I guess Great Unwashed is one of the people I’ve dealt with before. I always have a good laugh when the situation below occurs.
ME: hello?
Them: Someone just called this number.
ME: Yes…and?
Them: what were you calling about?
ME: I dont know what you are talking about.
Them: Look buddy, someone at your number just called me, what company is this?
Me: Look, it was probably just a wrong number.
Them: @#%#%@ <hang up>
Its like these dicks never got a call from someone who had the wrong number. I will call a friend sometimes, recognize that the ring is different, and hang up the phone because I dont want to get charged. Anyone who gets their panties in a bunch because of a wrong number needs a vacation.
And here is the joy of my job. I AM the supervisor. Tee Hee.
Here’s the thing - if someone from the company calls you, and doesn’t get you, they don’t leave a message. Why?
The callers can’t take the results of someone phoning in to do a survey - the same person could call 10 different people, in which case the results would be skewed. So, in partial answer to blowero we DON’T want them to participate in a survey - otherwise, we would have left a message.
As distressing as this is to a lot of people, your opinion is important, but not THAT important. Unless you’re an albino goat hearder that recently immigrated from Botswana, you only eat fruit but only on Tuesdays, and you’re interested in buying a DVD player, but you don’t own a TV, there are other people in your demographic. When your phoning back, the callers are talking to one of those people.
So really, the call back “Why did you call me.” actually just wastes my time. If I have to explain that No, you can’t participate in the survey. No we don’t sell anything. This is a Research House, etc., etc., it takes a lot of time away from what I’m actually supposed to be doing.
Am I rude? Maybe, but not really. I certainly don’t yell at anyone. Call them names, etc. I just end the call as fast as I can. Also, we’re not selling anything. We’re not in the customer service industry, hence no real need to provide customer service. Again, I’m never rude, just blunt.
Also, just so everyone is clear, I don’t actually even work in the call centre. It’s on a totally different floor - I run focus groups, totally different ball of wax. It’s sort of a strange hierarchy at this company.
For those of you who are questioning why alice doesn’t reconnect people, it is quite possible that she can’t.
My mom used to work for a company that did surveys. Some of them had a very specific pool of people from which to get information (follow-ups on hospital patients, for instance) and those people would get call-backs, the surveyors would schedule a time to call them, etc. Others worked from a larger population (as an example, getting base information for a proposed fuel assistance plan.) In such a case, it was not necessary to make as much as an effort to speak with specific people, and no messages would be left.
The problem is that several surveys might be going on simultaneously. If caller id redirected to a central number, you wouldn’t be able to tell who had called them originally. And, since a number of these surveys had a very high confidentiality component, you wouldn’t want to be able to find out, either.
And, of course, in the time it took me to type this out (counting 2 interruptions to tuck in children, plus one to discuss birthday party etiquette with my eldest), alice explained herself quite well, thankyouverymuch.
I guess I should have said “If I wanted a call back, I would ask for one”. If I want someone to call me back, I leave a message on their answering machine saying “This is Tracey. I need to know xxx about yyy, so please call me back.” If I’m calling to find out if you want to go shopping with me, and you’re not home, and I’m leaving as soon as I hang up the phone, I really don’t need a call back.
Tee Hee.