"Due to unusually high call volume..."

[Tenebras]

I just cancelled my land line, because Verizon routinely treats me like shit.

When I tried to call on Monday, I waited 20 minutes before having my call dropped. Then I waited an hour before I couldn’t handle it anymore.

When I called yesterday to cancel, I got right through, and when I said that I had waited for a long fucking time Monday, the woman says “Yes, but you didn’t have to wait today” in her well isn’t that nice voice. Then she explained, as if this would make me feel more happy about the company and the shit service they have always given me, that “Monday is our highest volume day.” Yeah? Well then why don’t you have more fucking reps in on Mondays?

If it’s the highest volume day week in and week out, then it’s no longer an “unusually high volume of calls.”

Tenebras

[dalej42]

@Cyros

I can’t speak for other manager types, but that tactic would never fly with me. If I ever noticed that an agent’s talk time was doing wild and wonderful things that was a signal to put a trace on that agent. The wonderful thing about call centers is that everything you can do can be monitored left, right, and center. Every button you press is recorded somewhere. I can tell if you hang up on a customer.

You start dropping calls, out the door you go. I can coach you on how to lower talk time, but hey, your job is to talk to the customer. If you don’t do that, they just call back and increase call volume. Not to mention that they are more pissed than before. The other agents don’t need that and I don’t mind not having another ass to try to coach.

I’m sorry to be so cynical, but I can see how some CSR’s supervisor may be aware that the rep is dropping calls and yet reward it. If MY pay is based on how the reps are doing, I may very well turn a blind eye to tactics such as dropping calls on purpose. I might even ignore disconnecting troublesome customers. I even think that some customers know enough to talk someone’s ear off just to get what they want.

[Philster]

Call Center Management: Make every accountable for the retry rate. This does a number of things…

It discourages hangups.

It encourages mgmnt to monitor them.

It improves answer speed
If agents are padding their stats by dropping callers, this will boost the retry rate. You want a first call resolution, and a low redial rate.

Hangups, poor service and long wait times (leading to abandons) increase the redial rate.

When everyone is measured on it, watch the improvements in all these categories.
Also, reports are availabe which show calls that are under “X” amount of time and live monitoring, or recorded monitoring will catch the offendors.

[lezlers]

@jsgoddess

Worse to me than just music is music that’s interrupted every 30 seconds by a voice telling me that my call is very important to them. The beginning of the message, the way the sound changes, sounds exactly the way it sounds when a real-live person finally picks up. So, every 30 seconds, your hopes are raised then dashed on the rocky shoals of despair!

Oh MAN this drives me crazy. My coworker was on hold with a State Department (suprise suprise) for over an hour the other day. Of course, she had it on speakerphone. I’m just beginning to lose the nervous tick.

I was talking to a CSR for Netscape yesterday. I was in a pretty good mood since I wasn’t on hold for more than 30 seconds. Until the damn CSR actually came on the phone.

#1. I realize you probably get a number of irate customers on the phone that you feel the need to talk “down” off the ledge. Been there myself. However, if I DON’T sound like I’m about to climb on top of the belltower, please refrain from speaking to me like I’m a five year old. I don’t need to be praised for providing you with my birthdate. Unless I’m getting a cookie, it’s a bit demeaning.

#2. When I tell you my problem is that my account isn’t recognizing my screenname, telling me to log on using the “I forgot my password” which then prompts me to enter my (unrecognized) screename ISN’T GOING TO HELP. That’s why I’m calling you and dealing with being talked to like a five year old, dumbfuck.

#3. Asking me what my problem is, then verifying my personal information is fine. As long as right after you verify my personal information you don’t ask me what you can help me with. I JUST TOLD YOU WHAT MY PROBLEM IS! Don’t ask me goddamn questions if you’re not going to bother listening to the answers! (This guy actually asked me what the problem was no longer than 30 seconds after I had spent 5 minutes explaining the problem. It was like the whole previous 5 minutes never fucking happened. I will worship the inventor of the web deliverable bitchslap)

#4. When it’s obvious the customer would like to get off the phone (which tends to happen after they’ve been talked to like they’re in preschool for the past 10 minutes) don’t keep them on the line while reading from your written-by-a-mangager-who’s-never-actually-SPOKEN-to-a-customer script. When I begin answering your 50 “are you SURE I helped you with everything you need?” questions with extremely curt “yeah, it’s been great, thanks” responses, spending the next 5 minutes pimping how very HAPPY Netscape is to help their customers is going to do nothing but piss me off. I’m THRILLED Netscape gets a boner from helping their customers. However, I’d rather not be stuck on the phone hearing about it for 5 minutes.

Argh!

I feel much better. Thank you for listening, and good night.

[wonky]

@lezlers

I was talking to a CSR for Netscape yesterday.

Oh, internet calls are the worst. I was calling our ISP at work because we couldn’t connect. While on hold, it gave me a tutorial that went something like this (imagine this said is a faux soothing voice):

“If you are unable to connect to the internet, make sure you have a program that is capable of connecting to the internet. Do you have Internet Explorer? Look on your desktop for a BIG. BLUE. EEEE. Click on the BIG. BLUE. EEEE.”