It has nothing to do with thinking inside a box, it has to do with answering the question you are asked. Pure and simple. I can totally understand when people don’t understand the intricacies of the insurance industy, how the policy is setup etc but not being able to answer a simple question is asinine.
Asking ONE time, do you mean me or the owner would be one thing. Asking 5 or more times if I really meant to ask the very simple and direct question I did makes you a dumbass. I do realize that it’s in fashion to some around here to insist that the person calling must be in the right and the person working for the big bad corporation is evil to the core, but in this case you’re very wrong.
Yeah, this could be a whole other rant - people who insist on answering the question they THINK you are asking, instead of the question you ACTUALLY asked. My wife is very guilty of this…
There are quite a few large companies that answer a 1-800 call, not only in your vicinity, but from all over the map. I know this, because I always ask…‘where are you?’ I find it comical that the operator is keeping the conversation centered on the fact that they are right over the hill, and ready to assist you. Sears is a prime example. You could call them every hour on the hour, and NEVER speak to the same person. I think I catch them off guard when I ask where they are, and, hows your weather. Heh.
My cable company does this, I come to find out. Two nights ago, I called with a billing problem, and spoke to JENNIFER. She was willing to spend all night to resolve my problem if need be. We were laughing and trading jokes for 15 minutes. Last night, I had a need to call the 800 number again, as they would not recognize my pass word to rent a movie. MARGE answers the phone. And we talk. And I am recognizing her voice, and it is JENNIFER. And, says I, hey, JENNIFER, how come you answered as MARGE, and she says…I kid you not…because, today is Thursday, and I am MARGE.
Hi, my name is Bertie Wooster and this is my first time visitng I-Don’t-Understand-the-Fucking-BBQ-Pit Anonymous.
Hi, Bertie!
For the love of christ, close the damn thread if you think it’s such a minor gripe. Or at least learn to work a phone system so you never have to talk to a phone rep.
And frankly, if you think that just because a person occasionally answers simple questions on the phone they’re necessarily poorly trained or a chimp, you’re dumber than a hammer (in a box of hammers. On a shelf in the storage room of a hammer store.) Hell, I’m not even working as direct support, only as the final judge-of-last-resort on technical issues (as CIO at a small company), and I personally get an inordinately large number of phone calls from jackasses who are either A) a telemarketer who managed to grab my direct extension from a public list or B) some bonehead over-important customer who insists on only being spoon-fed basic information by a highly trained engineer.
Why don’t you go take a few deep breaths off your tailpipe? Not enough to kill you of course, wouldn’t want to violate the rules of the Pit.
And this is the Pit, asshole. This is the place where rants, large and small, go to be aired. If I feel like using the steam-blowing-off section of the board for blowing off steam (a whole six times in the last three months, ooh such continual complaining), then fuck you in the neck if you don’t like it.
This is exactly my position, although post #33 is a better indicator.
I don’t have a problem with Otto, despite his somewhat negative appraisal of my intellectual capacity. If the company he works for has dedicated extensions for its employees, and the system works to everyone’s satisfaction, then there is simply nothing to complain about regarding his working practice.
I guess I am guilty of a hijack in pressing the point concerning identification of call centre employees in general, but I considered that it was a point worth some publicity on this thread. In so doing, I commented on my personal experiences when using call centres from the UK, whereby it is difficult to achieve any kind of continuity if making multiple calls on the same subject. In most instances where I have been given an extension number the system has failed to work in the desired manner.
I have, in this thread, conceded that giving a surname to a caller may not be acceptable (in post #33) like so:
I have never been offered, or been given when requesting, an employee number or similar form of identification (other than a first name). Clearly, Otto’s experience of call centres is considerably greater than my own but, that said, it differs from my own. That is not his fault and it is not my fault.
If I could repost the quoted comment I would perhaps change necessary to desirable or preferable in order to exclude Otto’s company, and those like it, where the system works 100%.
Other than that, I stand fully behind my posts in this thread.
If this kind of response, in tone and language, is what you consider ‘due respect’, then I’m very surprised that you have any role that involves dealing with customers, but not at all surprised that you seem to have difficulties coping with this role.
Oh My God! Does he live in Anytown, NY 12345? Does he know that Sham Rock lives with him? I mean I never noticed him around the house, but it’s a big place
Better here than in the cube, I say. From your posts on this thread, it sounds to me like you support banking of some sort – probably handle between 120 and 130 calls a day, the vast majority of which are from people who refuse to accept any responsibility for their own overdrafts and general financial shenanigans. The ones who aren’t accusing you of stealing their money are generally condescending as hell, and at least twice a day you get told by a customer that he/she has so much money in “your” bank he/she could have you fired with the snap of his/her fingers.
Yep, been there, done that, got the psychological scars to prove it. Worst call I ever took was from D’marquene in East St. Louis who screamed at me that she was tired of uppity white folks stealing money from every n***** (aw, Jesus, I can’t even type that word any more!) they could find. When I asked her to be a little calmer so we could figure out what happened with her account, she told me to kiss her black ass. I terminated the call, no longer caring whether D’marquene had any money in her account.
For all the discussion about why first names only are used, when I was taking calls in a cubicle, I was told it was for my safety and the company’s security. Also, because we were an outsourcer, to provide “transparency” to the client – if a customer didn’t have my last name, he couldn’t pester our client to find me and then discover that he’d been talking to a third-party provider all along (although anybody with any brains in the IT world knows it anyway.) When I became a manager, I discovered the real reason: The client has inserted the third-party (outsource) call center between himself and his customers because it’s cheaper than actually providing customer service. He then gives the outsourcer a very narrow range of services to provide and prohibits anything outside of that. The outsourcer gets paid per call, so it behooves him to take as many calls as possible, taking as little time per call as possible; there’s no incentive to actually provide service, only to provide a set of scripted responses to all queries (some minor service actually does take place, but nothing like what the customer expects.) By refusing to give the service rep’s last name, the outsourcer is helping the rep maintain the necessary disconnect from the customer (although most reps – and I suspect **Otto ** is among them, despite his efforts to convince us otherwise – end up caring about customers enough to find ways to provide “prohibited” services and get away with it.) Using only first names or only last names or only badge numbers or only extension numbers allows a service rep to maintain that disconnect.
Rant on, **Otto ** my friend – I do believe that’s what The Pit is for. Just know that most Dopers are smarter than your average (bank?) customer, and don’t understand the real extent of ignorance and supidity you have to deal with on a daily basis. I do, and you have my empathy. My only question is, why do you still work in a call center, when you could earn a lot more money as Mike Tyson’s sparring partner, and suffer a lot less pain?
Well, that’s not the problem; I know they need my address, etc. The problem is that I don’t know whether they are taking my address down (meaning I should say my address very slowly and spell everything out) or verifying my address against their records (meaning I should speak at a normal pace).
They rarely say, “I need to take down your address,” or “I need to verify your address.” (When they do, I respond accordingly). It’s not that bothersome, I just feel slightly embarrassed when I have either been saying it very slowly when I could have said it quickly, or else when I’ve rattled through it and not given the employee time to take it down properly (which can also lead to errors, as my address has two numbers and a numbered street).
Well, at least in my case I wish people would speak at a normal or rapid pace. I type 90-110 wpm and don’t need them to go slow and spell everything. That’s Road, R-O-A-D. meh, I realize some people need that but that doesn’t mean it can’t bug me when they do it to me.
Fair enough, but often I am speaking with monolingual anglophones from outside Quebec, who need the French names spelt out carefully. Less so now that I’m living on a numbered street instead of Rue Saint-Whoever I used to live on; but then, my last name and the postal code also call for careful enunciation.
If it is a company you have an established relationship with (ie phone company, bank, credit card, etc). It is safe to assume they are just verifying and rattle away. For any you are uncertain about it never hurts to ask if they are just verifying.
If you wish to err on the side of caution, speak in your normal pace. A rep will ask you to repeat yourself if they didn’t get something, but one should never tell you to hurry it up (at least I hope not!)
