Quick tip. Just press the button and sail through Customer Services.

Philycheesesteak

I thought if you want drugs you press the hash key!!

Good tip, I'll try that, definitely the don't press any key works with many companies (not sky though).

Another tip if you're frustrated and want to complain for example go for the sales, new customer type route, they tend to staff those departments with more, better trained staff.

When I was with British Gas I threatened to leave they game be a number (sorry can't remember it now, too long ago) to their customer retaining department, answers in 3 rings, why did I have to threaten to go? (Went anyway...)

clairus99

zipwen1 wrote:

slight accent!!!!!! yeah if your from India. took me bloody half an hour to get my overdraft reduced because she didn't understand a word i was saying. and half an hour repeating "can you reduce my overdraft to £500" gets bloody annoying. not to mention the first two who hung up on me :mad:

careful, you don't want to end up like jade goodey!

i've worked on customer services too, but i used to pride myself on my work and would commonly deal with the difficult customers because it was my goal for them to leave happy - i've done the same thing in parking services (re parking tickets, and who isn't !!!!ed off to get one of them?!), social services, the dss and millwall football club too - so i've really met some difficult people! but, you know, they're just venting their anger and frustration at the company, it's not personal, what else are they meant to do? I'm a sod of a customer especially when ringing up places - these day's everything is so automated (they were just bringing in these scripts when I left Ticketmaster, my last call centre job). people get thrown off so easily.

I worked at Telewest, who i believe, ironically, train(ed) their customer service staff really well but at the end of the day it's down to the person answering the phone. i overheard a phone call my dad made to a company to whom he'd sent a cheque and was wondering what to do next as he was eagerly awaiting their product - when I heard him say, "I'm not being abusive" - he really wasn't, he asked quite nicely! I got him to hand the phone over to me and gave her a bit of customer service training.... lol. Not in a horrible way, I just made her aware of what she was insinuating. If he'd sworn or called her something horrible I could understand, but people seem far too ready nowadays to say, "I'm not taking this" and hanging up. I got sacked for doing that once (actually that was Ticketmaster!).

It's not personal, it's not the fault of the person answering the phone - and I always say that - but if you are on the frontline you are going to have to be able to take the brunt of people's frustrations - especially if they have been insulted by hanging onto a non-geographical number, and especially if they have no idea how long they are going to have to hold for. What you should be doing is looking for ways to translate these calls to your supervisors and they beyond them in order to provide a better and more loyal service from customers. At the end of the day, without customers, they have no business, and that call agent has no job.

I think Martin said it all really. :money: I think if people knew how long they were likely to be holding for then that would tackle part of the problem. I know for a fact the technology is there to do it.

Sorry for the long post.... I don't post often, and now you know why!

Heinz

clairus99 wrote:

I think if people knew how long they were likely to be holding for then that would tackle part of the problem.

And if these firms (nearly all now) didn't use disguised premium rate numbers to make extra money from their customers when, in the 21st Century, technology exists to have the same intelligent routing etc. facilities available on ordinary geographical numbers.

Who mentioned Sky?

lesinge2k

descartesmum wrote:

I haven't been able to talk to anyone at ntl for the past, well almost 2 weeks now. Either I am in the line, the longest wait was 30 minutes or I do get through and their computer system is down.

So I can get incoming calls but can't make any calls myself.

I can't wait to get my bill or someone calling me to remind me to pay my bill.

Why should I pay for the telephone service I haven't had?

Write a letter of complaint to the top executives, copied to customer services. Mention the problems with their phone lines. Nothing will be done about the phone lines, but your problem will be sorted.

lesinge2k

Heinz wrote:

And if these firms (nearly all now) didn't use disguised premium rate numbers to make extra money from their customers when, in the 21st Century, technology exists to have the same intelligent routing etc. facilities available on ordinary geographical numbers.

Who mentioned Sky?

Good point, it is almost in their best interest to sell inferior products so you have to call customer services, and they make a nice tidy profit while you are on hold, and then while they take your details to sort your problem...

Kernow_Kid

I have just had similar problems this week.
I tried to call my Doctors from work on my mobile to make an appointment.
I had no other option, my hours meant I had to do it this way.
They have installed a mechanical queing service.
The first thing I heard was: If you have a life threatening emergency, please press One now!:eek:
Personally I would call 999 myself.
I then had to wait for 17 minutes to get through, that cost me £1.70.
I spoke to the receptionist and she didn't care at all.:mad:

I've also had problems with BT. I don't know if they still do it, but they used to have a service where you had to say your phone number, one digit at a time after beeps to progress. After 3 attempts, it said it did not recognise my reply and hung up!:mad:
Now being Cornish, I do have a "slight accent", although I don't think I'm too bad.:p

I have no problem at all with out sourcing the call centres to other countries, it is just business, and if it were our money we would probably do the same.
The only problem I have with it is the places and the accents.
I have as much problem understanding Scottish, Geordie or Scouse as I do with Urdu or Hindi accents.
Don't get me wrong, its not a racial issue, its just that some accents are harder than others to understand down a dodgy line from India, or even worse, when you've got a problem with your phone line and your trying to call to get it fixed!
I don't expect every one to speak perfect English, but sometimes companies don't think about these things.
Cornwall is another favourite for Call Centres, so I quite understand if other people have similar problems with our accent.

Ongobay

Carphone warehouse pay a basic of around £14k with around £3 in bonus.
Bt pay agency workers anywhere from £6 - £6.50 p.h, and permanent staff at UK call centres from £15,040 - £20,000 ish, not including sales or offshore centres.

At BT we work on an abandonment rate, which we can see how many customers on our queue are hanging up before reaching an advisor, this gives a good indication of how we should control our calls. Although we have an overall target length of time for our calls overall.

I dont even think there could be a way to implement a system to givean accurate number on how many people are queuing in front of you. With the likes of BT it's not that simple. Thousands of people calling, queuing for thousands of operators might sound a bit blurred on the phone "You're 8,502rd position............ You're 7,127th position............. You're 8,110th position..." all at an incredible rate. The position would change alot, as advisors calling advisors have a slightly higher priority, as well as people coming to the queue via different routing. Picking the right options may actually get you into the right department quicker than not.

I gave 'David' three options (1 - to talk to me and give me a straight answer, 2 - to give me a refund for my now bigger mobile phone bill and 3 - to pass me to a manager -oh and press 0 to get an operator) and he had to confirm his identity with me. I kept asking him to repeat his option because my computer system had crashed (he he he).

This is probably playing on an advisors inadequacies, and in all honesty it would probably be a new advisor, or not a particularly 'strong' advisor. Although I understand people get frustrated, I can't see why it would ever be acceptable to try and belittle anybody, for any reason. Can you imagine the hassle that the advisor must get everyday? I'm sure your attitude would be exceptionally different if someone had spoke to you in that way.

I would certainly never get to the stage of repeating myself to a childish game, when other customers could be hanging on who need assistance, and in some cases vulnerable people who use their phone as a lifeline could be waiting, while you try and tease and belittle advisors. If they aren't good at their job, then complain to their manager who can coach them and train them.

Good advisors would give you three warnings and then terminate the call, and would be firm and fair in explaining each warning. Given what you have said, I would have definately terminated the call.

kept this going for 20 minutes (I kid you not - I'm a teacher and well trained in patience and the fine art of winding up pupils!

Perhaps you should tell people which school you teach at? I'm sure people with children there would love to know.

Teacher2301

To Mr Rincewind - ever heard of sarcasm!! By the way - the engineer cut our line accidentally as it happens - hence the reason why I complained - oh and the call cost just £3 so that's £2 profit.

To Ongobay - have you ever taught in a inner city school - these are survival techniques. And I said fine art - look at you - you got wound by the commment!

Since when did this forum become a rant - this was a lightheated story and a sharing of a common dislike of call centres. Maybe I should now teach the virtues of working in a call centre - seems like you don't need many qualifications. My apologies - I shouldn't say that!!!

I think I touched a raw nerve.

Teacher2301

MrRincewind wrote:

for no good reason other than to have there time wasted

by the way - 'there' is spelt 'their' - sorry but I am a teacher and the literacy of our children is bad enough without having children's books publishing text type eg 'coz' for because and now we as a nation can't even spell - what next!

DO you think I'm taking the criticism too personally?

MrRincewind

would`nt dream of taking it that way, you are entitled to your opinions as am i, i was just trying to make mine with out them seeming a personal attack towards the poster, i can appreciate the spelling mistake being pointed out, it just seems slightly petty to make a seperate post to do this, and this seemed such a friendly place too.