Call centre workers: spill the beans

hamsterfan1

I've worked in a number of different call centres - all inbound & the job I most enjoyed was the one where I actually had the power to do something about the caller's issue rather than take details & pass it on, or to try to transfer to another department.

I got shouted at a lot less in that job because I could get everything sorted out whilst the caller was on the line

daytona0

chrisb4 wrote: »

Oh, and one chap used to call us up, ask to speak to me... and when transferred, would spend ten minutes telling me about his grandkids before moving onto this query (he was a regular caller, you may tell!). He was a joy to speak to. We're all human after all

Wish I was that lucky!

whenever someone used to ask for me it was to have a 20 minute moan about something I had sorted out earlier in the day! Wasn't moaning about me, just how the company had screwed them over and stuff like that. Used to call people like that "rabbits" because they'd turn nothing into a huge moan and go on and on about it.

ttoli

chrisb4 wrote: »

Oh, and one chap used to call us up, ask to speak to me... and when transferred, would spend ten minutes telling me about his grandkids before moving onto this query (he was a regular caller, you may tell!). He was a joy to speak to. We're all human after all

I work for an Incoming tour operator here in Cyprus and many clients call year after year and are shocked that we don't recognise their names off the top of our heads (they phone once or twice a year) , For us , midweek in the evenings is quiet as people tend to mull over booking a holiday over the weekend and make the reservation on Mondays .
Our company website shows our photo's and can be a little creepy when a male customer says , I'm looking at your photo !.

Saveitandsee

I used to work in an inbound call centre.

Most annoyed customers were annoyed for good reason. The reason was not my fault but I was their first line of communication with the company who were responsible. Frustration I could deal with. I found that the majority of the time, you let the customer have their rant, once they have it out of their system, you can move toward a resolution.

But there are always the ones who roar. I'm wearing a headset - shouting in my earhole hurts. Shouting isn't going to make me hear to any better, in fact it has the opposite effect, the words muffle. Don't shout. Speak to me. You can communicate your anger without shouting.

There are the ones who are abusive from the off. It won't really make a difference what you do for them, they think that because they pay for a service, they can speak to you however they damn well please. Wrong. I would hear coworkers tell them over and over that they would terminate the call if the behaviour continued. I told them once and only once. My job was to take calls, not abuse.

And of course there are the ones who you had no option but to terminate the call on because they would rant and rave and demand to know what you were going to do but would talk over you any time you opened your mouth to answer them. Most of the time, a call handler can rectify an issue or at least set the wheels in motion for it but if a arbitration is a two way street and has to involve a conversation. If you don't let a person speak then it isn't a discussion, only a one way rant. A call handler cannot give you options if you won't let them speak.

I am inclined to agree with others that a call handler is less likely to want to help you if you are abusive, shouty or talk over them. Some may view that as wrong, but you are speaking to a human, not a machine and it's human nature to want to help those who are polite above those who shout at you.

TheBanker

The callers who used to annoy me were those who'd ring with the telly on loud, and then complain they couldn't hear me. Or those who'd wait til they were on a train going through tunnels to call to sort their banking out...

For us the best time to ring was Saturday evening when the place was dead. We'd get the odd lost card but otherwise spend the evening surfing the net.

If you must try to call us on Christmas Day, don't be surprised that we are closed. Don't phone back the next time we're open just to moan about it

If you've received a generic letter, please accept that the person who answers the phone can help with your query, and you don't need to insist on speaking to the person whose name appears on the letter.

The word "ombudsman" does not scare me.

If you make deeply offensive or abusive comments to my colleagues, don't be surprised when your card stops working. It's because we've closed your account. We're allowed to do that and the cheque for the balance is in the post.

If you threaten violence against our staff, don't be surprised when the police knock on your door to have a word. Our calls are all recorded and we know your address.

If you think it will be funny to try to wind us up by saying you're going to kill yourself because of our bank charges, spare a thought for the police and ambulance who wasted their time coming to your address. Spare a thought for the new member of staff who had only been out of training for a couple of weeks and had to deal with your call. Spare a thought for the inexperienced manager (me) who was on his own covering the shift and had to deal with your nonsense.

Glad I don't do that job any more. The guys who do deserve to be paid a lot more than they are.

scottishsavingsgirl

I've had a few jobs in Call Centres, one for a major high street store and more recently a TV subscription company (without giving away any names). Both of these Call Centre contracts were of course outsourced to different companies who specifically operate Call Centres.

In terms of when to call, as has been mentioned before, as soon as the lines open or towards the end of the evening are best. Calling mid-day will only ensure you are kept on hold.

The powers we have can vary depending on the Call Centre who is operating the contract. For example, when I worked for the major high street Call Centre, we were given a decent amount of discretion when applying "goodwill gestures" or issuing refunds. This was probably down to the image that the retailer holds with its customers. The Call Centre on behalf of the TV Subscription Service allowed for little to no discretion. I specifically worked in "retentions", so people would call to cancel or remove aspects of their package, and we were always told to "try and save the customer without giving them a deal or discount". If we had to offer a discount, it would then depend on what was available on the customer's account.

One thing which was similar in both Call Centres, was that if you asked to speak to a manager, we would go and ask them to take the call and mostly they would refuse, telling us that we had to take ownership and deal with the problem. They would only take the call if they had no other choice.

The wages in Call Centres are awful (you are lucky if it is above minimum wage), and in the Call Centre I worked for on behalf of the TV Service, if we requested holidays, we would always be refused on the grounds that there was not enough availability. We would often share headsets (which are incredibly uncomfortable), and the cold/flu would pass very quickly between teams. You can sometimes be dealing with 100 calls a day, bathroom breaks are timed (no more than 15 minutes per day in the TV Service Call Centre), and if you were 1 minute late back to your workstation or late for your shift, you were docked for 15 minutes pay. You were also encourage to sell to the customer on every call (which, in some circumstances was ridiculous; you would get a call to cancel something due to affordability and then try to plug another service they don't need!).

I personally never hung up on a customer, but I would repeatedly take a lot of abuse (which for my first few calls, made me very upset and teary). After a while, I got used to it and in the end I would just keep my mouth closed and wait for the customer to finish speaking. Out of spite and anger sometimes, I would sit in silence for 10-20 seconds after the customer had finished ranting.

I hated Call Centre work, low wages, high pressure and high targets. I would only consider it again if I had NO other option.

Thank you for reading, have a lovely day. Goodbye! :rotfl:

katielouisej

I'll mirror the same comments made really... I work for a large insurance company that I've seen people complain about on here.

I'd advise people to be nice, and not blame the adviser/company for YOUR mistakes. Read your documents, always! And listen when a company reads out terms and conditions. The amount of complaints over simple things are ridiculous.
If you can't afford a fee, say! Don't get angry, scream and cry about it. Just say that you're in serious financial hardship. Things can be done.
As horrible as it sounds, if you start with 'i've just got out of hospital and my direct debit bounced' etc, the agent will mostly think 'yeah okay... whatever'. We hear that excuse far too much, so people who are genuine don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore.

All in all, just be nice and the adviser will be (usually) nice to you. and if the person says 'is there anything else i can help you with' at the end, don't repeat the problem, unless it hasn't been resolved or mentioned!

Oh and i'm one of the nice ones :P

gycraig_2

dont work in a call centre properly yet so my opinion may not be valid but have to call them up to 10 times a day for my job. and have just started training to work in a call centre

they know how long you have waited to speak to them so telling them you have wasted 30 minutes on hold is just wasting your time and theres.

BE FRIENDLY. I have had people shouting at me that there issue hadnt been fixed / companies hadnt fixed there phone etc, iv explained it just takes a simple phone call, only for the person to then infront of me ring the company and start shouting and swearing at a guy that has never met them, didnt make the phone there angry about,and probably doesnt REALLY care, he just wants to press some buttons get you a jiffy bag sent out and move onto the next customer.


be friendly, i used to ring the networks every day for some major issues from my job, from talking politely to the guy at the end of the phone and explaining the issue for the customer have often got rediculous deals.
ie woman today rang up she had taken out a 500mb tariff on ee and had then used that data in a week.

rang up ee explained we just wanted to CHECK to make sure that the customers phone text was correct and she had used her data and politely asked if he had a suitable resolution available, he did he added 2 gig of data to the tariff for two pound a month.


treat people on the phone how you would face to face and you will have a LOT better experience

londonTiger

purpleweasel wrote: »

Think they're cottoning on to this one a bit as I notice that many places have stopped giving out an international number and/or have replaced it by a higher-tariff one. I tried ringing one a while back and it could somehow tell i wasn't overseas and told me to ring the other number!

SayNoTo0870 sometimes has useful alternatives

use 141 if call hangs. they drop calls whn they see the call is from within uk. a 141 doesnt provide a country of origin to the recipient o the call

dacouch

I'm not sure if this still works but Sky TV engineers had a code they type into the phone keyboard when they dial their customers services tele number which bumps them right to the front of the queue so they don't spend the majority of the time waiting for their CS staff.

If it still works you need to press "0" (zero) ten times when you get into the Sky queue