Having been a customer service rep for many years, I can attest to the fact that wherever I have worked there are some universal behaviors customers engage in that piss all CSRs off. I don’t mean just the nasty callers, thats a given. But there are certain behaviors that especially get on our nerves.
First, when you come on the line and I ask for your account #, be advised that “I already put it in.” is not a valid response. The fact that I asked for it should be fairly indicative that I don’t have it, otherwise, I would not waste my time and yours asking for it.
Second, don’t address me or my colleagues as “you people”
Third, stop eating on the damn phone! This is universally rude no matter who you are talking to.
When you are calling regarding someone else’s account, and I ask if you have their permission to call, stop trying to dodge the question with phrases such as “I handle all the bills.”. A simple Yes or No will suffice, besides we both know you will lie anyway if pressed.
And finally if you have children screaming in the background, SHUT THEM UP! Here is an opportunity for you to use that empty coat closet. This applies to spouses as well.
This list is not meant to be all inclusive but is a sampling of what reps go through… Common courtesy goes a long way, remember if you are nice most people will be nice back.
Sorry, but you’re wrong. If your systems are so incompetently designed as to have you request the same piece of information multiple times, you’d better expect this reasonable reply. Why should I have to type in my account number on the keypad, only to have to say it to the CSR mere moments later?
You have a valid complaint here. However, it is not the reps fault that this happened. Most of the time the system does work, however the in event that it does not, it is a simple thing to just give the number again, instead of wasting your time and making yourself look like a fool,and annoying the person you are calling right off the bat, who might have otherwise been inclined to go “above and beyond” to help you.
While I’ve no doubt that being a CSA is roughly on par with being a semen collector for hog breeders (or worse, depending on your personal proclivities), JohnT has a good point. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes— a pair of shoes that may well already be chafing badly as a result of the time wasted on multiple calls and minutes or hours of hold time, attempting to resolve a problem that ought not to have existed in the first place, if your service were running as smoothly as suggested by those goddamned soft-focus advertisements where families are smiling and thrilled about how fucking wonderful their lives are now that Company X has, out of the goodness of their limited liability hearts, finally stepped up to meet all their personal needs.
You’re asked to type (or say) your account number, to “expedite” the process. The fortunate few will advance to the next level of wait-time limbo, while the unlucky ones will hear “you entered 7Qz42double-b85.zero. Is this correct?” Profanity and more key-bashing follows, met with a curt “I’m sorry, I don’t understand your nonsense. Goodbye!” and dead air.
Then you redial and start all over again. Miraculously, this time the system accepts the same sequence of keystrokes at which it previously balked, and after a timeless interlude of Kenny G-esque jazzvomit you finally hear a ring and a scripted (though, by now, welcome as a rain after a long drought) greeting from Fireclown, who for all you know is the only intelligent life form administering the crippled AI customer service system— and the first thing your new friend, the flamboyant harlequin, demands of you is the account number you just got done typing in for fuck’s sake just kill me now I give up…
If we work together as customers and CSAs, Flaming Bozo, I’ve no doubt we can come to some sort of amicable compromise, if we hunker down, clench up, and strain hard enough over the welcoming receptacle of our mutual respect.
Yes, but the rep is the person to whom I’m talking. If you would kindly transfer me to your IT department, I will be glad to highlight their developmental deficiencies.
If my pointing out to you the inefficiencies of your systems means that I’m a “fool” and am “annoying” you to the point of you deciding not to do your job - then, please, kindly fuck off.
And let’s not forget that there are privacy/security issues here - many people don’t care to speak aloud their account/SS numbers. I’m not one of those who believe that identity thieves lurk around every corner but for those who do, asking them to repeat aloud something they just typed into the phone is something that goes beyond a minor irritation and can cause them major worry.
No, in fact I will advise them to do this. But sometimes it means they get transferred to the general CS dept, and there may be a dedicated team that handles their account(which means they will have to be transferred AGAIN)
That’s fine. Better to be transferred twice in a 15 second span than spending 90 seconds trying to wind our way through the maze of menu options.
Shit, it’s a service to the goddamn economy is what it is - if we didn’t dial “0”, then those operators would be put out of their jobs because of the automated attendent. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?
You know, I absolutely despise the software a vendor recently sold my company. It’s buggy, does about 30% of the things we specifically required, doesn’t come with an internal Help feature, and has a tendency to crash. I’m probably going to have to find a way to justify our CFO spending double what we just spent to purchase a software package we just bought. I thought I’d bitch at you about that, since, y’know, you’re here, and you have exactly as much responsibility for and ability to fix this problem as the OP does in his situation. The only real connection between him and the person(s) who designed the phone system is that the guy who signs the paycheck of the guy who signs the paycheck of the guy who signs their paychecks is probably the same person. Of course, the system may have been designed by an independent contractor, in which case he has even less to do with it.
Not to be pedantic here, but your choice of terminology is keyed to precisely the sort of mindset I’d like to eliminate with regard to customer service: “your” systems? As pointed out, the OP didn’t design it and has no ability to fix it. Corporations put servicepeople on the front lines as a firewall to take the brunt of customer anger for things they personally had fuckall to do with, and day after day, customers willingly oblige this motive. The fact that the serviceperson is the most convenient person to talk to, and the designated person to bitch at because the people responsible don’t care to deal with said bitching themselves, does not mean that he’s any way at fault.
He didn’t cause your problems, and he most likely can’t transfer you to the people who did. Even if he can, doing so would probably get him fired; someone in my department pulled this once (transferred a call to the guy who signed the “hey, we’re increasing your interest rate because we can” letters) and I caught holy hell just for refusing to fire him. Is that what you want? Lord knows there are enough customers that go out of their way to get servicepeople fired for doing their jobs. Speaking of doing jobs, where did the OP say anything about not doing his? He’s complaining about something that annoys him. For all we know, he mentally gripes to himself and then gives proper service, which is what the majority of phone reps do with nigh every call.
Absolutely. Good on you for protecting your personal information; I and my former coworkers wish everyone was so conscientious. Would’ve saved us a lot of work settling fraud disputes. Of course, none of this constitutes a reason to be pissed off at the OP when his system doesn’t pass through your phone number. Call back and try again. It’s pretty much all you can do at that point anyway.
I can personally vouch that for every person who refuses to speak aloud his/her account number or SSN, there are 1,000 that have no trouble with it, so it makes perfect sense for the CSR to ask for it. To those of you who are members of this vast majority: I know repeating a 10-to-16 digit number is a horrifically arduous task – especially when you’ve so recently suffered the hardship of pressing an equivalent number of keys on the telephone – but I would dare be so bold as to ask that you somehow summon the strength and courage to suffer through it without complaint, that you might conclude your transaction that much faster, and make everyone’s day better in the process.
As far as voice recognition systems: yeah, they suck balls. I tried for two years to convince my former employer of this. Once I got promoted to a level where I had access to VPs, I even convinced them to commission a study which found that 96% of our callers opted to use touch-tone when prompted to choose at the beginning of the call. The exec VP’s response? We’d be switching to a fully voice-operated system, because “it’s better” and “people will get used to it”.
And yet, I’d still take the occasional escalated call where people would bitch at me about the new VRU. You can see where I’d be a tad bit touchy about this subject.
I work in customer service on the phone for a bank. The OP is pretty lame. There is so much else to say.
But I have to call companies too. I do not like the OP’s ideas about keeping kids quiet. I phoned Optus today. I was transferred 4 times to get my enquiry answered. I was on hold for 49 minutes in total waiting between transfers. In that time my wife was looking after the baby. But she had to go to the toilet, she had to make her lunch. So I had to hold the baby sometimes. When your call- centre answers in less than 5 minutes, then you can complain about people not calling when looking after their kids.
You realise that JohnT didn’t apply for, get offered and accept a job whose specific purpose (indeed its very title) implies a responsibility on his part to handle and respond to your complaints, right? This isn’t some trifling detail. As long as the customer is polite, the CS person is precisely who complaints should be addressed to. They should then convey said complaints to the people who are responsible.
Madness, I realise, but it might just work. And if the company doesn’t pay any attention to their CS department, is that really the customer’s problem or fault?
Oh, definitely. But yours is a tale of woe caused entirely by the morons making decisions above you. The customers’ reaction is entirely understandable and predictable, and while I can see why you might find fielding their complaints annoying, your finger o’ blame is woefully misplaced.
Tell your customers to write to the VP or something. Anything but a shrug and an “I’m not responsible.” They know someone can do something, and assuming your company (yes, “your”) isn’t run by zionist lizards, I’m sure they’d be happy to talk to them instead of you.
I hate that. If the only time I have is on a break at work, and cell phone reception sucks, then I have to call from my office phone. I’d rather not have to go through a voice-only menu (especially for things like entering my credit card number) loud enough for my small office to hear everything.
The cheat sheet to get to a real human being.
Any day when I can post this is a good day!
And Fireclown, I agree with you about the number: If I just entered it, I shouldn’t have to repeat it, and I think the system design is totally buttheaded. However, my geek side understands that there is probably some machine that is routing my call to either Toronto, Phoenix, or Bangalore, depending on the region of my account, and that machine is probably really far from the phone room, and the hand off of data across continents might not be clean.
I also realize that though it should be the CSR’s responsibility, as a representative of the company, to listen to my complaint and pass it along to the appropriate folks, the reality is that it ain’t going to happen.
So, I do my best to avoid mentioning my annoyance at double-entering the number.
I also do my best to be cheerful when we speak! That’s why I like to get a human as quickly as possible. Most of they time they are very nice to me and at least help me along my way a little bit.
I’d like to think I wouldn’t actually address anyone as “you people” because I don’t like the ring of it, but I could see it slipping out of my mouth. Whatever the choice of words, I always try to keep the CSR I’m talking to separate from the problem I’m having. If I were to say I got bad information previously from “you people” or the service I’m getting from “you people” sucks, it would be because I was going out of my way not to say I’m having a problem with you personally.
