I used to work in a call center, as well, and we were told to never give out our last names. Instead, if asked for a last name, we would volunteer to give out an employee number instead. Also, with this center, each first name was unique–if someone else had the same first name, they would either use a nickname (“Dave” instead of “David”, for example) or a middle name, or some other pseudonym.
In this case, a first name would be enough to identify you to a supervisor, and the employee number would certainly identify you. I would never even have dreamed of giving out my last name…as others have said, there are too many freaks and weirdos and mentally unstable people out there who call call centers.
Most customers were quite satisfied with an employee number instead of a last name. Those who were not generally fell into the “unstable” category to begin with…I don’t think they wanted the name just for “identification” purposes, if you know what I mean.
You know what’s strange? In my current job, I sign my first and last name on written correspondence to customers–and I’ve never had any qualms about that. If I were sending things to residential customers instead of to businesses, perhaps I might have qualms. Perhaps people just have more civil behavior at work–and don’t tend to take slights against them so personally, preferring to go through official channels if there would be a problem, rather than looking me up in the phone book and showing up with a shotgun on my front lawn.
I agree with most of the dopers in saying the first name is enough. If it’s a big company and there is more than one Joe, the first initial of the last name works. Call centers should have ID numbers (I was under the impression they did anyway).
When I call and speak with someone, I’ve never asked for their last name. It’s just too intrusive, IMO. I hate, hate, hate giving out my name at work, and only do so when requested. A customer complaint about me is highly unlikely, and if that is the case, my boss knows who it is simply by looking at the shift schedule.
I’ve never heard the name “Vi” before. Is it possible that this employee was an immigrant from a culture where last names are optional or not used? I have met several Indians who are “just Shiv” or “just Shankar” because that’s the only name they have; no family name at all.
I think that “Vi” is probably short for Violet. Perhaps there is already another Violet in the call center, or she just prefers to be called “Vi”.
As for the comment about women…I’m curious about that as well. I do think that women tend to be more cautious about identity. After all, that AOL tech that sleestak mentioned was able to defend himself somewhat…but would your average woman be able to do so? I’m sure that there must be men out there who are stalked by women, but in my experience, it is much more often the other way around. I know that I talked to some real creeps…and the men with whom I worked generally did not get those calls (the creep would hang up if he got a man, or would just not try his creep act on him.)
With regard to the comment about women, I suspect that the reason for this trend in modern society has its genesis in the increasing presence of women in the workplace. I’m talking about my perception over a forty year span folks.
I don’t pretend to be able to defend my impressions, but I know that priorities for men are different than women and most likely culturally induced or the result of the biological reality that women are generally viewed as sex objects by men. When dealing with the public, the previous ethic of standing by your name, an almost machismo imperative as I recall, has been supplanted by the important and valid security reasons that female emplyees must rely on. this must have changed the protocols of customer relations throughout North American business, and with the advantages of anonymity young men must have dropped the desire to “stand by their name”. In time the social practice of introducing yourself by your full name has spread beyond the call centres and customer/business contact facilities. Oh well, I don’t have to like it.
I’m thankful to learn here that I do have an option to ask for an employee ID number, which I will most likely use in th future.
When my husband worked in a call center (for the phone company, no less) he was not allowed to give his last name. Each first name used in the center was unique, as somebody else mentioned if there were two Davids then one of them became Dave, no last names but an employee number (not to mention a tracking number for the call, which was a very long number). This led to a couple of situations where my husband, knowing he might be recorded, conveyed his last name to one person or another by a series of hints until they got it right.
On a related note, does anybody believe a person in a call center somewhere in India is actually named “Jennifer”?
Hmmm, I have noticed a similar pattern in voice mails, females will generally use the unidentified default (the person you called 5…5…5…5…5…5…1…2…1…2… is unavailable…), instead of the direct approach (the person you called Kanicbird is unavailable …)
I suspect there is some correlation, but I don’t think there is a ‘sneakiness’ factor more like a desire to ‘hide’ sort of a self defense method.
I’m speaking as a woman now. It’s one thing when some faceless twerp threatens to run you over and shoot your dog. Some people get a little overexcited when they can’t have their way. But if I’m required to give them my first and last name, especially if my name is distinctive (and it is) and they can figure out what city I live in, I am no longer safe. We all have to worry about being assaulted, but most women have some extra reasons to be afraid.
In a call center or other customer support position I do not give out my last name. I got very, very angry at one job when I discovered my first and last name was going out on the automatic customer-response emails (we weren’t using Outlook; we were using a specific support program). My boss simply could not understand why a single woman living alone might worry that some psycho with a grudge could get her address with a simple Google search.
So yes, you might find it more often with women, and for a logical reason.
I worked for 'em from '98 to '01, and the policy as it was explained to us was that we could refuse to give our last name to a member, but we weren’t allowed to say that we were forbidden by AOL to give it out. We did give out employee ID numbers though.
I don’t think it’s a particularly female thing to refuse to give out your last name; you can be the biggest, baddest guy in the building, but you aren’t protected from a bullet just because you’ve got a penis.
And if you think that people don’t work in jobs where someone would get mad enough to shoot them, you’ve never had to break it to about 20 methadone clinic patients that the clinic was closed for a holiday and they couldn’t get their methadone that day. I’ve done that, and I’ve told a whole bunch of people that their doctor didn’t want to call in a prescription for the painkillers they were addicted to. More than one person has threatened to “come up there” (although they were generally just fuzzy enough to show up at the doctor’s office instead, which is where one of them got arrested after threatening several employees).
I introduce myself by first name, and if someone snaps at me in the middle of the call that they want my last name, they don’t get it. If my employer wishes me to give out my last name at all times, they can pay me enough to afford what I think are reasonable security precautions on my home, and they can provide reasonable security precautions at work. I always felt safe working at AOL (ok, except that one time one of my co-workers threw a chair at someone) behind security doors, but my current workplace doesn’t have the same security features. On the other hand, I think my boss would probably encourage me to carry concealed if I felt I needed to.
As others have stated, it’s all about personal safety, particularly for the women.
I live in a smallish town, where I make typically 100 phone calls a day as a bill collector, 25-50 of which are local calls, or calls to towns no more than an hour’s drive. I have an extremely uncommon last name. When I first started at the company, I requested an alias, and I use that alias (and only that alias, as is required by law in my line of work) all the time.
When I first got into this line of work, I was actually called at home one day by someone that I had called earlier in the day. That scared me into being more discreet about my real identity. The story about the guy who busted into the agency with a gun looking for the collector who sent his accounts to the magistrate court helped me make the decision, too.
In short, there are ways for the call center to track incoming calls I’m sure. There are certainly employee IDs or other pieces of information the workers can give, but a last name can be something that people in certain types of businesses like to keep secret.
Lastly, I’d guess Vi would be short for Vivian rather than Violet…
The whole “societal trend” here really muddies up all the waters. I don’t want to give my name out at all - I’m a librarian. My ID badge has my first initial and my last name. People want to know my name. I don’t want to give it to them at all! I have enough problems with creepy drug addicts watching me walk across the floor, I’d prefer they didn’t know my name. It’s not an accountability issue - by all means, tell my boss I told you whatever. I just don’t like giving my name out.
I also wish people didn’t call you by your first name like they do nowadays - I don’t think it’s always appropriate. There’s really no way to say to a grown person who asks your name “I’m Ms. Lastname”, though. I just think you have no business using my first name to ask me a question about the microfilm if I have never met you before today. Unless maybe, maybe, you’re over 70.
This doesn’t mean you can call me “hon”, though. And “shorty” is right out. You know who you are.
How about, and this is just me spitballing here, something like “I’m Ms Lastname”? It’s still good manners to address someone as she wishes to be addressed, and the insistence upon addressing strangers by their first names would have up until quite recently been considered extremely forward and rude. You use the name the person gives you, and if that’s the last name you don’t assume that it’s all right to use her first name unless she expressly tells you so.
At one of my call center jobs I got in trouble repeatedly for calling customers “sir” and “ma’am” instead of addressing them by their first names. I was told that calling them “sir” or “ma’am” was rude.
When my customers (bankers) have a broken widget, they call in and speak to a CSR, usually a woman. They are forbidden from sharing their last name.
Can’t figure out why. I can’t see a branch manager coming into my office and trying to slay one of our reps.
When I get a support call from an employee of my company who has a broken widget, I answer with first and last name. I have the “macho ethic” thing going on. I have nothing to hide, and if he has a problem with me, he can come and discuss it. He can fight me in the lobby if it makes him feel better, but I’m proud of the work I do, and want him to know who is helping him. Plus… I have three guys with my first name in my sub-department of tech support, and it saves confusion.
I’m a call center rep too. The first thing that goes through my mind when someone asks for my full name is “what are they going to try to blame on me”?
I stand by my work, and I do it well. Many of my customers have let my supervisors know this. Each one of my calls is logged, time stamped, and describes our conversation. I assume this is, to some degree, standard call center practice. I freely give out my extension and/or employee ID along with my first name and, if asked, the first initial of my last name. To the best of my knowledge I have never recieved a complaint.
That said, I feel put on the defensive when someone asks (usually in an accusatory tone) for personal information. They already know what city I work in (if they ask) and I don’t feel like being googled by a crazy person.
The amount of situations that are resolved by citing who you talked to is, at least in my experience, very small. Either the the previous rep did their job, or they didn’t. Accountability does not usually change the status of the situation, except when I can verify a misquote within the system. If one were to get into a situation where the rep was being highly unprofessional, chances are that they were equally unprofessional by way of deleting the record of your conversation.
I have countless people asking to speak with a “John” or “Laura” and they have no extension for them. Where I work, no extension means that I cant get that person on the phone for you specifically. Unless that is, I happen to know that person. I don’t personally know all 400 reps at our site, I know none of the reps at our 7 other centers.
I guess the trick is to ask the person you’re talking to how to best utilize their system in order to suit your needs. They should be happy to tell you. Should be.
Many years ago, I worked for a credit bureau. All of the collectors there went by a single name which did not happen to be their actual name. The bureau ensured nobody was using the same name as another collector. All that the OP needs to know is the identity of the individual to whom he or she is speaking. That identity could be a name or it could even be a number.
I have a fairly unusual last name, which mostly means people rarely pronounce it right on the first try. But I far prefer the cashier at the grocery to say “Thank you Mrs Zimzam, er, zeemzum, er…” than reading my first name off the receipt (because I’ve used my nifty grocery store card) and assuming the familiarity of using it.
On the other hand, I won’t go as far as my grandmother’s generation, where my grandmother still goes by ‘Mrs. Raymond Wilmunn*’ even though he’s been dead now for ten years, and my husband’s grandmother is still Mrs. John Davidson* even though he died I think twenty years ago. They do have first names (obviously), they just don’t use them. Although actually, if I had my grandma’s name, I wouldn’t use it either.
But…I think this is a societal pendulum swing. In the 1940s, England, children at school called each other by their last names, not their first names. A hundred years previous to that, even married couples might call each other - in private, mind you - Mr. and Mrs Smith, rather than Charles and Agatha. When I was a little kid, thirty years ago, I was expected to address all adults as Mr. and Mrs, and never by their first names. In fact it seemed a rite of passage when I was finally allowed that right. And I’m still not allowed it with my in-laws. Yet somehow, most of my friends who are my age request my children call them by their first names. And I predict, based on this very slow trend toward the informal, that things will get ‘worse’ before they get better, and then they will swing very slowly back to formalities again.
I do require my children to call adults by some kind of honorific or title, and ‘sir’ and “ma’am” unless they specify otherwise. I think it’s just good manners to learn to do that. But I was never invited as a child to address an adult by their first name. It just wasn’t done. Now…?