I work in customer support where my calls are randomly monitored for “quality control”. When I answer the phone, I’m given a certain script to follow per account… “Hello, thanks for calling customer support… da da da da da…” Now this script works for some of the calls but not all of the calls simply because some people have been on hold… or it’s an emergency, or it’s somebody I have worked with in the past. So when I start my script, i get interrupted or they think I’m on some sort of drug because I should know who they are. We also have tools at our disposal such as recoding our conversations with a timed screen capture of our desktops. We use this for people who start cursing us on the phone or a bomb threat or whatever.
My problem with this whole thing is that each of my customers are different… hence they are not cookie cutter calls that can be handled this way or that way… it’s shoot from the hip every call as far as I’m concerned. Lately my call evaluators have decided that they know me better than I do and also know my customers better than me. I now have no privacy and my support is suffering because everybody’s constantly monitoring me and picking me apart. I have to ask every customer if they want a ticket number before I get started wit the call… This just causes confusion since they have no idea what the ticket will do them, and now I have to take a minute, get completely off track, and explain to my customer what the ticket is and what it’s for… then get back on track.
Now as far as my main purpose for being here is concerned… it’s to solve the enduser’s problem… with a call tracking ticket or not as far as I’m concerned. My customer’s issues get solved. Period. i don’t’ care if I go by the script or not… and guess what? Nor do my customers! When I take my car to the shop, i could care less if the mechanic waves a magic wand over my car to fix it r whatever as long as the damn thing’s fixed.
But… all these fixes for my customers are not taken in to consideration for my call evaluations… they only care if I go by the script or not. How does this justify anything? Other evaluation go back to the customer asking them if they like the serivce… this is how my car mechanic’s works!!! I solved the issue… my customer is happy… PERIOD! Ticket number or not THEY DON"T CARE.
But now I never get anything for doing anything right… But damned if I don;t get a whistle blown for anything wrong… ie not by the script.
What do you think? How does this help my service if the customer has no say in the entire process? I thought the customer knows best… not the people who listen in to my calls!!! Get a life, Christ!
Thaidog, I can relate. But you are probably not going to change the system, so calmly and over time decide how (and possibly if) you will work within it. What is the advantage of following a mindless, process-driven script on every call? One advantage can be providing cleaner data on the calls coming in to help behind-the-scenes people fix the root causes of the problem. Another thing, which I can relate to your ticket number example, is that making a good rep, like yourself, a little less efficient and making bad reps (you know they’re out there) less likely to screw things up totally is a net gain for the organization. Ever have one of your colleagues fail to give a ticket number out when it REALLY would have helped matters? The script intends to avoid those screw-ups, but at the price of making everything a little less efficient overall. Also, things like number of tickets closed might play into how your call center is funded or how many people can be hired. If they don’t have the data to support the work is getting done, other parts of the company may be trying to cut your management’s budget.
Since it sounds like you are capable of creative, independent problem-solving, I’d suggest trying to move up to a job where that’s going to be needed. Call center jobs get progressively “de-skilled” with scripts and such, so they can be filled with lower and lower skilled people at a better labor cost. Management may well be doing the right thing by the business, you may well have the right idea about solving customer problems, but it could be time to move into another role. Alternatively, if you really like the call center job (hours, friends, location, etc.) find a way to make your peace with the script.
I used to deal with this all the time. Sadly, I’m willing to bet that the standards for your performance evaluation is stacked so that a large number of short calls and a pretty large number of unresolved calls will be worth more than a history of long calls with a an almost zero rate of unresolved.
My advice is to make damn sure your manager is aware that you are solving problems. It might be difficult for your manager to grasp the rather simple math required to understand that one 45 minute call that completely solves the problem and satisfied the customer is worth more than 5 ten minute calls that get nowhere.
Also, make sure you do the whole script before you ad lib. Some aspect of that script are written by legal, and you ignore them at your peril!
FWIW: We live in a world where a manager can be called a genius because he had, in a fairly short period, reduced the overall call time and the number of negative feedback survey complaints. His secret? He changed the wording on the survey so the new set of answers would not quite jive with the old data (basically, a grade D would suddenly become a B) and he changed the process so that customers had to opt in for the survey. A really pissed off customer would want the survey, but the merely frustrated customer would just want to get off the damn phone already. All this information was available to someone who wanted to dig for it, but why did when Manager Man has created a thrilling PPT about his greatness!
True. I see what you’re saying. I just wish it was automated… like when users are in the queue waiting a script launches with voice automation giving the customer a ticket number before I work with them. As far as using the tickets for accounting purposes… yes we do, but all 7 plus of the accounts have different contracts so the number of tickets ranges from meaning nothing to a heavy customer to meaning everything to a light customer’s contract. BUT… the tickets are logged by the reps manually through our ticketing system… so a bad rep still might log the ticket all together which means if the call was not monitored it ranges from a loss for our small accounts to meaningless to our large accounts. But bottom line all tickets are accounted for through the ticketing system and are not a component “plug-in” for the people who actually do the cal monitoring… those people have little to do with the people who are the account managers and those who create and maintain the account contracts and SLA’s.
I think it would just be more natural that IF a ticket to the customer is needed we give the customer the ticket at the END of the call… it flows much more naturally. Also their is absolutely no follow up with the person who called in for service so the ticket means little more than a number they can refer to if they have to call back in again on the same issue for whatever reason. No call monitor calls the user back in regards to the issue… mentioning the ticket number as a reference and asking how the service was… Which is how most places I do business with work… Like every time I bring my car in to a shop to get it fixed, somebody calls me back referring to my invoice and asks how the service was… which matters most… what the enduser thinks.
So instead of a nice to the point welcome like: Thanks for calling customer support (my name is…) may I have your first and last name… where are you calling from… how can I help you.
…anymore than that becomes awkward for me and my customers and it’s quite apparent on the calls… with extended moments of silence and finally them asking me What’s a ticket number?
At that point it has to be explained to them… and depending on what they have called for it may or may not make any sense to them… now I have to get my customer back on track. And these people are long winded to start with!
It’s sad. It almost adds up exaclty like that guy in Fight Club was explaining his job to that lady on the plane:If A+B+C<than the cost to go to court,then nothing happens. man!