Precisely!
That, my friend, is fucking awesome. Thanks for posting it.
Have you ever noticed that the CustServDrone apologists in these threads always hone in on the silliest, least reasonable customer caricatures, to divert the discussion away from customers with legitimate complaints (who number far greater than the apocryphal “CD-ROM tray cup holder” morons, and who also have to deal with the institutionalized stonewalling, excuse-making, and condescension?)
The really tragically stupid are not the ones who scream.
And no, VT, we’re not diverting attention away from legitimate complaints. You have yet to list one.
90 percent of my customers are perfectly pleasant and reasonable people.
Same here. And probably another 8% might have some issues, but can usually be dealt with even if they turn out to be unpleasant or difficult for whatever reason (ignorance, stupidity, bad attitude). Then there’s the last 2% you just won’t make happy no matter what.
But then it follows my Law of Crazy. I figure that you can get at least 2% of the population to agree with any supposition, no matter how absurd.
Early on I made up a maxim for this job: You can give some people a pony, and they’ll complain that it craps on the carpet.
I think it is funny that people like Vinyl Turnip and Czarcasm keep accusing me and others of throwing out straw men and not addressing their concerns when their concerns have been repeatedly addressed already. That’s their own straw men being thrown up in order to continue the attack.
The crazification factor is actually way higher: 27%.
I would guess that low-intelligence script-readers-by-rote who are powerless to assist anyone with anything compromise the vast minority of people in customer service positions, but they are the ones who are brought up in Pit threads.
Look, I like my job. I’m in a position where people have zero wait times and talk immediately to people with years of experience, who have the power to do anything within reason to help them. Hell, we even sell products that I don’t understand why people who are stupid would even want or need. Still, I speak with authority: a significant number of people are just plain stupid. That doesn’t mean I can’t help them per se, and gentle steering usually fixes these problems. But I talk to plenty of genuinely dumb people every day and it is NOT uncommon by any means. Remember, half the population is below average, and above average people tend to sort out their own problems more easily. The people who are calling tend to skew less intelligent.
Add to this that every minute of hold time causes rage to go up exponentially, and that goes doubly for every bad experience that customer has had with ANY customer support experience, and you’ll understand that dealing with people who are in an irrational state of mind is not uncommon when you work in a big call center.
Mongo?! Santa Maria! :eek:
That 2% is screwing the rest of us over, because some customer service people treat us all like we’re in that 2% when we actually do have a legitimate problem, and actually are reasonable people who are being treated unreasonably. I KNOW some customers are stupid; I KNOW there are a lot of people who refuse to do easy, obvious things first, and can’t follow directions; I’m not one of them, but I can’t convince CSRs of that, because they start off assuming I’m stupid, lazy, and lying.
Your response to Czarcasm’s point that employment as a customer service agent is voluntary, and that if you are unwilling or unable to provide said service you should look for a different job, was the following:
So you might wish to reconsider getting all high 'n mighty with the accusations of strawmannery. Or weren’t you aware that this conversation is being recorded for training purposes?
I’m chipping in here, 'cause I’ve spent seven years on the phones. At my old job (insurance customer service), there really wasn’t anything the supervisor could do that I, as a representative, couldn’t do. Now, this was a bit of an extraordinary circumstance; I worked in a department that had several years of ridiculously low turnover. Everyone working in the department had been there at least three years. We knew the regulations, the rules, what would and wouldn’t fly, what was and wasn’t illegal/against regulations, and where there was leeway. Generally, if one of us said, “we can’t do this,” then the odds were we really, honestly couldn’t do it.
And we were good. I’ve gone to the mat for customers; it’s part of what we were paid to do. So, when we said no, and the client asked for a supervisor, we let them know that a supervisor would tell them the exact same thing that we did. In most cases where there was any leeway, we’d already run it past him/her anyway. So, in an environment where the representatives are seasoned, and are treated with a certain amount of assumed responsibility, there very well may not be anything a supervisor can do that the representative can’t.
The biggest problems seemed to come in when people either wanted us to go against or around tax laws, and when people had a specific resolution in mind that they wanted. For the first. . .well, tax laws are tax laws, and our company isn’t terribly interested in breaking them to keep your business. For the second, those resolutions may be impossible for logistical or legal reasons. Or, alternately, those resolutions might be impossible because we, as a company, can only be so accommodating while still turning a profit, and if it’s not our mistake, there’s only so far we can go.
Now, my knowledge of this has made me both an awful and an awesome customer by turns. If I think I’ve had good customer service, I will totally ask for a supervisor; it only takes me a couple of minutes, and makes someone’s day better. If I’m having a bad experience, though. . .well, the other day I was at my mom’s while she was calling about her car insurance. The representative was peevish, rude to my mom, and, finally, after my mom asked a question, was silent rather than acknowledging it. To which I blurted out, “. . .christ, that’s dead air, and you suck at your job.”
She called me unprofessional. Heh.
Back when I had DSL from Qwest it was a weird connection, in that the ISP my was my university, and the DSL was from Qwest. Because the university wasn’t a normal commercial ISP it wasn’t on the list of available ISPs so front line residential DSL often didn’t know what to do, though some did. Qwest at various times had an education support department, special ISP support department, and whatever. Whenever I got transferred to a new department I recorded their number, and would call directly (by passing front line support) the ones who had helped me.
That led to several instances of “how did you get this number, this is third tier engineering support? Hmm, yeah, that DSLAM does seem to be down.” It did, however, result in getting things fixed which were Qwest’s problem. Anyway, that’s how I figured out where to directly report service outages, and the like.
I hope it gets me right to atomicbadgerrace, who has greater discretion and power than front line support. All I want is for the “letter to the CEO” to go to somebody who is actually able to make a proper judgment about the problem and determine what the appropriate (not necessarily “policy”) course of action is to correct it. I know sometimes the proper course of action is note “customer is a loon,” but it often is “get to the bottom of why after 8 months we can’t properly change the customers address in the system.”
Well let us assume the super-powered “tier 2” gawd-like CRS that so many here have claimed to be- a person so powerful that no customer can speak to their supervisor (or they have no manager) and no customer can ever get the CSR in trouble for anything the CSR does. Then add in a few normal typical Cust service drones who will then spend their time never doing anything to help the customer and answering the phone “Fuck You! Please hold” and never going back to the blinking light. Not too long after- this will “threaten the profitability of the entire company”, sales will drop like a lead balloon, Yelp, Twitter and trade 'zines and blogs will write about it, and the next annual report will have the shareholders showing up with torches, ropes and pitch-forks. When the head of Customer Service then sez “Well, all customers are idiots so I have given my CSR’s total power without any recourse” he will be gone and the policy will change.
True- not for just MY problem.
But as for “CEO does not care about your problem”- I have rvcd several personal letters from CEOs (or perhaps some high level flunky who can sign the CEO’s name) and phone calls (Is this DrDeth? please hold for Mr High&Mighty please"- and also recieved *results. * These results have resulted in significant adjustments, and even beyond just “adjustments” for a few hundred in hand-outs. And- policy changes. No, I don't know or care if anyone got fired, and in none of my letters have I ever asked for that. So, maybe "* the CEO does not care about your problem"* but I got free cable for a year, and I just spent the last from a $100 Visa Gift card- and whether or not their concern was heartfelt- it was 'wallet felt".
I agree- if the CSR is doing their job well & professionally they are often and should be free of customer retaliation, and customers with silly requests don’t deserve much (I did specify I had a “legit beef”) But we all know far too many low level drones who do as little as possible and when they do “do something” they usually screw it up. (And of course- there are stupid customers too)
Let me give you dudes a example- I just moved. Three utilities screwed up my move order.
ComCast- 1st level CSR didn’t seem to care or know (didn’t seem to know Emglish for that matter) . Found local manager number, he had some Cust Serv manager call me. Result was problem solved, free HBO for 6 months and my rate rolled back to their special new intro rate for new customers for a year. Score!
AT&T. Several low level CSRs seemed to care, and fixed a couple of minor problems, but one persisted. Got ahold of local VP, all problems fixed. Got special package deal. Meh, but the problem is fixed and I got local number to call if it comes back.
PG&E. “Fuck You! Please hold”. Manager “Fuck You! Please hold”. PUC “---------”. Oh well, a public utility is a special case, and PG&E is legendary for their super crappy Cust serv and “fuck you” attitude even at the highest levels. Fuck, they just blew up half a city and no one has yet been called to task for* that*, so I guess I am SOL.
How I hope things work like this, but many times I bet they don’t. Crappy customer service leads to loss of customers, leads to loss of profit, leads to corporate change or bankruptcy. I just don’t think it’s that clear. The people running the companies can’t possibly be so stupid as to think a decrease in customer service won’t have an effect, but they probably often see it as still a net win. Cutting 1 from customer service will result in .25 of lost sales, so cut away!
For many years I’ve dealt with Dell as a large education customer. I’ve seen the service cycle. It starts good, then it gets bad, then corporate customers flee, then Dell promises a “return to service,” things get better, then somebody has a great idea for cost savings and cuts business support, and repeat. Other companies like Comcast can have bad support because they don’t have any real competition. I have three choices for TV: satellite1, satellite2, and Comcast (no-TV, and over the air aren’t options). I have one viable choice for Internet: Comcast (Qwest is not a viable choice). Comcast can treat me as badly as they feel like it, and I can’t leave. So they’ll see no effect on my future value to them as a customer if they treat me like crap.
For the record, I have a business account with Comcast, and the service has really been excellent. I was having intermittent dropout issues, and they sent out two techs and a lineman to fix it.
I didn’t realise there’d been a request for valid complaints to be listed.
I ordered a hoover from Argos for £85, a large catalogue company. Waited in one day, it didn’t turn up; eventually I got through ans they said they’d deliver it the next day instead. This happened two more - four days of not being able to lave the house. I gave up, cancelled the order and went elsewhere.
They have never refunded the money. At one point they claimed that they’d refunded the money a month before I’d purchased it. I’ve requested the referral number for that payment (which they would have if they’d paid), but they don’t have a record of it.
So they know they didn’t give me the item, I have proof they didn’t refund me and they have no proof that they did, but every single customer service agent simply asks me the same questions again and again and again, tell me I’m wrong again and again until eventually conceding that actually, I’m right, and there’s nothing they can do about it. There’s no-one I can talk to who can do anything about it.
Valid enough for you, Chimera? Or am I still in the wrong, because I’m a customer?
Nope. They’re wrong, plain and simple. Your best bet is to call your CC company and refute the charges, then file a complaint with whatever government or BBB style agencie you have over there in Englisherland.
You conveniently left out the part where Czarcasm said that if you are not empowered and willing to do what he/she wants then you aren’t providing real customer service and thus he/she feels fully justified in verbally abusing you.
If your job requires that kind of detail, then you should either have a program that let’s you remote in and see their screen (LiveMeeting, GoTo Meeting, etc), or you should know to ask for a screenshot. Seriously, you know better than that.
The real power lies with us Tier 3s.
The customer would have to be able to access the internet for that, right? What if he couldn’t?