And all of that is the machinations of management who don’t want Customer service to exist at all. Reaming the person on the phone does nothing as management cares not at all for them, either.
Get contact info for management and make them miserable.
So you think that a customer service department that is not straight with their customers can be considered “proper” customer service by some customers? I doubt you will find many.
Sure, the owner of the company might consider it “proper”, but I don’t think this thread is talking about the owner’s perspective, it talking about the customer’s perspective.
Dave Barry once published the phone number of some CEO because he was getting sales calls from that company, that was funny.
To be fair, I have a couple of co-workers who have a smarter-than-thou attitude right out of the gate with every customer, and I see a fair influx of them every time we have a training class. Usually they don’t last all that long, because they end up sucking ass at customer service.
The ones that bug the living fuck out of me go like this. I had this guy a couple of weeks back;
Me: Ok, what is in the middle of the screen? (knowing exactly where he is and what he should be seeing)
Cx: Nothing.
Me: Nothing? There can’t be nothing there. What is in the middle of the screen?
Cx: Nothing.
Me: Is it a blank white or black screen?
Cx: No, there’s just nothing there.
Me: If it isn’t blank, then there is something there. What is there?
Cx: I told you. Nothing.
Me: Again, if it isn’t blank, there is something there. Is it a picture, or words, or what? Please describe what is there, because IT IS NOT “NOTHING”.
Cx: Well, there are words there.
Me: Ok, that isn’t ‘nothing.’ What do they say?
Cx: Nothing.
Me (audibly losing my temper): Sir, the words do not say nothing. Read them to me.
Cx: But they don’t say anything!
Me: Sir, I’m done with this. There isn’t ‘nothing’ in the middle of the screen. There are words there, and they do not say ‘nothing’. You can either read them to me right now, or I’m done speaking to you and will hang up. Read me what it says.
Cx: (reads me exactly what I expected the screen to say)
Me: Sir, that’s what I’ve been expecting you to be seeing all along. It is telling you exactly what we needed to see and what we need to do here. (pause) So look, if you’re having a problem with this process, then we can end the call right here and you can get back to us when you’re ready to continue it. Otherwise I will expect you to start cooperating with me, do you understand?
(pause)
Cx: Ok, I’m sorry, I just didn’t understand what it was saying
Me: And I don’t understand why you just didn’t tell me that rather than insisting that there was nothing there. All that did was waste both our time. Do you want to continue this, or would you rather call back later?
In the end, we got his problem resolved, but it took about 3 times longer than it would for anyone with normal intelligence.
Of course, one of my best stories, that I have posted before, was the guy who wasn’t getting emails from his friends. His email address was (his name) “double O seven” @somewhere. I send him a test email. It bounces. I get him to send me an email. I notice the problem.
It isn’t 007 as per James Bond. It is double LETTER O. Of course, you tell anyone “(name) double O seven” and they think James Bond - zero zero seven. NO ONE thinks double letter O. :rolleyes:
When we get this straightened out, he says “So my friends are idiots?”
I say “Something like that”. 
Oooh, you’ll love this site. I love reading about stupid customers. 
I don’t know. While I don’t do phone support, it’s very possible for the customer to be in the right and the rep to be the “stupid” one. I’ve worked with people who promised customers things that weren’t possible or told them their problem required a simple fix when the fix was anything but. And then someone else (i.e. ME) has to come out and fix it.
The absolute worst was when a co-worker said “Justin Bailey will take care of this for you and you’ll have no charge” when a) I had no knowledge of the situation so making promises in my name is an absolute no-no and b) the customer did have a charge because it was clearly their fault. But I had to deal with that and then try to make it better because someone I work with made it worse first.
And I find it very hard to believe that only happens to me.
In my 32 years of dealing with both customers and customer service reps, I’ve found that customers have a pretty normal distribution of intelligence and customer support reps, while probably being a notch smarter, either waste the extra with willful misunderstanding of the customer, or have insufficient experience on the other end of whatever the support organization is tasked with supporting.
And I haven’t found that tier one support has ANY edge over the customers. In some cases it’s even worse because tier one is on a script they are essentially unable to get past.
One of my favorite tech support experiences is when the customer has given up dealing with tech support and I go on site, put tech support on speaker and then show the customer what they needed to do to get service. Including realizing when tech support is deliberately lying to them.
I expect you to solve my problem, or put me in touch with someone who can. If your system can’t deal with it, put me in touch with someone who can override it, then make sure you fix your system, as you seem to be so high up the company. I don’t expect you to run to the warehouse, though. If you’ve sent me faulty goods, I expect you to contact the warehouse, tell them to put a working item on a van, and deliver it to me at the earliest realistic time.
This is assuming I’m entitled to all of this, of course. But the tone of your posts in general is that you are annoyed at having to provide timely service to those who require it.
The occasional customer is stupid, just like the occasional CS rep (see above). It’s best not to judge them all by the worst examples.
For everything else, what Czarcasm said.
Nope, you’re absolutely right.
My absolute peeve is when a lower tier person promises something we cannot deliver or that they are not entitled to make a promise about, then asks me to take the call because they couldn’t deliver on it (or worse, they intentionally promise that I will do it, not them) and then when I tell them I can’t do it and to just tell the customer that I will “take the call from here”, they instead introduce me with the promise that I will do what I just told them cannot be done - thinking “aha, now I’m forcing Chimera to do this!”. Then I’m the guy left holding the bag with an angry customer as I’m trying to explain to him that I have no ability to make a program developed by another company do something that it isn’t designed to do, or that I can’t give him a free pony because he had to wait on hold for 20 minutes and feels entitled to “compensation” for his time.
Yesterday I had a customer call back because someone fixed something outside our scope of support (not our product) and then left only the note “fixed X” in the person’s files. The person who brought it to me had no idea how to fix X, and neither did I. But the original person unfortunately set the expectation that we had the ability to fix someone elses product and now this customer expected that every one of our people could do it, and would do it for her free of charge. She was pretty unhappy when I told her that it wasn’t our product and she was calling the wrong company, because “But Joe Blow fixed it for me last month!”
Fuck off you self-important weasel. No major company is going to rewite major systems and procedures because one self-entitled jackass demands they change everything to suit him. :rolleyes:
What I’ve had problems with isn’t so much Raving Monster Idiocy or Raving Monster Douchebaggery. What I have problems with is The All-Mighty All-Powerful Script, Scripty Be Thy Name.
Scripty is what first-line TSRs (Tech Support Reps) have instead of a brain. Scripty is the answer to the problem of how you get a monkey to solve problems for a moron without having to educate either: Without monkeys, Scripty is worthless; without Scripty, monkeys are worthless; there are many variants on Scripty, but that one is theirs, and they will not deviate from the one that is theirs until the skies fall and sugar savors of salt and you can optimize code for a stack machine.
Scripty is subtle; calling your customers morons isn’t couth, neither can you imply their idiocy through word or action. You can, however, demand they unplug their phone line and plug it back in the other way around. This weeds out everyone dumb enough to have tried to send ADSL packets over the air while only minimally insulting the people who know why it’s insane. (Incidentally, I am the Flash, as I can do that in the instant it takes sound to travel from my lips to the phone and then down the phone line to your ears. Never forget that.)
Scripty also knows of no OS other than Windows. This is because it is 1996 and Bill Gates is the God-Emperor of DRAM. I cope by lying my ass off and if you’re smart you’re too dumb to call me on any of it.
In short, I can bow to Scripty and waste a minimal amount of time with its supplications. I just wish there was a simple test I could take to prove myself competent with the relevant technology to the point I’d never have to wade through first-line TSRs ever again.
(You want to know the details? YOU CAN HANDLE THE DETAILS, so here they are: I’m out in Bumfuck Montana getting ADSL through a tin can and whatever baling wire the cattle haven’t sodomized yet. Occasionally, my phone connection is loud like an electrified beehive for no apparent reason. This isn’t the best condition for an Internet connection, so it goes down and we and the ISP’s field circus have to wave multiple dead chickens until it comes back up.)
We have a couple of basic steps they teach new people and I keep railing for them to either remove one of them or put some heavy caveats on it because of the “script readers” who never seem to learn the actual job.
I hate taking calls where I’m asking someone “Ok, so you destroyed the customer’s data by doing X without proper preparation?” and their answer is “It is one of the steps listed to do!” and they clearly have no concept of why and when that step would be done and haven’t bothered to contemplate the possible negative repercussions of doing it. They didn’t bother reading the document that says “before you do X, make sure all the customer’s data is backed up or they will lose it all”, because that would require sentient thought.
And the best part is that they’re making me take the call because they have FUCKED UP BIG TIME and the customer is (very rightfully) screaming and exceedingly ANGRY. Oh gosh, thanks for making my day. I get to be screamed at by someone when I had fuck all to do with creating the situation, and I get to be the one to try to fix it.
I hate explaining to people that their data is gone because one of our people was a fucking moron. It is one of the few calls on which I DO offer compensation, because it was definitely our fault and we owe them for it.
OTOH, I took two of those calls this week, including one yesterday morning, in which I was able to recover the person’s data. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t.
So yes, there are stupid CSRs out there. There are bad CSRs out there. There are downright incompetent CSRs out there. They are all Human, and you find the same mix in any other job there is. In fact, like any other lower paying job, you will probably find more of them, because as I say about such jobs, you’re only paid to take so much shit, you get it from both sides (customers and management) and at some point, a lot of people shut down and stop caring in order to survive emotionally.
Likewise there are plenty of companies that INTENTIONALLY cripple their CSR process, usually because it would cost too much money to provide better service (Comcast and AT&T, I’m looking at YOU). It is far easier to do when you are a monopoly, or have rather limited competition, because what are people going to do about it? They can’t go somewhere else.
There are companies that have created a process deliberately designed to stop the customer from getting service and/or information-they are wrong for doing this, as are all those who are actively participating in it.
Listen idiot boy, if your company has systems that can’t do what you have claimed they can do, and I have paid for them to do, you fucking fix them. If you can’t, find someone who can. It’s clearly not “one self-entitled jackass”, as you put it, if this happens frequently enough for you to mention it in your post.
Just to make something clear, if you don’t understand it, if I have purchased a good or service from you, you have a legal responsibility to supply it. No, I don’t have to accept a refund (under UK law, may be different elsewhere), although in many cases I’d be stupid not to. Get over yourself, and do your job, and supply what I’ve paid for.
In reality, this is rarely a problem - as soon as a company realises they are dealing with someone who knows their rights (both the extent and limitations thereof), they will usually do what they are supposed to.
From the sound of it, you get off on failing to do this, and I sincerely hope it comes back to bite you in the arse soon.
I think it really varies by company. My worst customer service experience came from Fry’s. We had bought a new TV from them and it had stopped working within 2 weeks. Their return policy was that defective electronics (including TVs) could be exchanged within 30 days.
Their customer no-service department wasn’t aware of the policy. Then they needed a supervisor to approve the exchange. Their supervisor wasn’t available but would call me back. I called twice a day (~took about 30 min EACH call) for a week; I had to provide the same information EVERY.SINGLE.TIME I called even though I had my case number on hand (they could never find it). Supervisor was always busy, not there or unavailable. Whatever. They did keep offering (as a favor!) to accept a return on the TV, have me pay a re-stocking fee and then sell me a new one.
I finally asked what would happen if I didn’t get approval before the 30 days were up and their response was that then I’d be out of their warranty period and I’d have to deal directly with the manufacturer. I called my credit card after that and filed a complaint. One phone call and it was taken care of. Credit Card said that they had so many complaints about Fry’s and actually had them shortlisted as a company who did not follow their own internal policies.
AT&T’s Tier 1 support for DSL problems is laughable as well. Just horrible.
Yes ma’am I understand that you have already rebooted the mo-dem, ma’am and I will assist you with your problem today ma’am but what I require you to do today ma’am is to go and find the power cord where it connects to the mo-dem ma’am, and when you find that power cord I require you to disconnect it from the mo-dem for 30 seconds and then you will need to plug it back in ma’am and then describe to me ma’am the colors on the front of the mo-dem and we will certainly be able to take care of your issue today, can you do this for me ma’am?
(That’s nearly verbatim for the first five minutes or so of what turned out to be a 45-minute tech support call when I was calling to report that our Internet had gone out about half a second after a MASSIVE FUCKING LIGHTNING STRIKE up the street. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that rebooting the goddamn modem isn’t going to solve the problem.)
In my 25 years or so of being a customer and 19 years of working in various customer service capacities (though never as a CSR by title), it’s been my observation that many customers are unfamiliar with the various, random, esoteric policies and procedures of the many, many companies with which they do business on a regular basis. Customers are also unfamiliar with the particular workings of equipment and/or service they purchase from those companies.
That’s why they rely on those companies – to provide goods and services that they cannot create for themselves.
That lack of familiarity – which is entirely reasonable given that customers don’t work for the company – is all too often interpreted by CSRs – incompetent or jaded CSRs that is – as stupidity on the part of the customer.
If you think that your customers are stupid, then you stop respecting them. And I posit that if you’re incapable of respecting the people you’re supposed to be helping then you need to find a new job. Because you’re going to be ineffectual, you’re going to be rude, you’re going to leave people dissatisfied and you’re not going to do your employers any good either, because rude, ineffectual, dissatisfying customer service costs companies money because it translates to customers who go elsewhere.
I had the exact same conversation (perhaps not as haltingly) five nights ago with a dude from Comcast. Once my modem, router and computer were rebooted (for the fifteenth time since problems had begun 48 hours prior to my call, which I told him) he had absolutely no further assistance to offer. None. He suggested I might have a faulty modem and should take it to my nearest Comcast service center to trade in for a new one, otherwise I’d need to schedule a service call. At my cost, of course.
30 minutes later everything came back and I’ve had no problems since. I might still have a faulty modem (in that it requires ridiculous amounts of coddling every time there’s a power outage, even though it’s on a surge protector) but honestly…
It makes me completely mental with rage when there is a problem that is clearly and obviously AT&T’s fault - like, for example, a lightning strike just took out their service to our street – and after making me reboot the modem twice and logging into the router to check the settings there, they inform me that I probably need a new modem. I DO NOT NEED A NEW FUCKING MODEM. Why is it impossible to call my ISP to report a service outage without having to go through half an hour, minimum, of troubleshooting bullshit only to be told the problem is on my end? I mean, I literally have no idea how to inform AT&T DSL that there is a service outage. I’ve tried to do it on multiple occasions and never managed to actually get a report in.
This is one of several reasons, btw, that I am changing ISPs pretty soon here. We’ve been having an intermittent outage problem, where the DSL will blink out for a minute or so, about once an hour, and I realized that I’ve been avoiding calling it in because I have zero confidence that the tech support line is going to be able to solve the problem and don’t want to go through the trauma of having to make the call. And I’m paying for this service? Yeah, not for much longer.
Look, part of the anonymity of the interactions, the customer who you do not know and never will, the rep who is the faceless embodiment of “The Company” is that it is easier to treat the person on the other side of the line poorly. And some companies feel that they will do better spending less by spending less on customer service - offer a cheaper price and people will ignore the fact that customer service sucks - or have a virtual monopoly and why bother?
So don’t buy from Fry’s. Spend a wee bit more and buy from a local store with a good rep in your community, where the owners actually depend on good word of mouth and care about it. (And knows that one seriously unhappy customer offsets ten happy ones.) At least do a little research and buy from a place like New Egg that rates high for service as well as price. Look for a company that does well on a customer service rating board.
So long as crappy customer service only improves the bottom line that is what we will all get. They get away with it because while customers will vent and yell at the underpaid rep they also keep coming back for more because the product sells for a few pennies less.
MY ISP always wants me to disconnect the router and modem and then hook the modem up directly to the computer. When I tell them that I’m mobility impaired, and can’t do that myself, suddenly they’re able to resolve my problem without having me do this. SO WHY THE FUCK IS THIS THEIR FIRST OFFERED SOLUTION? Somehow, they’re able to reboot my modem on their end without me having to pull the tower, mess with the wires, and do whatever else. Why can’t they try to reboot the modem from their end FIRST?
And yes, I’ve already tried resetting the modem, router, and computer. I always try that TWICE before I call tech support. I’m capable of doing that much. But the techs never believe that I’ve done it, and require me to do it again.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. I think it’s pretty clear from my personal experiences that Comcast doesn’t give a shit, but Amazon’ll bend over backwards to provide good service (though via email, not phone.) A company’s attitude towards customer service is the kind of thing that’ll show itself pretty quick.