I am a supervisor, not a wish granting genie.

The BBQ Pit
1

Well, actually, I’m not really a supervisor, just a senior rep who covers for the suits. I get to do the supervisor functions without the office. I figure it’s a karmic payback for sins committed in a previous life.

People seem to think that because I answer the phone “This is hardygrrl and I’m a supervisor in Customer Security”, I must have magical powers. Sorry but I can’t :

Get you a credit card any faster than tomorrow and that’s if you call before 2pm cst. See, brainac, we have to MAKE the card. No, we don’t have a Scrooge McDuckian vault of cards pre-made. I have to generate the new account and fax the request to the embossing center. They send the cards to you. If I had developed a system of teleporting the cards, I sure as shit wouldn’t be answering phones for a living. I’d be touring with my new company, the World Wrestling Federation, ensuring the locker room had enough towels.

Approve a transaction that puts your account over the limit unless it is an emergency. Emergency being defined as “I’m stranded at the airport”, “The doctor won’t treat me without a payment” or “the furnace exploded and I need to replace it”, NOT “I need a new purse”, “the sale ends tomorrow” or my personal favorite “I need a spoiler for my Camaro!” Scream, cry, beg, offer me your firstborn, the answer is no. Call me a bitch, and I’ll say “Mom, is that you?”

Approve your online gambling charges. See, Sparky, the reason the majority of Visa/Mastercard issuers (and yes, not only will I name the banks, I’ll give you their phone numbers) stopped accepting those charges is we lose money on them. Either the charges are fraudulent, the customer goes delinquent, or they go delinquent and then claim fraud. Simple math, we lose enough money, we stop accepting the charges. The cardmember agreement we sent with your card, you know, that piece of paper you’re using as a coaster for your tepid can of Schlitz? It clearly states we can refuse any charge for whatever reason we see fit.. I suggest you get a new hobby. Really. Go outside and take a walk. Read a freaking book. You will still live even if you can’t play Keno at http://www.suckyourwalletclean.com .

Fire a representative at your say so. I do listen to the calls when you complain. The majority of times, it turns out the customer is the one who, for lack of a better term, starts it. If you start off a conversation with screaming “You better fix my fucking card, you cunt”, what do you honestly expect? Accolades? An offer to come to your house to wash and wax your car? Yes, sometimes our policies suck. Yes, things can be frustrating. That is no reason to go all Courtney Love without nicotine on the person who is trying to help you. If I find out the rep screwed up, I will coach them. If they were rude, they will be spoken to. I do not have the power to fire them. As for the requests to slap them, if I could do that, I’d never get anything done with all the slapping I’d like to do.

And BTW, as a supervisor, I am allowed to hang up on you. I just have to warn you ONE time. As in, “Sir, if you continue to use profanity, I will disconnect this call”. And I will. Lucky for you, I enjoy making comebacks. Tell me to jam the card up my ass? “Sorry, that’s not a service we offer at this time”. Lie to me? “ooh, while you’re telling me stories, can you tell me one about bunnies? I like bunnies!”

And yes, I do flip the phone off or sign “fuck you, assclown” in flawless ASL. Thanks for calling, have a nice day.

2

Classic! hardy, this contains so many masterpieces of the wry, ironic observation, I am in awe. Beautiful.

3

I work in a call-center.

You have described my life.

:: bows down and worships hardygrrl ::

Fenris

4

Great rant, hardy. Where you been keeping yourself? I haven’t come across a good rant from you in awhile.

Now I’m going off to snap up suckyourwalletclean.com. Even that’s bound to make money of the idjits.

5

World Wrestling Entertainment…

6

Ooh ooh could you teach me how to do this?

Your Fan,
Dragonblink

7

http://www.suckyourwalletclean.com

This link dosen’t seem to work.

8

I certainly sympathize with the OP, particularly re: customers wanting things that are not only just against company policy but not actually humanly possible.

When someone says “So, who do I have to talk to to get this package here TODAY?”, I really want to answer, “Um, God?”

As for folks who scream “I WANT MY PACKAGE HERE RIGHT NOW!”, I don’t even know what to say. “The transporters are downnnn, Captain! We don’t have the powerrrrrr!”

9

When I used to work in Card Services at a Bank in Oz, we had an embosser in the building for ‘emergencies’.
While you could come and collect it, it wasn’t convenient for 99% of customers, so yes, they would have to wait a day for Australia Post to mail it.
But, you ‘could’ have if you were desparate enough (and I don’t mean the sales end today desparate).

10

hehe.

There’s one born every minute.

11

Jesus, what am I supposed to do without that spoiler? Chicks DIG spoilers!

12

here’s one for ya :smiley:

oooh! it makes me go all weak at the knees…

13

Damn I was beat to it…

But a nice rant.

14

Depends who you ask. I would say “being a cog in the Rube Goldberg nightmare that is a major bank by day, pimping myself for a new writing gig by night.” My boyfriend would say I’m “driving him to an early grave”. My grandmother would say “sticking a knife THROUGH HER HEART by not having some babies”.

It’s all about perspective. :smiley:

15

Oddly, look what I got in the mail today:

RE: Call Centre Agents

Dear A,

Many thanks for your application in relation to our current vacancy. We will consider you for this role and if you are successful in being selected for interview we will be in touch in due course.

Thank you for your interest in the XXX Group.

Yours sincerely

RECRUITMENT OFFICER

16

Yeah, I wanted to place a bet with a new casino. What’s up with the broken link? Oh, well, I’m probably over my limit anyway.

17

Y’know, I saw the thread title and I thought that the rant was going to be about the kinds of complaints people like me make to people like hardy. The very first words which come out of my mouth when someone rings me about money I supposedly owe are “can I talk to your supervisor”? Without fail I get asked WHY I want to talk to the supervisor (actually, it’s my legal right to do so and you have no business whatsoever calling me if you didn’t know that).

By the time I actually get to the supervisor, I’m pretty much spitting venom - ESPECIALLY if the supervisor tries to tell me that yes, she took over this account two days ago and she has NO RECORD WHATSOEVER of any previous correspondence between the company concerned and myself (hello? how the fuck did the debt get assigned to you if you have “no record of correspondence”?).

To all the supervisors of the world, I’m sorry if I spit venom at you when I finally get you on the line - please believe me that the only reason I ask to speak to a supervisor is because the staff working under your supervision are so incompetent. But you already KNEW that, anyway, didn’t you?

18

**

No. I don’t.

The vast majority of people who work with/under me are extremely competent. They work hard, and within the bounds of their job, try to make the customer’s call pleasant. Think about it: no-one wants to be yelled at. I would guess that 90% of the calls my leads, supervisors and I take from agents are from idiots following this script:

Idiot: I want you to pay for the repair of my TV and your "incompetent’ agent wouldn’t do it.

Me: I’m sorry sir, but your warranty doesn’t cover you having shot out the picture tube.

Idiot: Does so.

Me: Section 6, paragraph 2. “Any damage caused by shooting out picture tubes is not covered by this contract”

Idiot: Well, the salesman told me that it would be.

Me: (thinks: I doubt it but…) Even if he did, Sir, Section 12, paragraph 1: “Regardless of whatever anyone (salesmen, magic pixies, voices in your head) told you, Our Company will only cover the items originally printed on this document.”

Idiot: Well, my contract doesn’t say that.

Me: If some sort of spontaneous mutation occurred and out of the 12 billion warranties we sold, yours is different from every other one, please feel free to fax it to me, personally. If you’re correct, I’ll certainly honor it. I believe my call agent told you that?

Idiot: Yeah, but he’s an incompetent.

Me: Why?

Idiot: Because he won’t ignore the contract and do what I want.

Me: (thinks “Guess what, Bunky?”)

Idiot: Well, what about my computer?

Me: What about it?

Idiot: I want someone out here today to fix it.

Me: You didn’t purchase a “Same-day” plan 'cause we don’t sell same day plans and it’s 4:45 PM. We can have someone out day after tomorrow, though.

Idiot: That’s not good enough

Me: Your contract doesn’t impose any time limits on us to perform service*, but in the interests of customer service, here’s what I can do: We don’t have anyone in your area who can go out tomorrow, but if you can find a someone for under $XXX.XX, go ahead and schedule service. Mail or fax me their bill and we’ll reimburse you. Or wait one day.

Idiot: < string of obscenities deleted >
Easily 90%+ of the escalated calls I get are from some jerkwad who thinks that somehow the terms and conditions of the contract he/she purchased don’t apply to him/her (or better: that the laws of physics don’t apply to them: some moron managed, with pliers apparently, to get the prongs of a laptop plug (U.S. style) to fit a U.K. socket. He screamed and yelled that it wasn’t his fault that they had a “different kind of electricty” in England. :rolleyes: ).

I work damned hard to make sure that for the vast majority of people, they come away with a good experience with my company. I do quality assurance (a long formal process about 1 hour long) sessions with CSRs once ever other week, I do random call monitors, and so forth. But some idiots there’s no pleasing.

I’m sorry you had a bad experience with your bank, Repripse, but don’t f*cking generalize about most supervisors/call-takers because of your incompetent bank.

Fenris

*Really. It doesn’t.

19

Um, Fenris, I love you sweetheart but I was talking about calls from outward-bound call centres (and just about any call centtre which represents a government department).

I have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER of the regulations under which call centres in the US are allowed to make outgoing calls. What I can most certainly vouch for is the fact that many creditors HERE hand their outstanding debts on to call centres long before they have the legal right to refer the debt to anyone.

And you bet that every single time I receive a call from a factoring or debt collection agency BEFORE they creditor concerned has contacted me about the debt, I will call not only the person who makes the initial contact with me, but I’ll also ask to speak to their supervisor and ask them to provide WRITTEN evidence that they have authority to collect the debt.

Real life example. I owed some overdue (undisputed) fees on movies at my local video store. No less than SEVEN different agencies contacted me about about that same debt in the same time frame. Some of them wanted to charge me an “additional” fee for every letter they sent me about that debt even though other agencies were chasing the same debt at the same time. The original debt was $62:50. By the time the worst of the debt collection agencies who knew they were absoutely “right” reached me, THEIR bill (at $30 per time for pursuing this debt by writing me yet another letter) was around $700 .

You BET I sprayed venom at their rep and the supervisor when I had already informed them (and had in WRITING) the fact that I owed $62.50, and not their hundreds of dollars worth of “collection” charges.

There has not been ONE occasion in the last 5 years when I have had a call from a recovery agency and that agency has had anything other than a “figure owed” in front of them. They rely - absolutely - on the balance which is forward to them by the creditor, without requiring any documentation whatsoever to prove the validity of the claim they are pursuing. Even worse, in the case of mobile phone contracts (the terms of which change from one month to the next) the collection agencies here AUTOMATICALLY assume that the consumer is in the wrong and demand that the consumer demonstrate their “innocence”. And people fall for that kind of intimidation every day of the week.

So I’m sorry if you think that I’m a total bitch Fenris, but in any situation where I’m not totally confident that the person who is ringing ME is legally right, I WILL ask to speak to their supervisor, and I WILL ask the supervisor what piece of legislation allows them to ask person questions or prohibits me from hanging up on them.

Wow - after all these years I’ve finally discovered an issue on which Fenris and I disagree. I sincerely hope that you’ll take this disagreement in the spirit which is guiding me. We disagree about THIS issue. I’d like to think that doesn’t make us automatic combatants in respect of every other issue which ever arises on the SDMB.

20

O’ course not. We’re still pals. (And I don’t think you’re a bitch. I am feeling cranky, though) :smiley:

And I hadn’t caught that they were calling you! And they’re sleazy collection agencies too! That’s completely different. :eek:

Nevertheless, my rant still stands. Not at you, so much (since you’re being bugged by sleazy collection agencies) but at the “supervisors of the world” line.

Like I said, I’m a call-center supervisor (granted, an “inbound” call-center, and not one for a sleazy collection agency) but still…

Fenris