I’m sorry, I’m not sure you’re answering the questions that are being asked. Can we please speak with a supervisor?
What is your average handle time (you) and average speed to answer (your group)?
I don’t work where the OP works, but I am in cubicle land and do 2nd level tech support. I love how our cubes are set up. There are high (5’ or so) walls between departments or at the ends of cubes (where a hallway will be), but each cube that’s attached to others have short walls (you can easily see over to your co-worker’s face).
It makes it a lot easier to do group-troubleshooting (“Hey guys, I’ve already done X, Y, and Z but this still isn’t working. Ideas?”) and not feel so isolated, but you’re not out on display for the entire large room to see.
I’m not Sunrazor, but I used to have a very similar job, and some of these are too good. Apologies if I’m overstepping, Sunrazor!
We (in my department) were allowed to hang up, but only because we handled third level escalations. I suppose, vicariously, anyone could hang up-- first round of customer service was to transfer to their supervisors when they got to the point where they couldn’t handle the caller; supervisors to us; and… well, if you made an enemy in my department, it wasn’t going to be a good day for you. I only hung up on someone once–literally, it was a non-stop 90 second litany of profanity coming out of her mouth.
I interrupted once to warn her that if she didn’t conduct herself in a more civil manner, I’d be hanging up. Once more 15 seconds later to prove I was serious. Of course, she called right back.
Threats were to be documented and sent to Corporate Security. Our phones had a big red “Emergency” button for, well, emergencies–bomb threats, suicides, etc. I never had to use it, but as I understand it, it got someone from Corporate Security on three way pretty quickly.
Nah. We made pretty good notes, and it wouldn’t be uncommon to get a “ABUSIVE CUST//USES PROFANITY” or something similar pop up right at the top.
Otherwise, we just laugh about how stupid you are over lunch.
I’d say about 45/45/10. This was at Capital One, by the way.
We could release anything except fraud*, but rarely would without good reason, for fear of being audited. Not that audits ever happened. I wouldn’t release anything suspended due to delinquincy over 30 days unless you were giving me a payment, too. Nor would I release anything overlimit without serious thought. We did have some guidelines on issuing temporary credit increases, but I don’t think I ever gave anymore than a couple hundred bucks.
*All fraud calls were handled by the fraud department, unless there was some notation that fraud had already reviewed the case, but the card hadn’t been reactivated for some technical screw-up. Then, we could release it.
It’s true. All of our calls were recorded and retained for a period of time that I can’t remember off the top of my head, but it was a good long while.
It’s actually for training purposes. During our 4 week class, we spent about 4 or 5 days listening to calls. In addition, our quality metrics were derived from samplings of our calls. We’d have 5 calls chosen at random to be critiqued in a month (I’m quite sure they were actually random, too – one of mine was a :03 second hangup call. I got a 100 on that QA).
We got our stats daily via email for the previous day. I actually have some of my emails archived thanks to Gmail. My month’s stats were:
Inbound Total Calls: 781
Inbound AHT: 205.94
Inbound AHoldT: 17.74
Signon Hours: 84.1 (vacation month, woo!)
Outbound Call Count: 246
Outbound AHT: 50.97
In case you’re wondering, for us, that translated to the top 2%, performance-wise. My paychecks were nice. Sometimes I miss that job, quite a bit.
Turning it back over to Sunrazor, now. 
When you call someone, how do you prove that you’re who you say you are? Or do people trust you?
We rarely did Outbound calls–people called us when they had problems, not vice versa. The only time I ever did any outbound calling was when I was following up on a previous issue someone had called in about. Rather than keep them on hold forever, I’d let them know I’d call them back, send an email to whoever needed to research something for me, and call them back when I got info.
When someone’s expecting you to call back, you rarely have to prove you’re who you say you are. I suppose had anyone actually challenged me, I would’ve invited them to call us back again at the number on the back of their card, and have the CSR read the notes I was making on the account.
Are your cube walls motorized so your space can be shrunk or expanded based on your productivity?
I can help with a lot of this: I’m one of those professional call center people. I’ve worked in call centers for the last 13 years, with the last 3 1/2 being in Quality Assurance.
My call center does record every phone call that comes into the center. We have around 55 CCRs that are QA’d, and I listen to 15 calls per month per CCR. I am the only QA person in our call center. I basically pick a call at random and evaluate it. I would never evaluate a 3 second call: most I’d hear would be, “Thank you for calling -” and then the call would be disconnected. No fun there. The calls I choose are usually between 4-6 minutes, which is our call center average.
Besides that, if a customer calls in with a complaint about a CCR, I go back and pull the call. I can verify if the customer has a valid case or if he/she is blowing smoke. I think it runs about 55/45, with the customer being right 45% of the time. Without the call monitoring system, the CCR would automatically be written up unless he/she had written proof of what they did. I love to prove one of our CCRs right.
The calls I evaluate are also used for training. On a scale of 0-100, my worst QA had a score of FOUR. She got the greeting right. Everything else went down the toilet. The training department uses that call all the time as a great example of what not to do.
I also do updates for our internal training website and manage the call monitoring server. I do a lot of research for different people. When I am at work, I am always busy.
My question for Sunrazor: how does your QA work? What do you guys think of your QA people? I get people mad at me occasionally, and being in such a small call center, I know about it. But it doesn’t bother me, because I know they’ll work through it.
So what would this call have scored? (Attempting to cancel AOL)
Heh. Classic call.
Sadly, I think it would’ve scored damn near perfect, on AOL’s scale, based on what others have said.
Oh, my dear God.
The CCR is being argumentative with the customer, which in my call center is an automatic escalation. I scored this call using my call center metrics:
+5, greeting
+5, saying the customers name during call
That’s it. He would have scored a 10, and would have been dismissed from the company.
But this is AOL, so he probably got a freaking gold medal.
I talked to a lady there when someone used my card to charge some strange software. She was nice, and so was the lady I called next month when I thought the credit for the amount was another charge.
Former call center rep and supervisor checking in–yes, calls are recorded, but in most centers it’s not EVERY call but just a random sampling. If I had a nickel for every fool of a customer who insisted that we go “pull that call” they made six months ago… Gee, if company is even fairly large it will have multiple call centers, both inhouse and outsourced that might be in different countries and the sheer amount of storage space necessary to keep millions of calls for long periods of time–yeah. Our recorder would usually have maybe ten calls per agent, dating back maybe three or four days max.
Wow, you guys have actual cubicles? Damn. I worked for an outsourcer and the place was the Devil’s Taint to work at. Here, for your amazement and edification (and perhaps a little pity for what I had to suffer!) is an actual photograph of an actual workstation. That’s particleboard covered in melamine there so no way to hang stuff up except tape and no sound baffling whatsoever. No side walls at all, and if one were to fling one’s arm out suddenly to the side one would probably smack a coworker. Supervisors did NOT get a better workstation–looked just like this one. I put squiggles on identifying info in the pic, that’s not dirt. The file cabinet drawers did not work–agents kept leaving stuff in them and we got mice and cockroaches so they bolted them all shut. Yes, that means no place to put a purse or bulky jacket except for under the desk. I worked there for four years, and I think I probably shaved about fifty or sixty incarnations off my time on earth by forebearing from killing anyone. It sucked.
If anyone has a pic that proves the existence of a worse call center work environment I would love to see it! 
We have just the one call center, and it’s small. I keep four months of calls on the server at any given time: the rest are stored on DVD. I’ve had requests for a year back, but only because one of our customers refused to pay a $200,000 bill for supplies.
BTW, your work space did suck. I’m sorry you had to endure that crap. If our CCRs saw that picture, they would no longer complain about their cubes. One call center I worked in was invaded by field mice, so if we kept any candy at our desks it had to be stored in metal containers. Most call centers only allowed drinks in spillproof containers: one only allowed water and hard candy. Mine now allows food, but you’d better be willing to clean up after yourself.
If you have call center experience, by all means, join in!
To answer some of the question that have been asked:
No, we’re never allowed to hang up on abusive callers. We do make sure we’ve exhausted all possible avenues of appeal, then we simply repeat those things that we can do (Never “I can’t do that,” but “No, but here’s what I CAN do. I can send you another copy of the funds availability agreement you signed when you opened the account.”) Eventually they either begin to realize this, like everything else, really is their fault; or, this, like everything else, is part of a conspiracy to make their lives a living hell. Either way, eventually the give up, realize I don’t give a shit about how their spleen needs venting, and I’m not going to argue, defend, or change the client’s corporate policy. I am going to sit there, politely offering a copy of the funds availability agreement they signed when they opened the account, until they decide to take some action themselves.
Average call time, including after-call (noting the account, on the rare occasions that it’s necessary) is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 minutes. We get a lot of calls about where the nearest office is, how much this fee is or that fee is, what their account ballances are, etc. Those are short, sweet and quite friendly.
I’m not as proficient on the metrics as atomicbadgerrace because, well, this is just to pay the bills until I graduate and got to do what I really want to do. I know my call time is way high and my volume is way down. The client says I’m very good with people but a little too chatty, but I have so few escalations (supervisor calls) and such high customer service skills that they overlook the other stuff. Others on my team make up for what I lack in efficiency. Having said that, I do routinely complete more than 100 calls in an 8-hour day. Some of the superstars handle 120 to 150 calls a day.
Our calls are randomly recorded for quality monitoring, but they’re deleted as soon as we sign off on the monitors. People have the idea that everything we say is recorded for posterity. It’s not. Most of the calls are never recorded.
I handle debit cards, checking accounts, that sort of thing. Occasionally the client’s fraud detection unit suspends a card that has suspicious stuff on it, knowing the owner will soon be calling. That’s when I get the call, which I dutifully send on up to fraud prevention.
If somebody’s debit card is shut down for misuse, overdrafts, etc. we get no real arguments. The customer knows what’s happened because he/she did it.
LoL I can imagine the other cube drones getting squashed cause their cube started going deathstar compacter on em.
Declan
Do you ever get the urge to lay a big piece of cardboard over the top of your cubicle, have an imaginary door behind you and make people “knock” before they enter?
I used to be a cubicle monkey too, when I worked for what was then called USAir as a customer service rep.
As much as we could, we made that cubicle our own little domicile, and yes I used to make people knock, a la Les Nessman on WKRP.
Never spent the night there though.
Q
Projammer asked about the funniest call I’ve ever gotten. I’ve gotten two, actually, that stick in my mind as just plain knee-slapping funny.
The first was about 10 years ago when I first started on a “technical” account. We supported DOS-based games. Remember “Doom”? Yup, that was us.
Anyway, the problem with Doom was that you had to install it in DOS mode. Not a problem with Windows 3.0 because the Windows part was sort of layered over the operating system. Everything installed in DOS mode. Then along came Windows 98, and suddenly you can quickly and easily install programs right into Windows. Except, if you tried it with DOS-based games, it totally hosed the operating system, which meant the drive had to be wiped and re-formatted.
One evening I get a call from a hysterical, middle-aged soccer mom who is yelling at me that her computer won’t work, it won’t even completely boot up, and I’m supposed to know how to fix her computer. I explain that I don’t fix computers, I troubleshoot computer games. She insists that I can fix her computer because her son, Trevor, gave her my number and said I could help, and I need to by God start helping. I again said I supported computer games. “That’s ridiculous,” she snapped, “This is my work computer. There aren’t any games on it. I let Trevor go to a few sites on the internet, but he is NOT allowed to play any games on it. His father lets him do that, but I do not…” blah, blah, blah. Finally, I begin to get the picture. I asked to speak to Trevor.
Me: “So, Trevor, your mom says you think I can fix her computer.”
Trevor: “Can you?”
Me: “I don’t think so. What’d you install on it?”
Trevor: (Long silence, then in a very quiet, small voice) “Nothin’.”
Me: “Trevor, I have two sons of my own, and I know a lie when I hear one. You installed Doom on your mom’s computer, and forgot to go into DOS mode, didn’t you?”
Trevor: (Another long silence, then) “Yeah.”
Me: “Let me talk to your mom.”
Mom: “So, can you fix my computer? All of my business records are on it, all of my work, my clients’ records, my entire business is on this computer.”
Me: (Patient, gentle explanation that her computer is a train wreck)
Mom: (Long, painful silence, then) “So, there’s nothing anyone can do?”
Me: “No, I’m sorry. It’s all just gone, unless you have printouts or backup data.”
Mom: “Okay, well, thanks. I gotta’ call a priest.”
Me: “A priest?”
Mom: “Yep, a priest. Trevor’s gonna’ need one in about five minutes.”
Second all-time favorite call:
It was mid-April. A soft, slightly confused, possibly frightened voice identifies itself as Jessica and says, “My dad says I need to call you guys about my [bank] account?” She gives me her account number. I look it up. It’s a student account in California. The address is a UCLA residence hall, and there’s a co-signer on the account with a Sacramento address (must be dad, I figure.) And the account shows a negative balance of more than $4,000. As in four-thousand-dollars. It’s scheduled for closure and collection in four days. “Oh, my God,” Jessica gasps. “How did that happen?”
I paged back and found the last credit, a normal $1,200 deposit the second week of March that left a balance of over $3,000. Then the plundering began. ATM withdrawals of $40, then $80. then $100. Multiple withdrawals, sometimes only hours apart. Huge amounts paid to taverns and restaurants and hotels (yep, as in more than one hotel.) A limo service. Couple of liquor stores. In the course of five or six days, more than $3,500 in activity on the card, all in San Diego. The account is now in the red over $500. Then nothing for two weeks, except massive overdraft charges and the incessant daily overdraft fees.
I recite all of this to Jessica, who’s only reply is an occasional gasp or moan of pain. Finally, she asks for the total damage. I tell her. She whimpers. There’s a long silence, and I cannot help myself; I ask: “So, Jessica, did you enjoy Spring Break?” Jessica’s reply: “God, I hope so!”
Ah, that’d be me.
Yes, you can speak with a supervisor. If you actually are speaking with a supervisor, though, it’s because either you or the agent are having an issue with reality. Remember when the agent told you there’d be a wait time to get you to a supervisor? That was when they came to tell me that they had an escalation.
Agent issues are usually weeded out during this conversation. Agents are asked hard questions like “What did she say when you offered her X to deal with issue Y”, or “Why didn’t a recalibration of the Frenobulator fix that problem”, or “Do you really think that the customer was fully informed of all of the conditions of service and then consciously decided to rack up an $8,000 bill in the hopes that he could later call in and try to get out of it, or do you think it was more likely the guy who sold him the package forgot to mention that particular sub paragraph”. Basically, if they come back with a new bright idea, it’s worth pursuing. You can get your problem fixed, and I can finish that report on why my team’s PM/FTE is out of sync with our sign on percentage. Everyone’s happy.
Your best case scenario is that you convince the person I work with every day to come to me and ask me to make what you want to happen happen, because they think it should, whether or not it’s within policy. I can do that, or I can get it done, and it’s the front line agent who can make that happen.
If that doesn’t work, by all means come and talk to me. There was the guy who wanted credit for a whole year’s service, and explained to me why he should have it, and got it. There was the guy who called in every four months to protest a charge from 3 years ago and when he finally talked to me found the guy who understood what he said he was told, and got the credit.
Please note, however, that I don’t know who you are, I have no idea who we think we are, nor do I know why we are fscking you. If you are not able to tell me what the problem is or what you want done about it after 45 minutes, I will have to disconnect this call. It is not my fault you can’t remember the last four digits of your social security number, and we can’t talk about the account until you do. I realize that “any Chinaman” could get the deal you are being offered, but that is the price. I have no control over the black helicopters circling your house. No, I don’t want to join you in that sexual act. I am glad you are happy with your rifle, but given the thousands of miles between your home and my location, not to mention the lack of windows, I am pretty sure that isn’t my head in your scope. Sadly, “Here’s what you’re going to do” doesn’t actually make me do that, even if you work on Wall Street. If you were best buddies with the CEO, you would probably be talking to him, not me, but let’s race; you get me fired, as threatened, before I come back to work two weeks from now. I seriously doubt he was drinking with you this morning anyway. I appreciate your input as the assistant manager of the second largest mobile home manufacturer in the tri-state area on how we should do business, and will pass it on to the people who run this particular major multinational corporation in case they are interested, but no, I can’t connect you to the president right away. If the case was filed on the 10th, and they told you somebody would call you by the 15th, then all I can tell you on the 12th is that somebody will call you by the 15th. I am sorry that you had to press “1” for English, and that the agent you got had an accent. English isn’t his native language. He speaks English, French, German, Arabic, Pashtun, and Farsi. His English is better than yours. Given the choice between believing the billing system which says your teenage daughter used the service between 1:00 am and 3:00 am, or believing you when you tell me that she would never do that, I choose to believe the machine. If your son only carries the phone to parties so he can call you if need be, and the calls to the international sex chat line all happen after 11:00 pm on Friday and Saturday nights, I have a similar problem. No, I am not a shape changing reptile from Zeta Reticuli, nor can I prove anyone else in the company is. Even if you sue me personally. A better way to call 911 would be for you to hang up the call to 611 and call 911, rather than asking someone in another country to call them for you, no matter how much beer has disappeared from your porch. I am glad that your time is valuable, but nowhere in the contract does it state that we will pay you your hourly rate or equivalent for the time that you spend calling us about the glare from your phone’s shiny screen. Accordingly, I cannot send you a free Blackberry Bold in compensation.
That looks like a rant, doesn’t it? It’s not. Given sufficient time I could find each one of those calls, and that’s just off the top of my head.
Yes, you can speak to a supervisor. There are probably better ways. I always ask if there is a tier two level that the agent and I can go to together. Those people can usually solve all of your problems, or if they can’t, then they will hand you off to the right people to do so, and a positive reference from them is worth more than any shouting, swearing or threatening will ever be.