Bad customer service or just bad customers.

szam_

As someone who has won a customer service award in the past, and been on the end of some quite frankly, unnecessary shouting from the first second of a phone call, to the last, from someone who quite frankly did not understand that even if I work on his issue right away (of course, this means dropping other peoples issues to the bottom of the queue, meaning they have a worse experience) it's not just a simple fix (I'm talking I.T. where some issues are on par with "how long is a piece of string?".) It is quite intimidating in some ways to receive that level of abuse before you have even had a chance to try and help - you just have to be the bigger person at the end of the day. I've also been on the end of being accused of "30 missed calls" in the lone hour I used to work between 8am and 9am, when there were three, none of which were this said person - fortunately we'd just had a call monitor system set up which backed this up.

Honestly, things go wrong sometimes, things happen, that's life, and I'd say 99% of the time it was not the fault of whoever you are speaking to on the phones, or in a shop, or wherever, who's job is to try and get it resolved. You'd be surprised how much it can brighten up someones day if you're just polite and understanding to the person on the other end - they'll also be more inclined to help you and go that bit extra. If you continually get bad service, you'll find that who you're speaking to will probably genuinely empathise if you rant at them, more often than not they have their hands tied.

I have noticed much better customer service lately however from various companies, such as BskyB. Ovo, good again, wish they would reply to emails however sometimes, but I don't mind phoning as they are generally upbeat and helpful. I kinda wish Three would ditch the Indian call centers, it took me 10-15 minutes to stop a guy trying to sell me crap before he would cancel an account I didn't need anymore.

arealbasketcase

Littlestars wrote: »

I read a lot about how there is so much bad customer service out there but does anyone who ever thinks the problem may be them. If you have ever worked in retail/call centres then you may understand the the amount of abuse, screams and personal insults that you need to put up with from customers because most of time they cant be bothered reading information or do the wrong thing themselves yet its all personally my fault they booked in the wrong delivery date. And not to forget the whole "I'm married to Mr Jones so why can i not discuss his order this is disgusting i will be writing a complaint as i placed the order he has nothing to do with this"...well maybe don't commit fraud and use someone else's card so we don't need to do down the why i cant speak to you regarding DPA.

Yes don't get me wrong some people should not work in customer service as they don't have the skills not want to really do the job so it does exist, but please remember when you next feel that the service you have received is appalling to treat us like humans too as you will get more than screaming and swearing down the phone demanding thats that cant possible be done.

I have a huge problem with my energy supplier at the moment, it isn't the Customer Service staff that are a problem, it's the companies Customer Service that is. However, if you work in Customer Service don't you expect to receive phone calls from irate customers if the company isn't delivering on it's service?

Shouldn't companies provide enough Customer Service Staff to deal with enquiries?
Shouldn't they provide those staff with the tools to sort out problems, even if that means providing dedicated teams to deal with, for example, metering problems, DD problems (neither of which, you will note, can be "blamed" on the customer)?

I have been guilty of getting upset when ringing my energy supplier and have apologised, I work with the public myself via the telephone so I do know how it feels to be on the receiving end. However, when customers have a genuine problem, not of their making which they can not do anything about who else do you propose we raise our voices to?

I'd like to see you stay calm when:

you are told you owe someone £2000 (and growing) when you don't.
you can't shift to cheaper energy, even with the same supplier, because your account is incorrectly "locked"
the ombudsman isn't even getting the case resolved, yup that's right the energy supplier have failed to comply so far.

Littlestars_2

I have had some difficult calls where ive been screamed and cried to because somethibg has went wrong and there is nothing I can do to resolve it or help, people like the do have a genuine reason to be angry and I dont blame them. Its people who have done something wrong themselfs or just call with an attitude that need a good think.

The dpa one is a good example because numerous times a day I will get abuse because I cannot discuss an order because the person that called is not named on the order. And even when you explain dpa and why you cannot speak to them you will still get abuse.

If there is a genuine reason to be angry fair enough but if you are being a !!!! for no reason there is no excuse for it.

pullenuk

Littlestars wrote: »

The dpa one is a good example because numerous times a day I will get abuse because I cannot discuss an order because the person that called is not named on the order. And even when you explain dpa and why you cannot speak to them you will still get abuse.

Not suprised when a Deaf person like myself gets told I HAVE to contact by phone when I cant. So with me it's bad customer service!

Littlestars_2

pullenuk wrote: »

Not suprised when a Deaf person like myself gets told I HAVE to contact by phone when I cant. So with me it's bad customer service!

I cant comment on where you have contacted before but where I work people can email in or call us and confirm the details of dpa and authorise someone else to deal with the order. But at the same time its not the person on the end of the phones fault.

System

One supermarket I was in this week has a basket only till. As the queues were long, a frail elderly woman at a guess in her early 90s, pushing a trolley with four items was directed by a supervisor to go through the basket till.

Then a couple with each with a basket with at least 20 items in each basket barked at the lady 'basket on my'. Customers with walking difficulties use trolleys to support themselves.

This situation can be classed as bad customer for the couple taking the p!ss on the basket till and bad customer service for allowing a basket only till.

Using the x items or less policy is better as it allows customers with baskets and trolleys if like in example in the post or buying heavy things like cases of beer whilst the rude couple to queue at a normal till.

Money-Saving-King

arealbasketcase wrote: »

I'd like to see you stay calm when:

you are told you owe someone £2000 (and growing) when you don't.
you can't shift to cheaper energy, even with the same supplier, because your account is incorrectly "locked"
the ombudsman isn't even getting the case resolved, yup that's right the energy supplier have failed to comply so far.

This sort of post of the thing that really bugs me. I'll explain why.

Do you think call centre staff just live there permanently? Hasn't it occurred to you they also have lives and are customers? Hasn't it occurred to you that they will also have probelems?

But yet they will manage to control themselves when things go wrong because they understand. How come you can't figure out the person on the end of the phone is just a person like you? The have bills, they have things go wrong as well. It's as if you think they have been grown in a call centre and have no other experience of life?

You speak of them as if they're bread to do what they do like robots. You seem to have no comprehension they also will have at some point in their lives exactly the same problems as you but have done a hell of a lot better with keeping their cool with the person then you have from your above post than you did.

For your information I do not work in a call centre or ever have.

daytona0

Money-Saving-King wrote: »

This sort of post of the thing that really bugs me. I'll explain why.

Do you think call centre staff just live there permanently? Hasn't it occurred to you they also have lives and are customers? Hasn't it occurred to you that they will also have probelems?

But yet they will manage to control themselves when things go wrong because they understand. How come you can't figure out the person on the end of the phone is just a person like you? The have bills, they have things go wrong as well. It's as if you think they have been grown in a call centre and have no other experience of life?

You speak of them as if they're bread to do what they do like robots. You seem to have no comprehension they also will have at some point in their lives exactly the same problems as you but have done a hell of a lot better with keeping their cool with the person then you have from your above post than you did.

For your information I do not work in a call centre or ever have.

Haha the old call centre hassle I have some stories about being an agent in one!


I've flipped on one or two people in the past, generally you can get away with it so long as you don't swear at them etc. You just get a verbal or written warning for most minor misdemeanors. I've never had a complaint which turned into a warning etc though...


- One woman kept nagging me for compensation. She asked me about 20 times in the call and her issue was basically that she had selected the wrong billing address, to which I was (very calmly) explaining to her how to change it. In the end I just turned round and said something like "look, i've been very civil with you but I'm not prepared to listen to you any more" and then I told her it was her fault. Her response? "I don't appreciate being talked to like that" - yea well !!!! off you nag

- The worst one, a posh snobby-sounding 30ish year old woman from cambridge..... I get the call, and as soon as the line connects she starts screaming and shouting at me! Her issue? She had been charged about 1 pound and thought we had "stolen her money". It was actually a phantom transaction which can be done occasionally when you put in the 3 digit security code before placing your first order. No big deal, and TYPICALLY I just give them the money back in our loyalty scheme if they are especially cranky (they get the money back anyway). Well this particular woman caught me on a bad day..... I was woken up that morning at 6am by my grandad, who was pretty distressed. Turns out someone had cut the lock off my motorbike and robbed it and the bike was worth 2k+ So I really wasn't in the mood to listen to some snob, at about 10am when my bike was missing, talking about a pound which we "robbed" from her. I basically told her that she would need to ring back as my bike had been nicked and I wasn't prepared to talk to her - hanging up after that. I really don't know how I dodged a disciplinary with that one hahaha



Today I had the pleasure of speaking to some GUY who was pretending to be [female name] to try and pass DPA. He had been knocked back by about 5 of my colleagues and I'm the poor sod whom he outright LIES about his name (being female) so theoretically I can't not open the account. Thankfully he/she/it had the DOB down as 1900 so they failed on this and I didn't have to open it. I just found it funny when I asked for the first line of the address and their response? They simply repeated "their" full name. Ummm ok....