Anything Else I can do for you today? (mini rant)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I work in sales, at a call center. The way our program works; we are basically working with irate customers 99% of the time.

A customer needs help fixing his pc, and he calls us thinking he is getting free tech support; it is our job to break it to him that he is not getting the free support, and then we sell him the support.

Many times we can’t help the customer at all. He needs tech support, but he has no money: He needs a recovery cd that we no long make (pc too old): He has need for a part we don’t offer… and lots of other things.

The calls throughout my day usually end one of two ways; The accept they must pay for support and they buy it…or they hang up very irate, with their issue not solved.

We have been instructed to say “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

Very often the customer will respond with “You’ve done NOTHING to help me!” or “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

I have decided to stop saying it. If I do that, I will be taking a hit. See, I always 100 percent the audits, and there are very nice perks that come along with that. I have learned to work every audit point into a natural rhythm so that I can ace each audit and still make my sale, without turning off the customer.

If you fail audits, they will mess up your commission, which is not ok with me. At all. But I don’t think not saying ‘Is there anything else I can help you with’ is one of the fatals…I think it just costs me a few points. It will certainly cost me some of the bonuses that come with perfect audits, though.

An example of what I’m talking about below. This actually happened today:

Me: "I’m so sorry Mr. Smith, but the company that owns your warranty, ABC Corp. has gone out of business, and they are not able to assist you with this. We will happily help you out here, for $99.99.

Cu: "What? I didn’t buy my warranty from ABC Corp, I bought if from YOU GUYS! Now my pc isn’t working, and I expect you to fix it! Now. And that is all there is to it.

Me: Mr. Smith, I have already explained the situation several times now, and unfortunately, I simply can’t offer free support on this. I really regret that I can’t assist further in this manner, but thank you for calling ACME tech support. Anything else I can do for you?

Cu: Yes, bitch, you can kiss my ass!

I take hundreds of calls, some days. Being called every name in the book, over and over, after basically just asking for it, is starting to irritate me a bit.

Sorry this post is so long. I have vented to absolutely no one about my annoyances at work, and it feels oh so good to whine right now.

2

I work on a customer care team specific to home installation services, and am often faced with the same problem.

Customers expect my (very large) client company to give them free or discounted service for the life of their installations, and many get very indignant when I tell them that the parts and labor warranty is only for one year, that they didn’t purchase the ten year manufacturer’s warranty, and, in some cases, didn’t even do the preventative maintenance necessary to keep the warranty active, anyway. Some then start screaming, swearing, or asking to speak to a supervisor – one perk of my position is that my team leader isn’t a supervisor in the traditional sense, and only scores my calls and offers support functions. Depending on my mood, I’ll either tell the customer that I am the supervisor, or that I have one and they can’t speak to her – and then I have to try to get them off the line, which includes that same phrase.

Many have the same reaction your customers do, but after three years, it’s so ingrained that I don’t even care and tell them “I’m sorry you feel that way. Thank you for calling.” before releasing the call.

3

Heh, funnily enough I use this phrase to end my calls as a collections manager. Once I’ve been over and over the same excuse several times in a call, I’ll tell them that we’ve discussed that matter, I’ve told them the consequences of following that path, and ask if there’s anthing else I can help them with today.

I generally have to repeat that twice before they get the clue.

Have you asked your supervisor why they are requiring you to, in essence, request the customer to begin shrieking obsecenity at you? Cause that’s fucked up.

4

The site has been shut down, but the archives are still there – we CSR’s do so love Operators Standing By.

5

Aesiron, I keep waiting to get used to it, but it is harder to get used to than all the other abuse I take, because this time I have to brace for asking for the abuse.

Gleena, I never, ever talk to my supers about anything. They stay out of my way, and I stay out of theirs. They are always pulling folks off the phones for write-ups and coaching and all that jazz, but they never mess with me, so I like that just fine.

But this issue got under my skin enough to talk to them. I laid it down quite flat for them…I said I am perfectly capable of closing the call very pleasantly and professionally without mocking the customer with that horrible phrase. I pointed out that, generically, this may be a good customer service phrase; but since our customers are nearly always irate, we should not have to say it…or at least be given the freedom to decide when it fits.

Their response was that the question was important because not only does it show ‘white glove’ treatment to the customer, but it also opens up a sales op. (perhaps the customer will think of an issue that they are willing to pay for!).

They have tons of dumb rules that manage to make most of our agents sound like morons. They are told that they have to use the customer’s name several times throughout the call, but they don’t know how to work it in naturally, so it sounds forced and unnatural. They don’t know to pick up cues…If someone introduces himself as Dr. Timothy Jones, you don’t say, “How can I help you, Tim?!”. Likewise, when someone sounds 80, you don’t presume to call them “Sally”. I have learned how to do these things, along with all the other crazy stuff they make us do, but this one thing really is starting to bug me.

Hal, I will be reading that website for hours. And I am so sleepy. Sigh.

6

Maybe try to reword it? I admit I do use “Is there anything else?” when someone is particularly irate, and I really don’t want to deal with the possibility of being screamed at some more.

My quality scores are almost always 100%, so it seems to work as a replacement phrase, but it’s also possible that I’m not being monitored on those calls. Our system records all calls, and the TLs pick the short ones to monitor, so they may miss those conversations because, by their nature, they tend to be the longer ones.

7

Nzinga, I feel your pain. Stuff like this is why I don’t miss working in a call centre one bit… that sort of narrow-minded inflexible mentality makes me stabby.

Of course, it could be worse. Where I worked, management got so much feedback from the CSRs about how much they dislike closing with “Is the anything else?” that they finally decided it was time to switch to a more customer-friendly phrase. This search probably involved lots of long meetings with very expensive consultants, but they eventually landed on the perfect solution.

Yes, nothing soothes an irate customer more than waiting for them to finish their rant so you can ask them:

“Did I resolve the reason for your call today?”

8

How about, “…and if there is nothing else, thank you for calling ACME tech?”

Also, be sure to use their name during the call. Clients love to be called by their name :smiley:

9

Today, I tried, “And if there’s nothing else, thank you for calling ACME tech.” It flowed naturally, and it didn’t spark any outrage from the customer. I have no clue what it will do to an audit, though. I have to wait and see.

I’m feeling a lot better though, for some reason. I actually love my job a lot, and this one tiny issue was beginning to bug the hell out of me. But I tried to let it roll off today.

10

You need a visit to Customers Suck! You can complain about ridiculous work rules too.

11

I am accountingdrone over there =)

12

I checked out that site. I do SOOO love sites that use a deep purple text on a black background! What idiot designs these web sites, anyway? Stupid bastards!

13

Thank you for visiting our website. Is there anything else we can do for you today?

14

Librarians are (well, were, when I was in school) trained to do what we call a “reference interview” using what is called the “Maryland model.” The last question of the interview is always supposed to be “Does this completely answer your question?”

I haven’t said it in a non-ironic situation since I graduated.

15

That, along with Mahna Mahna’s “Did I resolve the reason for your call today?” is the most obnoxious crap I have ever heard.

Knead, I am so mad at you for speaking ill of the late great Michael Jackson in the Michael Jackson is dead thread. But how can I hate you when it makes me smile to picture you saying to people on a daily basis, voice dripping with false innocence, “Does this completely answer your question?”

16

Wow, you’re amazingly fortunate that your job hasn’t already been outsourced to India. So if you’re feeling down, remember that and be grateful.

17

Interesting point, you make there. I am not feeling down, really. Feeling much better, actually. And I do love my job.

That said;

I don’t really ‘feel grateful’ for having work. I am extremely flexible, and in the economy’s ups and downs, I have never had trouble finding work. Once, when finding work was especially hard, my best friend and I opened a day care. I don’t go around feeling grateful, because I wouldn’t know who to be grateful to.

Also, this support we sale is American Tech Support and it is kinda the whole point. We make our money off of customers that don’t want to hassle with India. Even customers that have issues that are covered under warranty often pay extra for the advantage of speaking to our advanced American techs as opposed to our Indian warranty guys.

But I do get your overall point. I love my job a lot, and I probably don’t need to be whining about it. I’m over it now.

18

A) Moi? Speaking ill of Jacko? All I did was imply that I was never going to allow a penny of my money to go into his pocket while he was alive. :slight_smile:

B) Re-read the last sentence of my above post and feel free to go back to hating me. :wink: