You’re right. It’s definitely always the system that’s at fault here. Customers never mistype the card number, and the customers’ phones never fail to produce the correct tone for the system to read, and customers never only type in the first 12 numbers of the card number because they’re too stupid to realize that all of the numbers on the front of the card are part of the card number, and they never enter the CVV from the back as part of the card number because they’re too dumb to figure out that it isn’t part of the card number, and they never press the * instead of the # because they’ve managed to live for decades without learning what the pound key is and they never are too slow in entering the number so that we don’t get the entire number.
As a CSR, it’s your (the royal you) job to help me with my annoyances, not take your annoyances out on me by deciding “Well, I know how I can solve this, but this guy’s such an asshole I’m not going to bother.”
Really? “Personally vouch”, as in you asked them? How about a cite on your 1 in a thousand stat?
There’s nothing better than speaking aloud your credit card info on the bus/subway. Appreciate your concern about information security. :rolleyes:
:rolleyes: Hyperbole much?
The OP didn’t mention incorrectly entered data:
Oh I hate those. Most give you an option “speak or enter your information” but then others just want you to speak and even others give you the option in the beginning but then don’t later in the menu.
I have found most of the speak ones do not even understand what your answer is on the first try. It is very frustrating. I always try the zero button or speak customer service or agent to get things to move along quicker.
Actually, as a CSR it’s my (the royal my) job to help many, many customers. Spending inordinate amounts of time getting yelled at for something I have no control over or insight into is not in the job description. If you have a technical question, great - get on with it. If you’re more interested in griping at me for the deficiencies of the (not-so) automated system the company is using to get you to me, well I can’t help you there partner. So it’s actually my job to get you off the phone & get to the next guy on hold. I’ll be happy to transfer you to the manager (who also has no control or insight into the automated system, but it is in fact his job to get yelled at.)
The OP didn’t say he wouldn’t do his job. He said he wouldn’t go above and beyond the minimum requirements of the job. For instance, in my job I deal with overdraft fees. I have discretion to reverse them but am in no way required to. If you (the royal you) treat me like shit I won’t reverse your fee. Treat me with a modicum of decency and respect and I will. If it’s worth $20 bucks to you to be a prick to me on the phone, go right ahead.
1984 Val-speak much?
There are people who have empty coat closets? Where do they keep the dead hookers?
Usually in the freezer. Unless I run out of room.
You’re my hero of the day!
“Sorry, there seems to be some difficulty with the account number you entered. Would you mind giving it to me again?”
Acknowledging that yes, you know they just typed the stupid number into their phone 30 seconds (or possibly 30 minutes) ago, but that your systems suck would go a long way to alleviating the irritation of both the CSR and the customer, no?
Quite often, when a phone system asks me to input an account number or something, it says it is “to allow us to better help you” or somesuch. I don’t work in telephone customer service, and am pretty techologically ignorant. But it always seems to me that if I enter information, then any reasonable system would have that information available to the operator who eventually picks up my call.
I am very willing to accept your statement that your system does not allow for that, but I’m unsure why you feel my expectation is unreasonable? (I’ll observe that I am usually sufficiently numbed by the process of getting through to a human, that I will robotically provide any requested info in the hopes that my situation will be addressed and the phone call ended as soon as possible. i realize that operators and clerks do not set policy, and i try to avoid making any transactions longer or more unpleasant than need be. I only comment after I have been switched to multiple humans, and requested to repeat the same info 2-3 or more times. At that point, I feel I’m are getting high enough on the customer service food chain to expect some modicum of efficiency, and to feel it appropriate to comment on the process.)
Trying to get through phone systems is often a frustrating, confusing, and time consuming ordeal. When the caller observes, “I just entered that information” IMO they are expressing entirely reasonable confusion and perhaps frustration.
Now what is the preferred response for the person who is being paid to participate in this exchange. To get upset? Or to simply and quickly defuse the system by explaining, “I understand, but unfortunately our system does not make that information available to me. I’m sorry if that caused you any inconvenience or confusion.”
Doesn’t seem to me as tho the latter approach would be entirely out of line for one whose purported job involved “customer service.”
When I’m asked this after having entered it I generally just repeat it assuming that it either got lost in the transfer because the automated system is not the same as the one the rep is using or that it is a safety precaution to ensure that the rep is dealing with the right account.
On the other hand, when I called one recently and entered the numbers and then finally got to rep who asked for them and then told me in a very nasty, patronizing tone that things would have been much faster had I entered the account number he lost all right to courtesy from me.
And those systems that only allow you to speak get nothing from me but the zero being pressed repeatedly, especially when they use the phony “let me find your account… ahh, here it is!” crap to make it sound more like a person. “ahh, here it is” my ass. It’s a computerized database and it damn well better be able to find it right where it should be. Cut the shit and assume the customer isn’t an idiot.
In an ideal world, that’d be lovely. In the real world, I had no way to even attempt to contact the people who were responsible until I’d been promoted three times. What I did with customer complaints was to file the customer complaint form, which would be ignored. I could have told my manager, who’d ignore it, or, if I had a particularly professional manager, he’d have told his manager, who’d ignore it. Yes, this is stupid, and is not the way that things should be; this does not make it any less the way things are. Bitching at the customer service guy does not accomplish anything, as much you’d like it to, and as much as it should logically be able to. Believe me, the guy on the other end of the line WISHES he had any way to change the things that every other customer bitches at him about.
It’s not the customer’s fault. What is the customer’s fault is when they’re perfectly aware that this is the case, and they choose to ignore that and continue with their original course of action. Customer service is a big fat brick wall protecting the people who make the decisions from the stampede of customer complaints that result. The brick wall is cleverly lined with doors (the service rep’s customer feedback form, complaint escalation, speaking with supervisors [who are often nothing more than tenured reps], etc.) that appear to allow passage if one is sufficiently persistant. One would think that, after ramming into the brick wall a dozen times and being told by someone on the inside that the doors don’t actually open, a person would stop running face-first into it and try to find a way around, but this has proven not to be the case. “Well there’s a fucking door there, and I ought to be able to get in it!” I agree, but you can’t.
I’m sure they would. Allowing that would have gotten me fired. Someone decidedly other than me allowing that almost got me fired. I ask your forgiveness if a customer’s hatred of the phone system is not worth my livelihood. Granted, I didn’t work for every company under the sun, but I somehow doubt if other companies’ corporate bigwigs are any more receptive to the idea of being chewed out by irate customers directly. This is, after all, why they endorse the notion that the service people double as a complaint line.
This has already been pointed out to you, but he said he might not “go above and beyond”. I wouldn’t call solving a customer’s stated problem “going above and beyond”.
As a matter of fact, I did ask them. Tens of thousands of them. “May I have your account number, please?” If they gave it to me, I assumed that they were a member of the set that would give it to me, seeing as how that’s what they did. When I was on the phones, I took about 200 calls per day on average; I can document that if you’d like. In any given week, I might get one caller who would refuse to verbally disclose account information. That, I have no cite for beyond my personal experience; I have no particular reason to lie about it. Even if the 1-in-1000 figure is off, though, do you really dispute that the vast majority (well over 90% to be sure) of telephone customers will supply their account information when asked? If so, I can only conclude you’ve never worked in phone service.
What’s the smiley for? If you don’t want to speak your account number, by all means don’t. I’m perfectly sincere when I say that I wish everyone had protected their personal information better; it quite honestly would have saved me an assload of work. My only point in bringing that up was that nothing about information security had anything to do with a) why the system didn’t pass through your account number, or b) the service rep’s involvement with it.
One addition, because my post wasn’t long enough yet: expecting the phone system to pass through your information is perfectly reasonable. Being annoyed when it does not, especially if you don’t like speaking your personal information aloud, is equally reasonable. What is not reasonable is taking that out on a person whose only involvement in the whole situation is having been paid by the people responsible to sit there and take it. If I walked up to you on the street, called you an asshole, then handed some guy twenty bucks to deal with the results, would you go along with that and chew him out in my stead? Like it or not – and believe me when I say that I don’t – corporate customer service is pretty much the same situation.
You really think that is a decent analogy?
My call center answers in less than five minutes. Parents of the nation, shut your kids the hell up.
And for that matter, turn down your goddamn televisions or stereos, I second the “stop eating at me, it’s disgusting” sentiment, don’t go “huanh?” at me if you need me to repeat something, and after I answer your question, say “thank you” instead of just hanging up.
Also, have your credit card in your hand when you call or at least on the table next to you, instead of zipped in your purse, in another room, or out in your goddamn truck. Have a pen or pencil and paper in your line of sight and test the pen to be sure it works before you place the call.
And if you’re stupid enough to yell out your credit card information on a bus or a subway, you deserve what you get. Wait until you get home, we’re here 24 hours a day.
Jesus H. Christ in a hopped-up-sidecar. Anybody here ever stopped to think that the 'puter system asks you for your account number to determine if you should have access to the account in the first place? And that the CSR still needs your account number because the 'puter system doesn’t interface with the CSR?
Holy shit. Sometimes I do not believe this fucking place.
And since I’m a CSR my self, I have this nugget of wisdom for those of you whose heightened sense of self-entitlement leads you to believe that yes, the world is your oyster:
Go suck a fat one.
Wow, rhythmonly, I think we may have talked recently! Do you do CSR work for a large bank in the Pacific Northwest?
It ought to, especially when dealing with big companies. Networking tech is sufficiently advanced as to make this possible.
My cable company asks for phone number or the last four digits of my social security number as a gate. Makes more sense than using the account number itself if all you’re doing is verifying the caller is an account holder, and doesn’t lead to nearly as many illogical situations.
Please tell your boss to fix the system so the CSR will know what information I have entered prior. Thanks.
I think quite often the system asking you to punch in an account number is simply a hoop they want you to jump through to weed out a few people they don’t feel like talking to. Even if you are a customer with an account number, if you don’t have it handy, they don’t want to talk to you. Go get your account number, hoop-jumping boy.
Next time it asks you to punch in your “ten digit account number” just punch in something random but ten digits. You’ll probably still get connected to a live person who’ll ask again, anyway.
If not, oh well. YMMV, don’t blame me. But I like to test these automated systems to see what they’re actually paying attention to, and what’s a meaningless hoop. Helps pass the time.
Punching in 0,0,0,0,0,0 sometimes works too, but not always. I’ve been auto disconnected for not giving a seemingly “valid” response, which increasingly, zero is not.