Call centre workers: spill the beans

teffers

I worked (12 years ago) in a small credit card fraud prevention unit. It was on the same floor as the general call centre for the now defunct Comet.

It was like a warehouse full of battery hens. Phones answering themselves after 2 rings, team leaders berating people for being 'not ready' and harassing people to get off the phones quicker.

I once heard a TL tell an operator they were giving the customer the impression they were going to help them, this would only make the call last longer.

Our unit was ran separately but I had a ringside seat to see just how badly customers were treated systemically. I genuinely believe the ethos of the company was to annoy / wind up people with legitimate warranty issues to such a point they hung up.

The business model was to discount, advertise heavily and create a constant churn of new customers to replace the ones that were not coming back due to how they were treated.

aqua111

When I worked in a call centre, as a Team Leader, the individuals who obtained the most calls answered figures were held in high regard.
The ones who took time to help the caller and obtained much lower figures were considered to be inefficient.

geerex

duchy wrote: »

You might but a startling number of British ex-pats in France and Spain don't speak a word of the local language and don't see any reason to learn.

You missed my posts about the lazy and the ignorant, didn't you?

daytona0

duchy wrote: »

It should be mandatory for British born too


Another one...... If you aren't the account holder -just say so -and don't spout off about how you pay the bill but the account isn't in your name. We really don't care-we just want to navigate the data protection process so we can get on with helping you. Oh and if you do decide to pretend to be the account holder and you aren't....... not knowing your own date of birth is a bit of a giveaway ! <eye-roll>

I had a really awkward moment once...

Customer had gone onto live chat and rung up about 4 agents previously. There was a female name on the account but customer kept admitting on previous calls that HE wasn't the account holder. We're all discussing it together on the floor so I haven't a clue how the customer expected not to be knocked back on further calls!

So typically he gets through to me on like his 5th call.... I ask for HIS name and he tells me the name on the account, which was "Ann" or something like that (he initially mumbles it to which I ask for him to repeat and then he says it clearer). No way he sounded like a woman, but can't really knock people back because you don't believe them because the person may be transgender or something.

So I put him on hold thinking "what the !!!! do I do?!" and the manager advised that as long as you have it on the recording that the person says that they are the named account holder then you've covered your back. THE BEST PART? I did additional data protection on him and it turns out that he had set the date of birth as 01/01/1900 - DOUCHE!! haha, so he couldn't even give me the correct date of birth and I couldn't continue with the call.

geerex

daytona0 wrote: »

I had a really awkward moment once...

Customer had gone onto live chat and rung up about 4 agents previously. There was a female name on the account but customer kept admitting on previous calls that HE wasn't the account holder. We're all discussing it together on the floor so I haven't a clue how the customer expected not to be knocked back on further calls!

So typically he gets through to me on like his 5th call.... I ask for HIS name and he tells me the name on the account, which was "Ann" or something like that (he initially mumbles it to which I ask for him to repeat and then he says it clearer). No way he sounded like a woman, but can't really knock people back because you don't believe them because the person may be transgender or something.

So I put him on hold thinking "what the !!!! do I do?!" and the manager advised that as long as you have it on the recording that the person says that they are the named account holder then you've covered your back. THE BEST PART? I did additional data protection on him and it turns out that he had set the date of birth as 01/01/1900 - DOUCHE!! haha, so he couldn't even give me the correct date of birth and I couldn't continue with the call.

Lol, North Americans, eh?!

I bet he could care less. Bologna!!! :rotfl:

HelsBels40_2

I worked for one of the big banks and always Monday was a busier day than any other, unless it was a bank holiday then it would be pushed to the Tuesday (seems lots of people thought there was no one there over the weekend) it was the lost and stolen dept which was never closed. Also, the beginning of the month was extremely busy as lots of cards seem to get lost in the post. Lunch times are also a very busy time.
As said before BE NICE and the agent is more likely to be nice back. Complaints are a big thing with banks, a "redress payment" for inconvenience, upset or expenses caused was able to be given, depending on the severity of the problem up to £100 was possible, or higher if very severe but had to go to higher management or complaints department. Unlike other forumites I enjoyed my job and was devestated when we were made redundant last year.

Bartelmy

Agreeing with Monday being the busiest day, particularly the Monday after payday. Call in payday evening instead - we're always completely dead.

vikingaero

duchy wrote: »

One more thing- Please don't call when you are drunk -We can tell and it rarely goes well if your thought and reasoning processes are at best a bit blurry !!

Is it bad form to call up when sitting on the throne?:o

FlowerPetals

geerex wrote: »

It's equally as rude on their part. It's not about immigration/emigration, it's about ignorance and lack of manners.

Considering you know nothing about people on this forum, I would class yourself as extremely ignorant when making judgements on people!

geerex

FlowerPetals wrote: »

Considering you know nothing about people on this forum, I would class yourself as extremely ignorant when making judgements on people!

Call the internet police! Some bad man on the internet has a different opinion! Waaaaah!