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

smellycat_2

I used to work in a call centre and despite it being the most boring, easy job in the world it was also quite stressful due to the pressures plied on you by the company, and the rude customers whom you had to tolerate. We had strict targets to meet: average call length, average handling times (how quickly we answered the phones) number of sales, number of upsales/upgrades, etc. In order to pass the call length requirement you'd have to speak quickly and occassionally miss things out, although you couldn't do that too often as every two weeks you had someone randomly check a call for quality and FSA regs.

I did feel sorry when people were kept waiting ridiculously long times and I definitely agree a 'you are nth in the queue' message would be beneficial. Although how meaningful this is would vary: if there was only one staff member then being next in line might mean 20 minutes if you are waiting for some idiot like that 'teacher' person to finish, or it could mean 5 seconds if there are 50 people manning the lines.

I'd say the main reasons for call backlogs were:
1. Lack of warning by the provider that they had started an advertising campaign, so the call centre didn't have enough time to bring in extra staff.
2. Lack of staff
3. People phoning at peak times: Call numbers were always double during lunch time when there were fewer staff available, and Monday was by far the busiest day of the week. Some centres are open longer hours than people realise, the number of times I sat twiddling my thumbs from 8am til 9am, and then suddenly you'd have 20 people queuing. Same with the evening shifts.

I have a long list of top tips:
1. Find out when the call centre is open and phone either first thing or in the evening.

2. Don't phone 1 min before they are due to close, we're all human, and no one likes being kept late at the office especially when there's no overtime and you've missed the bus to the station. Not likely to get good service.

3. If you want to complain: please do. Absolutely no reason to be rude about it. We took complaints seriously because you must in order to comply with the FSA. We investigated everything and had strict time frames to follow everything up. Getting abusive doesn't speed up the process.

4. If you don't mind your complaint being put in a file and never looked at again, then a verbal complaint is the end of the road. If you want things to be looked into more seriously then put it in writing as it's then an official complaint. If you actually want the company to see the complaint and not just the call centre then please complain to their head office. There were many rubbish things about the product I sold and people would verbally complain without people realising it's nothing to do with the actual call centre. Writing to head office is the way to go and I wish more people would. Some companies I sold things for kept a close eye on us while others sat back and didn't seem to care.

5. By all means ask the person politely to speak up or speak more slowly. But please bear in mind that just because you're a little hard of hearing, doesn't mean that they need you to shout into their headset.

6. The call centre op is probably just as fed up asking silly questions as you are of having to answer them. But it isn't their fault, they are employed to follow rules, do their job and comply with the law and that means reeling off a battery of questions. Again, if you want to complain it's far more productive to write to the company than sigh, whine, mutter and get irritable down the phone.

Lozzer_2

Cautiouswithcash wrote:

I work in a call centre and people do this a lot. The problem it creates is I spend my time transferring you to the right colleague rather than helping people I can, thus making the phone queues longer. Some might say you are 'pushing in' - I hope you don't do the same when you go in the high street shops!

The problem here is that the Customer needs to be put back into Customer Service. What we want is to answer the phone and sort our problem/query out. Not to spend time queuing or using IVR or pushing buttons that bear no relationship to the question you want answered. Just ring SKY if you have time on your hands! The answer is simple - get the experts on the front line! That don't need loads of training they need training on what customers ask. Yes, get the managers out of their offices listening to calls. Look at the demand that comes in train the staff to deal with that demand. All staff or Agents as they are called can answer most of the questions/queries bett job satisfaction from them and better for us as customers. Managers should be told to support their front line staff, disconnect IVR systems and look atthe system stop blaming the staff who answer the phone it the system not the people that are the problem. Its the management factory that's the problem. All this is called Lean Service - cost go down not up! customer service gets better, staff are less stressed enjoy learning. This works I use it in my company.
So STOP IVR, STOP targets, STOP blaming staff, close down the management factory.

April2

What's IVR?

RichyRich

April2 wrote:

What's IVR?

Interactive voice response, i.e. "Press 1 for the first thing you don't want, press 2 for the other thing you don't want"...etc.

April2

Thanks. I always thought that was called Automatic Resonse System - but I suppose they didn't want to call it that in case ....

jonnyboy122

Given the criticisms of NTHell call centres on here (I have my own bad experiences with them - I asked for just a connection to a phone line and was told they didn't do that! there was me thinking they were a phone company!!), it will be interesting to see if anything changes with the imminent change of brand to Virgin Media...

RichyRich

Hopefully will be a positive change; I have always found Virgin Mobile's customer services team in Trowbridge very helpful.

Lozzer_2

April2 wrote:

What's IVR?

Oops sorry April2 - IVR stands for "interactive voice recognition" it's when you have to speak your answer instead of pressing numbers on the keypad. Still doesn't work just wastes our time.

keith234

louised wrote:

Wll I think these call centres should employ enough staff so we don't have to queue and "push in" or even better don't run incompetent businesses so we have to ring up all the time !!

and all this while we pay for the privilege of using! (say no to....)

toblerone_2

Cautiouswithcash wrote:

I work in a call centre and people do this a lot. The problem it creates is I spend my time transferring you to the right colleague rather than helping people I can, thus making the phone queues longer. Some might say you are 'pushing in' - I hope you don't do the same when you go in the high street shops!

well my hubby was in a queue for ten minutes yesterday so is it any wonder we want to push in.phone bills are dear enough.why dont they forget the queue and only answer our call when they are ready to deal with us.like a home phone line does!