Devoted to the call center industry, the agents on the phones, and their managers

Great idea, Tim! I know I'm in no way eligible for the Shuffle, but I have a friend with some awful battle stories from her time as a customer service rep - and that's not even talking about actual calls. But she told me she's been cussed at, threatened, endlessly interrupted and completely ignored, over and over, all for problems she had nothing to do with. Anyone who gets that iPod has to be able to top her experiences, as far as I'm concerned :)!

I got a call from a customer wanting to order some videos from a very famous national television channel.

The videos he was ordering all had something to do with Jesus.

As we were ordering he seemed to know exactly what he wanted. Meaning, I didn't have to do much searching by key words. He had the exact video names so the call was going smoothly.

Then after ordering more than $100 worth of videos about Jesus, he tells me that he called to order these same ones a few minutes before getting me and the last rep promised him a 15% discount.

I asked him what the discount was for since there was no promos running at the time. He told me it wasn't a promo, the rep just liked him and told him he could get 15% off of his total order.

I explained to him that it is impossible for agents to give out discounts because we do not have the authority and I can not just give him a discount just because he is nice. He then got angry and demanded to speak to my supervisor to get the discount the last agent promised him.

It didn't dawn on me to ask him why he was unable to place that order with that agent then. Why did he need to call back and order with me?

I placed customer on hold and then called my supervisor. I explained to him the whole story and told him that the customer wanted to speak to him. Instead of taking the call from me the supervisor told me to "treat the customer like family and give him anything he wants". I was shocked! I know good customer service, but that is ridiculous! I kept trying to explain that I know this customer is lying to me. No one promised him a discount. We shouldn't give him one just because. My super wouldn't hear of it. He kept repeating "treat him like you would your family, give him what he wants". So the super gave me the 15% discount code and I went back to the customer and had to bite my tongue as I told him I would give him the discount.

Then after I applied the discount and before I was able to ask him for his credit card number he then proceeded to ask me if the videos he was ordering were documentaries of Jesus or movies. I then had to go back and look up every single video and read the descriptions on each of them. They were ALL documentaries. The customer then got upset because he thought for sure they would be movies with actors and actresses. He asked if we had ANY items based on Jesus that were movies and not documentaries. I then spent another 10 minutes looking through our inventory for movies of Jesus. We had none.

Customer started thinking outloud and saying that he doesn't really want to spend this much money for documentaries. I was thinking, this guy is crazy! He came in the call with the titles of every video, that led me to believe he knew that these were all documentaries.

I was thisclose to losing the sale when I told him that documentaries can be very entertaining and informative and what better way to learn about Jesus and his life than to watch documentaries filled with information and "re-enactments".

After spending close to 5 minutes, I finally convinced him to continue with the order from hell. He gave me his credit card number and right before I submitted his order he decided he wanted to change the shipping to something faster than our regular method. So I had to go back and update his shipping which in turn raised the total cost of the order. At that point I thought I was going to lose it if this guy asked for anything else.

I rushed him back through the credit card screen before he could ask me for something else and I was able to submit his order without any more issues.

The call was 45 minutes long for a process that should have only taken 5-10 min at the most.

I used to work with an insurance company and dealt a lot with people taking loans out on their policies. One day I had a lady call up to let us know that her husband had died and she wanted to cash in his policy. So I proceeded to go through everything I needed to, and let her know that the policy was worth X amount of dollars.

When she found out how much it was worth she instantly became upset. She wanted to know why it wasn't worth the full amount that her husband purchased it for. I tried to explain to her that the only reason the policy wouldn't be worth the full amount would be because her husband took some of the cash out in the past. She wouldn't listen to me and kept getting more and more upset. She finally asked when this money was taken out, and I couldn't come up with an answer. Our computer only had records going back 30 years and according to the records, the money was taken out before that time.

She was screaming so loud that I had to pull my headset away from my ear. Everyone sitting around me could hear everything she said clearly. My supervisor finally stepped in, seeing that I was getting nowhere, and he took over the call (on my phone).

The lady became sickenly sweet and listened to every word he said. As soon as he told her that some money had been taken out in the past she says "ok, well thank you for letting me know." I about DIED!!! I was telling her the same EXACT thing all along, but because I wasn't a supervisor she wouldn't believe me.

Well I used to work for a very large bank as a collections call center representative. I have to say that I have had many a bad call where screaming and so forth ensued but I would like to post one of the funnier calls I ever took.

This woman Janice [names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent] calls into my phone. She is flipping out screaming her little head off about any number of different issues.

Why is my interest at 25%
Why am I getting overlimit charges ($35)?
Why can't I use my card?

She went on and on. Now for some background. This is a very small card with a $200 limit (which if you work in the industry you don't even wanna waste time on a call like this). If the balance werent enough, the card was a card for a specific chain of Discount Superstores so I knew that I was talking to the High School Valedictorian or even possibly the latest Mensa candidate [sarcastic grin].

I spend the 1st 5 minutes just trying to get this lady to calm down enough so I can address each issue, one at a time. The whole time I am reviewing the account and seeing that she always pays her $10 minimum payment on time (don't these people know minimum payment = slavery?) Looks like she is trying to live off this card from the purchases she is making.

So I begin to answer her questions.

Why is my interest so high?
-Well you have been overlimit on your card for the past three months. (wait for small explosion to subside while hearing gripes about how I (like it is really me) shouldn't be able to charge such high interest and that Im probably some punk kid just lining my pockets [college student,new wife,1st baby - yeah, im living the good life])

Why am I getting overlimits fees?
-When you go over your credit limit the bank can charge you those fees. (again another explosion this time she says congress should outlaw these fees and she is going to write her congressman [you go right ahead dear])

Why can't I use my card?
-When you go over your limit a certain amount we suspend charging privileges until it is brought back down. (big bad nuclear explosion here with more expletives and a rant on how we shouldn't let her go over her limit [to be honest i could never figure out how a bank can let a cardholder spend 2.5 times their limit])

I then proceed to explain to the woman that in order to keep an account from going over the limit you have to pay more than the minimum monthly amount. I then give her a simple plan of how she can start to bring her account under control.

She stops me and says... ;and by the way I will never forget this till the day I day.

"I thought if I paid the $10 a month then I got to spend $200 a month"

Oh my gosh I about died. She thought that we would let her spend $200 every month as long as she paid $10 every month. The business model associated with such a practice still confounds me.

I calmly let her know how a credit card actually functions and that if she wanted we could send her a copy of the agreement she signed. I also had to tell her that we could not reverse the interest, or the fees, and of course could not reinstate the card as it had been closed.

All in all I think the one thing this call taught me is that people communicate from different perspectives. I was talking from the position of someone who knows how a credit card works and she was talking from the postion of someone who... well who the heck knows where she got that idea.

P.S. [1] I know I sound bitter but working in a call center (especially collections) will do that to you. If it makes you feel better I only feel that way when thinking of my experiences.

P.S. [2] There are cards that work similar to how this women thought but they are for exclusive high rollers and they still have to pay back every penny.

Okay. I was getting ready to post this on my blog, but I'll post it here, too. :D

I was listening the other day to one of our new hires. Now, this girl is genuinely sweet, really cares about the customers, and gets upset when somebody cusses her out.

She had just gotten off the phone with a guy named Bob. 15 minutes pass, and a call rings in to her phone.

"May I have extension 4567, please?"

CSR: "Who may I say is calling?"

Note: at this point, I knew this was the same customer she was talking to earlier, and I knew that 4567 was her extension. I'm sitting in my cube thinking, "Oh, no. Please don't do it. Please don't."

Customer: "This is Bob."

CSR: "Hold one moment while I transfer you."

Me: "She just transferred a call to herself. Hoo. boy."

A few seconds later, the phone rings back.

CSR: "I'm sorry, but he or she is on the other line right now..."

I flung off my headset and nearly mowed down another CSR to get to her.

Me: "4567 is YOUR extension. You talked to him a few minutes ago: he's calling back for you."

CSR (turning beet red): "OH."

She remembered then, and thankfully Bob was still on the line, so she was able to help him. I walked back to my desk, laughing so hard that I was hyperventilating.

I'll give her 100 points for form (technically, it was a beautifully executed transfer), but still...

This is what I have to deal with.

Thank you for calling the Undisclosed Customer Service Center, my name is �?�.blah blah blah

"Ya, I was just talking to a tech and was cut off." hung up on you mean, I can tell by this guys snotty attitude that he probably deserved it, but I give him the benifit of the doubt.

"Sorry about that sir, do you remember his name I can put you directly back to him."

"Ah, no, and I would appreciate NOT going back to India." Ok , I was wrong, no doubt here. I give him the schpeel about being a global company and all I could do is transfer him with no guarantee where he would go.

"Well, this is the thing. I refuse to speak to any member of the Taliban. Or anyone else in the middle east." I kid you not, he actually said those words. He stuns me for a second. Most rednecks try to mask their ignorance by telling you they are not prejudice, they just have problems understanding people in India. Not this guy.

"Well, Sir, I can guarantee you that the Undisclosed Customer Service Center" does not employ members of the Taliban." this prompts suprised stares from my coworkers. I didn"t bother to point out the fact that India is not even in the middle east.

"Ya right. Fine, you can get me back to the guy I had before, his name was Chris, (sarcastically) I am guessing it is not his real name I could sorta understand him." I check the file and have to mute the guy, I am busting a gut.

Aside from the fact that he got India confused with Afghanistan, the tech he spoke to wasn"t even in India. He was in Canada, and his name? Wong. Could not have been anything but Chinese.

Perhaps Bush should look into this. Apparently the Taliban is now headed up by Chinese Canadians who set up customer service businesses in India.

Alert the media!

Wow, thanks for the great stories �?? sorry I didn�??t respond sooner (I was away for a few days on a Unitus retreat about alleviating poverty).

Nicole:

Blessed are the longsuffering�?�

Brandi:

Maybe she was trying to wake the dead with her screaming�?�

Matthew:

I�??ll pay you $10 if you let me charge $200 �?? where do we sign up!? �??Give us your poor, your huddled masses�?��?�

QA Queen:

Maybe the CSR needs a credit card, Matthew can tell her where to get one that should be just about her speed! Actually, as a CEO of a call center I required all of my senior staff to spend time periodically on the phones so they remembered how hard of a job it was, including me. Once I had a difficult customer and she asked to speak to the president of the company. If I had told her that I was the president, she wouldn't have believed me. So I put her on hold, waited a few minutes and then came back on saying, Hello, I am Tim Stay, the President, how can I help you? I always wondered if she questioned why I sounded like the agent she had just been talking to!

Eva:

Did you ask your customer if he noticed the black helicopters circling over his house? Or did he reveal that he had recently returned from the �??mother ship�?� after being abducted by aliens? I calling him prejudice is being too kind �?? maybe paranoid or delusional might be better terms!

These are great! Thanks and keep them coming!

I started in a call center of a large multi-state bank 3 weeks after 9/11 (when banks and most businesses were VERY on edge about any threats). A couple weeks after training I got the following call...

Me: Thank you for calling [bank] this is JT, how may I help you?

It: Yes, I want to speak with the bank President? [yeah, that's gonna happen]

Me: Sir, what is it that you are calling about today, hopefully I can assist you or at least transfer you to the right department?

It: I want to talk to the #$*#& president and I want to @*#& talk to him now!!

Now that the mood is set...

Apparently he was a bit upset because a bank branch had refused to cash an out-of state personal check that was over 6 months old, more than $1000, written on another bank and he didn't have enough in his own account to cover it. [go figure, i simply can't imagine why we didn't just cash it without hesitation].

When I refused to transfer him to the president, and attempted to explain check cashing requirements, he then threatened my life and the bank presidents life. The caller lived in the same city as our HQ (and my call center) and informed me he was going to the main branch to "work it out". [Just happens the executive offices are over the main branch, thus he'd be in the same building as the bank president he just threatened.]

He then advised me that the local branch was full of useless idiots and this was my warning he was just gonna "blow it up". [ direct quote ladies and gentlemen. less than 3 months after 9/11 the man is threatening to bomb a bank ] He then hung up after a few choice words.

Fortunately when he called in he used the automated system, so I had all his info, and caller ID showed his home number. I contacted my supervisor and she had a security coordinator at my desk in under 5 minutes.

Within 10 more minutes, police were at the local branch, the corporate branch, and the callers residence. Simultaneously security turned off his atm/debit card, placed a hold on the account, and system locked it with a note that all inquiries had to go through the security department.

Rumor had it he was charged with terroristic threatening, but I dunno. No one from corporate mentioned it to me again, so I assume they had it recorded on monitoring.

[ sidenote, my very first call EVER on the phone by myself, a guy asked for directions to a branch, i asked his name so I could address him properly, and he cussed me out ]

My calls begin with the same phrase, "XXX Help Desk, this is XXX what is your XXX number?" We service over 2500 locations and each one has a location number. Since we have a finite number of locations we have learned the troublemakers and even to associate specific employees with certain locations.

This lady is slowly earning the ire of the entire help desk.

She calls one day, with a problem printing. Printing problems are a routine occurence on any computer system and it normally takes approximately 10-15 minutes to correct her given circumstance. i being by telling her to logoff all her computers. She then stops me to tell me she has a customer waiting and needs to find a translator for her, since "she doesn't understand a word of English." She leaves me on hold while she drags this poor woman around a store looking for someone who speaks her language. She then returns to the phone, and proceeds to tell me to wait again, while she rings up a customer.

Patiently I sit and wait, to fix a problem that does not stop her from doing her job, and which only takes 10-15 minutes.

While I wait and listen to her talking in the background, I hear her discussing with customers how many problems she has had lately with the systems. How all the components have been breaking, how she is scheduled to work by herself all day long, and how she has the Help Desk on the phone right now, trying to straighten out her many problems. I sit and listen quietly to her whining to customers about how terrible her system is, you know those same folks who spend money at our stores so our checks don't bounce!

Finally, after 13 minutes she returns to the phone. Remember as I said earlier, it only takes 10-15 minues to handle her problem.

I again instruct her to logoff all the computers. These are Windows 2000 systems and so the tried and true CTRL+ALT+DEL works every time. This took several tries on each of her three computers. Once we had logged them off, it was time to logon with the account we use for troubleshooting. I give her the username and remind her that the password is different than what she is used to using. She informs me that she is not an idiot and she has been working for our company for 10 years. After this declaration it only takes her 8 tries to logon successfully on one computer. I am so glad she was not an idiot.

Once we are logged on, we need to browse for the print server on the system and print a test page. This is a very simple process and something I have walked countless people through hundreds of times. After 30 minutes, we have finally managed to get one of the three computers to print a test page. At this point, after spending over 45 minutes trying to correct an issue that should have taken me 15 minutes, I give up and log her back on all her computers.

She insists on printing her document and thanks be to God, it worked. I got off the phone and sucked down a nice belt of Mountain Dew.

Good idea Tim! Why don't you guys try visiting our website also(www.farmout.ph). We would like to know your comments as well.