'm going to be a total loving rear end to the person that offers to help me'. I know it's usually 'These people can't help me, thus an rear end I will be' but they really do want a solution, deep down, don't they?
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Feb 22, 2012 13:35
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Yeah, I might be embarrassed about this job but I'm a college dropout making $20+/hour with full benefits in one of the shittiest states in the nation, so I could be doing a helluva lot worse.
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Feb 25, 2012 21:28
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Yeah, 'Authenticity' is the one I always hear.
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Mar 13, 2012 17:29
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I guess that explains why you abandoned your E/n thread about hating work.
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Mar 17, 2012 19:00
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Yeah, Avaya is a total piece of poo poo in how it handles calls. Fun fact: Most of my call center recently got written up for call avoidance. What was happening? Someone found out you can go into an Aux state on the Avaya phones and then hit ACW to access some nebulous 'Other ACW' stat that wasn't being tracked by any report. Anyone who was using Other ACW more than 10% got written up, but even the most egregious offenders (The highest I've heard was 54% of the total month) weren't fired. What really sucks is that they never corrected the stats of the offenders so they got to use fake numbers in our latest shift bid.
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Mar 28, 2012 15:39
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I guess one of my coworkers killed themselves over the weekend. We received an email from our director stating he 'passed unexpectedly' and I heard he hung himself from the rumormonger smokers. That'd be the third suicide in this center since I started working here. I can't say I blame him.
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Apr 11, 2012 19:10
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I've had a pleasantly startling turn of events occur at work today! I did a logo for my last team and had it printed out in poster size and laminated. Apparently, other managers liked it a lot and I'm getting requests to do more logos for other teams. Is time off the phones a fair enough trade? Seems like it to me!
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Apr 28, 2012 14:41
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BigDave posted:Michigan: Horrifically angry, violent sociopaths. Hahaha, YUUUP. My center is in Michigan and our current director came here from Alabama. He literally said 'I've never encountered such angry customers before I came here.' in his introductory meeting with my team.
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Apr 29, 2012 15:49
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I'm in the loving Twilight Zone at work. I mentioned doing some art for some other teams on the last page and this quickly spiraled into doing posters for a new sales promo at my call center that has apparently been picked up by other divisions and now I've got an interview with our ad sales department on Wednesday. I am so not used to positive feedback, much less positive anything going on here, it's freaking me out.
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May 14, 2012 16:47
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Chicken Doodle posted:One thing that's really loving bothering me is how we're supposed to have improved our call times with this new system and nobody has. Hell, national average has tanked like a ROCK. And yet they put the bar up to a level most people weren't making BEFORE we switched. I'm applying for another department, with a shift change next week anyway, so I'm praying to god that this will allow me to get better. I've had too many single calls ruin my loving stats lately. That's just a new phase in the experiment. I'm not the only one that considers call center work to be simply a large, sadistic psychological experiment, am I?
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May 19, 2012 14:35
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Find out if you live in a two-party consent state for recording phone calls. If so, they have to tell you at the beginning of the phone call if they're recording it.
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Jun 19, 2012 20:21
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I had to do QA for a week and I wanted to walk into traffic. Passively listening to other people gently caress up was a nightmare, I hope you find the experience much more rewarding.
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Aug 12, 2012 09:14
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Chicken Doodle posted:Edit: O ho ho, looking back at my posts in March... guess what they changed! The phone system. I loving knew it was going to screw everything. We told you Avaya sucked rear end. 
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Aug 22, 2012 08:51
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cuntvalet posted:They act like they did me a favor in keeping me on as an agent but ironically...I think it would have been less stressful had they just fired me, I could get my severence/EI and throw all of my time into finding a different job. That's why they didn't fire you. It's easier and cheaper for them if you just quit, so they're giving you the worst possible position they can. If 'poo poo Eater Level 1' existed, you'd have been offered that. It sucks and I'm sorry to hear it but I spent 9 years in the culture and watched a lot of people who got off the phones and into specialist/support positions get utterly, utterly hosed.
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Oct 6, 2012 10:11
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cuntvalet posted:gently caress incentives. They're patronizing and I feel like its a carrot on a stick sort of thing. Never forget that call center management doesn't want you to succeed. High turnover is a vital part of their business model that keeps the cost of your center down because helping customers is not a profitable part of their business.
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Nov 24, 2012 23:20
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cuntvalet posted:Three times now, I've been close to tears, just frustrated with how terrible I feel. once already, I nearly walked up to my operations manager and quit on the spot. You need to see if your company provides an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) that you can call. Comcast had something called ComPsych that would schedule an employee with a local therapist/counselor if they were stressed out about anything. I called them after I had been on the job for about 4 years and told the therapist that I was seriously considering driving my car off a bridge just so I wouldn't have to take another call. Seven days, two visits with a psychiatrist and one Lexapro prescription later, I was able to file for short term disability and get 60 days paid disability leave. The therapist recommended a book to me 'The Lucifer Effect' by Philip Zimbardo and that helped a lot. Viewing call centers as sadistic psychological experiments is a great way to contextualize the asinine decisions that are made. At least look up if you have access to an EAP even if you don't plan on calling them. It sucks to hit the breaking point and have no idea where to turn.
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Dec 16, 2012 07:56
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It was pretty common for people at my old center to get the greenlight to work from home and then quit 2 months later. Working from home means not having to look over your shoulder while you browse Monster or Craigslist. Also https://www.virtualnes.com was my drug of choice to pass the time.
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Apr 11, 2013 08:35
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Loving Life Partner posted:I don't think you have a job, I think you're an unwitting test subject in some kind of vast study of sadistic corporate policies. I un-ironically, literally thought this about my call center for the last 5 years I was there and it actually helped me cope.
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Apr 14, 2013 08:40
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