rude call centre customers!

steve_cov

ruiner99 wrote:

i appreciate all the callers who are calm, have a point and put it across without repeating it 5 times because they think you are too stupid to understand it (have been told that several times).

One explanation ought to be enough. Generally, you will find customers are used to explaining the same problem over and over because many call centre workers are so bored that they don't listen to what is being said. Their frequently atrocious command of language doesn't help, but the "Computer says no" attitude is what really drives many customers to fury.

ruiner99 wrote:

manners are a learned discipline and some people are just too ignorant to learn anything.

Or to listen to the customer, which is what they are being paid to do. If I have been charged nearly £2 whilst on hold for 20 minutes, with the company raking off part of that cost, I expect to be treated like a deity by the time I speak to someone. I don't think that is particularly unreasonable: why not leave the call unanswered so that at least customers don't start racking up the charges until we get to speak to someone?

I also had experience of a AmEx customer service person in the US. The difference was astonishing and a true eye-opener.

Gorgeous_George

It bugs me when sales numbers are 0800 and customer service numbers start with 0870.

Perhaps I should ask for CS numbers when considering buying things such as mobile phones etc.



GG

Debt_Free_Chick

It's a pity that some of the posts here are critical of "call centre workers", stereotyping them as if they are of a certain breed and all inherently have the same personality traits.

They can't all be useless, rude, dumb ... whatever. These are real human beings; individual people.

What you should be criticising is the management of the company concerned and the bunch of people who decided that customer service should be diverted away from those who know the products, to a group of people employed to answer the telephone.

The whole idea of a call centre is fundamentally flawed - they will simply never work (although I can think of one exception, which I'll mention later). Why won't they work? Simply because the people in the call centre - almost without exception - have never worked with the product. They don't know what it does, how it does what it's supposed to and how to diagnose the problem when it goes wrong. No-one in the BT call centre has ever been a BT engineer and they don't actually know the relevant parts of the system that we talk about when we call them. In fact, I think it's the case that the people in the BT call-centre don't even work for BT - the call-centre is a totally separate subcontractor.

Now then ... what used to happen in the good old days? Well, you would buy something ... it would develop a problem ... you would call the supplier. The person you spoke to would have an intimate understanding of the product and would more than likely respond with a friendly "Ah, yes ... I know what's happened here. The widget that fits into the grommit has worked itself free and needs to be repositioned. I can send Jack out to fix that and it'll only take 5 minutes to sort out. He's out at the moment but I can send him round this afternoon, if thats OK?".

Today - you phone a call-centre, where your call is answered by someone wearing a headset, sitting in front of a PC in a room with up to 100 (or even more) other people, in identical headsets with identical PCs. From this point on, you are no longer in control of the phone call - and neither is the person in the call-centre. The PC is in charge - or rather, the software that's been written to manage the call and diagnose the problem. There's the first issue - your problem will be diagnosed by computer software. But first, we have to identify you - not by name, that's not at all important. But by a customer number. You don't have your customer number? There's the second problem, so we enter a sub-routine which attempts to identify you by another means, whereby you have to answer a number of questions all of which are irrelevant to the purpose of your call.

When you finally get to explain the problem, you're already pretty irritated by the Spanish Inquisition that's already taken place, but then find that you - the customer - has to go someway to diagnosing the problem yourself. You have to give an accurate description using the correct terminology so that the call-centre staff can select the right option from those presented by the computer software. Typically, they have to choose from a list of potential problems so that the job can be allocated to the right person and so that person has some idea of what they're going to have to fix.

More often than not, you're problem is not on the list of options. Not surprising really, as you don't know what's on the list and nine times out of ten, you wouldn't understand the options anyway - how are you supposed to know what the problem could possibly be, unless you know that the widget is supposed to go into the grommit, or that the blasted product actually has widgets & grommits? :mad:

What you need is for the call-centre staff to help you diagnose the problem. But they don't know the product either and - worse than that - they MUST deal with all calls, within x minutes (or even seconds!). They're panicking and stressing about the b0ll0cking they're gonna get because they're taking too long to deal with your call!

Another point to bear in mind is that the call-centre staff are there simply to "deal" with your call - that is, to record the details as quickly as possible. No chit-chat, no discussion about what might have caused the problem and certainly no requirement to deal with the call to YOUR satisfaction. Just take the goddam details - quickly!

Now then ..... someone paid an awful lot of money actually dreamt up this system and then devised the role of the call-centre staff. It's not the fault of the staff if they're doing exactly what the company wants them to do - so please don't label them as anything other than "good at their job". What's wrong is the job description and the call-centre staff aren't responsible for that one, which is down to the suit with the big bonus! That person probably also got another fat bonus for increasing profits by deciding to make some money from the introduction of "a dedicated phone number" to deal with all calls. Again - not the fault of the call-centre staff.

Finally, the current "complaint & compensation" culture does nothing to help at all, when people are encouraged to "kick up a big stink and don't take no for an answer". You see it all the time on MSE .... someone asks for help with a simple problem and they are told to "insist on speaking to the manager and demand ... this ... that ... compensation etc etc ...."

Imagine being the call-centre operator answering that particular call (which was kind of the point that the OP was making).

If you really want to get your call dealt with efficiently, I suggest you go out of your way to be courteous to the call-centre operators. They will be so surprised (not to mention relieved) to get a polite call for a change, that they will probably go out of their way to help you out. And you can feel satisfied that you've probably made their day - and it's not difficult to achieve.

There is one call-centre I can think of that does actually work - but then again, it's not really a call-centre. It's the Direct Banking department at RBS. It's not a call centre because it's staffed by RBS employees with banking experience - see what I mean? They actually know the product and how it works. It's a way of doing banking transactions over the telephone, rather than a simple conveyor belt method of dealing with phone calls. Oh, and it's actually based in Scotland (Stirling, I think), although some people on MSE will complain that they can't understand the accents and will want to speak to someone "English" :rolleyes:

Not all call-centres work in exactly the way I've described, but they're not far from it.

I don't deny that call-centres don't work - that's the whole point of this rambling drivel. But it's not the fault of the call-centre staff and the criticism and stereotyping of some of the posts here is completely unmerited.

Rant over. If you've read all of this, congratulations. You have probably proved to yourself that you have the patience to make a call to a call-centre, without your customer number and absolutely zero knowledge of the problem you're calling about

Debt_Free_Chick

steve_cov wrote:

Worst call centres recently: Alliance & Leicester (Vicky in Leeds, you have been named and shamed); Orange (ignorant pair in the north-east); Npower (took awful offence when I corrected her dreadful grammar for the third time, although it was tremendous fun).

I'm sure you make your mother very proud :rolleyes:

looby75

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

There is one call-centre I can think of that does actually work - but then again, it's not really a call-centre. It's the Direct Banking department at RBS. It's not a call centre because it's staffed by RBS employees with banking experience - see what I mean? They actually know the product and how it works. It's a way of doing banking transactions over the telephone, rather than a simple conveyor belt method of dealing with phone calls. Oh, and it's actually based in Scotland (Stirling, I think), although some people on MSE will complain that they can't understand the accents and will want to speak to someone "English"

I have found this with the Halifax call centre too. Every time I have had to phone them I have been able to speak to someone who is polite, friendly but most importantly actually knows the answer to my question :eek: It's not very often I say anything good about the Halifax but credit where credit is due they seem to have the cc staff trained really well.

Now HSBC cc.......grrr don't get me started on that one. No matter how calm and collected I am when I start the conversation I'm ready to top myself by the end of it.

jodie

I have had some great convos with people at NTL CS but as soon as I got through to a different section I found the people to be soooo rude, and dont get me started on the broadband help in India

Voyager2002

fudgeukraine wrote:

People say the 0870 call costs them money/makes us money - get real. an 0870 call costs something like 7ppm, of which the company might get something like 2p (and offpeak of 3.5ppm, it'll be 0.5p). So even if I took calls solidly for 60 minutes, which never happens (it's more like about 45m or so) then it's be £1.20 for the company. Now, I'll tell you we don't work for £1.20 so this kind of puts that idea out the frame!

You are making a basic fallacy here. Customers calling the 0870 number are kept on hold (and are being charged for the privilege) for as long as an hour before an operator deals with their call. The customer thus pays 60 times 8 pence, or 4.80, in order to spend thirty seconds speaking to an agent (cost of that person's time perhaps fifty pence). THAT is the scam that upsets people.

What I find infuriating is that the sales line is always adequately staffed, and there is often a freephone number as well, so everything is made as easy as possible for people likely to buy. However, support and service lines are inadequately staffed, so that resolving even a simple problem requires excessive amounts of time, patience and even money from the customer.

rachaelc_2

My other half works in a call centre for a hotel chain, and moved of the general sales reservation department as he couldn't bear the rudenes of some people, many forgot that an advert contained the word 'from' £49 and would spend hours being screamed at. I recently attended a doctors appointment where he asked my occupation, he said that call centres has the highest % of staff who go off work sick with stress out of all the occupations in the world!! Thats a mighty scary thought. Alot of the time aswell, it the call handlers who are getting the ear ache as they cant assistant anymore than what they already are, but, they are just doing their job and trying to make a living, like everyone else.

kevin_M

rachaelc totaly agree.

i work for a call center on a very good rate of pay. sometimes what people want they cannot have. Plus if u speak to somone like dirt dont you think they will be less likey to help you. after all that person is just paid to do a job not to take abuse.

I personaly try and help anyone that comes thu.. if i cannot help i get them thu to the right department.. what realy buggs me tho is when someone comes to the wrong department then has a go to you about it or about the hold times.

hollydays

If a customer has been put through to the wrong department by a colleague,arent you supposed to apologise for them having their time wasted?Why would it bug you?