I think this is perfect, better than what I would have done. (I might have emailed my boss, but wouldn’t have thought to ask to have it placed in my file.) You are doing what you are instructed to do. Even if you changed your greeting, you’re only one of a few thousand. If enough people feel like you do, and raise the issue, I’d hope that collective complaint would filter its way up to someone with some control.
Calling the Ethics line seems reasonable also, if you like. The decision of whether or not it’s an ethics violation, or whether to do anything about it, is under their purview. Either way, I don’t see any harm in this.
I probably wouldn’t think much of it. If I called the 800 number for my insurance company and got someone’s voicemail where they said they’d call me back and someone else called me back instead (which is what I assume happens) I don’t even think I’d notice.
At first I was curious as to why these calls don’t all funnel into one VM box that could have one VM message, but I’m think they’re just trying to get different voices and different names to make the call feel more personal.
Like I said, I wouldn’t think twice about it in your shoes, I’d just record the message and probably never think about it again. Now that I think about it, I’m going to guess that when all lines are busy they’ll they’ll just play one of those at random and dump the voicemail into a single VM box for an actual adjuster to return later.
I think you’re far to stressed out over it.
If you’re that worried about it, just print the email out (if possible) and if anyone else is worried have them do the same thing. That way if you ever get called out you can show that you were instructed to do so by The Man. But I have to say if I called your company and didn’t get a call back I wouldn’t be on the phone saying that Rachel’s voicemail promised she would call back.
If you’re that stressed out, call the confidential number and tell them you’d like this looked into before you do it. Either you need the plan/scripting changed or you need it explained to you how the logistics of this is going to work. Perhaps, like I said, they’re going to start funneling the calls to a single VM box so it won’t have anything to do with you anyways and this was just a quick way to get a bunch of different voices…but it needs to be explained to the department…or maybe they’re going to have you start making outgoing calls…but it needs to be explained…but if you tell them that as of right now you’re in the dark and it seems wrong you might get an explanation or at least get you’re worries on record.
But again, personally, I’d just record it and move on. It’s not my fault I can’t make outgoing calls and the company is well aware of that. I would work under the assumption they have some plan and know what they are doing.
More likely, the upper manager wanted to create a standard format for all voicemail greetings company-wide (not a stupid endeavor on the face of it) and nobody bothered to point out why this is a bad idea for this particular department. I guarantee even the biggest douchebag on the planet wouldn’t have followed through with that mandatory format if he had been made aware of this particular consequence of it.
It sounds like rachelellogram’s boss should really be the one to bring it up to senior management, considering its his department that it reflects poorly on. It’s typical of middle managers to blame problems on seniors by saying “that’s just what they said! Do it that way,” instead of actually doing their jobs by being the liaison between senior managers and workers. The whole point of middle management is to catch issues like this and address them.
I’m sure the sr. manager who made this proclamation has the ability to make outbound calls & hopefully just forgot that the lowly peons in the inbound call center don’t. The creation of this ‘policy’ was either a case of simple oversight or a manager who doesn’t know what the people below him do. Pointing this out to him (or her) & then having them fix it by issuing a new proclamation makes them look incompetent & wishy-washy to everyone, not just the intelligent few (you are a member of the SDMB!) who don’t mindlessly drone away at their jobs.
Do I think it’s incompetence, 'ell yes! Do I think it’s unethical, that may be pushing it a bit.
You stated that you get only one VM every 2-3 months & those are usually not even directed to you. You did your part & noted it to the appropriate party, your boss. Sometimes, the head above the crowd gets noticed, but sometimes it means that head is attached to an exposed neck. I’m not overly religious, but this ‘prayer’ may be appropriate here, “Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
P.S. You might want to suggest to your boss that your job title has VM eliminated if you can’t make outbound calls. Usually there’s some cost to have it & think of the savings for removing it from a couple of thousand reps every month. This solution fixes the problem & saves the company money.
We still have direct extensions so that people can call and leave us messages that we check later. Like if I didn’t have a cell phone, I might use my voicemail more often and call back family on lunch breaks. The way it’s set up is, and I don’t know the technical details, but anytime someone directly dials my extension, they get put straight to my voicemail no matter what mode my phone is in.
I agree that having voicemail is silly for us. Almost nobody ever uses it, given the nature of our job and the ubiquity of cell phones.
Nothing. There is no procedure in place, at all, to deal with misplaced calls to my voice mail. The only chance I have to check voicemail is when I’m off the clock. Since I’m hourly, I am prohibited from working when I’m off the clock.
That’s not how it’s done, now or ever, at my company. You don’t get to anybody’s voicemail UNLESS you enter a specific extension. Many of the phone queues and options filter down to my department in the end, so unless you know the extension of an adjuster, you’re not going to reach one (certainly not a random one). I guess that’s something that *could *change, but I really doubt it.
This is not an assumption that has borne fruit in the past. ANd not just for the peons like me… my mom works in another department, and the bullshit she puts up with (in a much more skilled position than I have, even) is appalling. But you know… same old shit, different thread. Upper management has been making increasingly terrible decisions since I started working here. I can’t get into specifics without revealing the name of my company, unfortunately. I’ll just say, I’m pretty sure our most-recent CEO is running the company into the ground. I anticipate my job being outsourced within the next 2-3 years (after *decades *of being handled in-house).
I think you’re probably right.
And he won’t. He’s my temporary boss until my real boss comes back from maternity leave (which she keeps extending :(:(), and he is an unsavory MBA-flaunting toad. He’s a total corporate apologist, was hired into management from the outside, and has no idea what my job is like. My real boss, though, started as a CSR and was promoted through the ranks. She is amazing and way smarter than me, so I’m thinking I’ll table this until she gets back. She is a mover and a shaker, so if something happens for a bullshit reason, she’s much more likely to follow through on it. Unless, of course, it’s resolved before she comes back (which should be any day now, I hear).
This isn’t about even worse service towards the customer, because I doubt they intend to change how(or how often) that happens. This is a deliberate ploy to direct complaints away from the company and towards you. The company doesn’t call back in time, the customer calls back to complain about your broken promise, and your company apologizes about your bad behavior and promises to punish you for it. Congratulations-your section has just become the official scapegoat for your company’s bad response time.
I recognize those words. But I’m not sure they make sense in the configuration you have arranged them in.
Ok, a couple of things.
First of all, why do YOU give a fuck? I routinely lie, like, all the time [Archer quote]…uh…you mean as part of your job…right?[/Archer quote]. There is no nobility in being honest and unemployed. (Of course there is also no honor in being dishonest and unemployed or in jail either). The point is, your professional repuation as an annonymous call center drone is not in danger.
Second. Yeah, it sounds like a pretty stupid and pointless management decision. Why do you even have voicemail anyway? Calls to your phones should be forwarded to an automated message that tells the caller they accidently dialed a non-monitored mailbox and provides them with the correct number to call.
Third, managers aren’t (always) morons. Sometimes we simply don’t give a fuck. Then again, some are morons. Boss isn’t always right, but he’s always the boss.
Fourth. How is this an HR issue? Everyone on this board seems to think corporations are run by HR departments. They are run by senior management and HR simply enforces the policies they set. Some middle manager didn’t grab you ass in the break room. Figure out who actually set this policy before you make a stink about it.
Fifth. It’s not “unethical”. You aren’t defrauding anyone.
Finally, don’t worry. If it’s important the customer will call back. And if they were pissed off, it’s not like they will be fuming by the phone for the next 24 hours waiting for your call.
I’ve worked in an insurance call center. We had to be very precise about what we said. I imagine that this could potentially be a problem if it came up in an official complaint (though, to be fair, I worked with annuities, so there was the potential for more interest/earnings shenanigans with delays). You’re right to be concerned, and you’re right to bring it up, and to doggedly pursue the issue with management. In the meantime, however, record the message. It’s worth correcting, but it’s not worth losing your job over.
You’re not defrauding someone, but you’re deliberately increasing the potential timeframe for a resolution. I’ve pulled calls, I’ve corresponded with DOIs, and I know that something like that can potentially be an issue. Promising and failing to meet a specific timeframe on a continual basis would look very bad–and, while it probably isn’t going to ruin people’s lives, it very well might ruin their day. If you’re a decent human being, ruining people’s days for no good reason makes you feel kinda bad.
…hahahahaha. Ha. Ha. Most people won’t. But, no, some people will just sit there and wait for your call. And will bitch at you if it’s half an hour late, let alone a day or two. And if they don’t get a call, whoa Nellie and hold the phone. They’ll go ballistic.
You’re assuming that customers are universally reasonable people. They’re totally not.
If I understand the situation correctly, I agree. I don’t see the point of this at all - tell customers something that isn’t going to happen, increasing the customer dissatisfaction with your company, for what end result?
They were already telling the customers something that wasn’t going to happen. What has changed is where the customer’s ire will be directed-at named individuals in the company instead of the company itself. If the company has no intention of increasing response time, this is actually a good move on their part(from their perspective only, of course.)
Worth making waves over? Not so much if you like your job.
Honestly, if it were me, I’d feel just as you do.
I’d document the conversation you had with your boss re this issue, not relying on him putting anything into your file!
Then I’d record it, as directed, only I’d slip in the word ‘try’. “I will ‘try’ to return your call…”
I doubt they are checking them all, so it won’t likely be noticed. It changes their lie into a truth for you. And if called on it, you can claim it was just a slip of the tongue.
Then I’d be able to sleep at night, knowing I did what I could.
I would definitely not try this. if this is a section-wide edit, the your boss is being graded on its compliance-there will be calls to all lines to check that compliance, guaranteed.