Do you get worse service if firms think you're a pain in the a^&%?

Wings_of_Ambition

I worked as cabin crew and you got those who would just tell you about the issue and you tried your best to help them out. If someone came to you with attitude, their card was marked. It's amazing how a group of people who might not work with each other for 6 month at a time, will stick together like superglue when faced with someone who's being unnecessarily rude! When I've been on the other end of customer service, I've always found remaining calm and being polite will get most problems sorted. If you struggle, just go up a management level!

leathersofa

Although this isn't exactly the same thing, I have a disabled adult son and have a LOT of experience of dealing with various agencies on his behalf - council departments, charities, educational psychologists, schools, people in charge of finance etc. And the one thing I would advise anyone is BE NICE. I often hear people in my position wailing that 'you have to fight for everything'. NO. If you go in with the attitude that the other lot are your enemy and mean you no good, then yes, you will have a hard time. But it's you who made it that way. Everyone has a limit to their power, the amount of money they can give out, whatever, and there is no point expecting shouting or abuse to get you more than that person can allot you. My experience has always been that making a friend of them as far as possible gets you furthest. People will fall over themselves to help if they sympathise with you. If they don't, you will get the bare minimum because everyone is human and you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. I've been at this game over 20 years and know this for sure.

lvf

As I have mentioned on other threads, I have worked for an energy company. As mentioned before, coming onto the phone shouting, screaming and cursing gets you nowhere, and more than likely results in the call being prematurely disconnected. If you find your calls being disconnected on you frequently, perhaps you should review your own behaviour.

First, no matter how angry you are, allow the person the opportunity to resolve your query before progressing to aggression on the call. It doesn't matter if you call 4 times before about the same issue, this will more than likely be the first time this advisor has seen your account.

Also, complaining about the hold time is pointless. You should realise that if there is a 20 minute hold time, THE ADVISOR KNOWS THIS. They are hounded by managers if they are not on calls with this much hold time. In fact, the advisors are probably working harder with the higher hold time. You don't actually know how much stress they are under, and then you hear "Do you know I have been on hold for 20 minutes? I think this is completely ridiculous and your service is a shambles." Yeah, and what do you imagine I have been doing for 20 minutes? Sipping cocktails by the pool?! NO, I have been trying to clear the backlog of calls, most of these that don't even need to be there in the first place, like "I called an hour ago, and just wanted to make sure your advisor put that through like they said they would."

And please, please, apply common sense before calling, it's not tough. I used to love the "I AM FURIOUS. You sent me a letter saying my bill is overdue but I paid it. This is completely disgusting and I am suing you for harassment. You cannot send me these letters when I HAVE PAID."
"I'm very sorry to hear that. Can I ask the date on that letter?"
"25th March."
"And when did you make the payment?"
"3rd April."
There are no words to describe this.

Although the worst day I think I ever had doing this was when at home I had a family member pretty much on their deathbed. I should have been at home with my family but instead went into work. Every call was something ridiculous, people screaming over hold times, wording on a letter, the hold music, getting an estimated bill, the fact a meter reader arrived at 10am which was too late for the customer (even though it wasn't pre-scheduled and they were housebound and the meter was successfully read), things like this that either can be easily resolved or aren't really a problem, and the entire time I'm gritting my teeth and bearing it thinking "if this is the biggest problem in your life right now, I envy you."

It's not an easy job despite what people think, and I just wouldn't go back.

JVRMac

I've worked in several call centres over the past 18 years and can say that in all areas I've worked that when adding notes to a customers account they must be factual and can not be subjective. Customers have the right to request copies of all notes held on their file under the Data Protection Act and if any notes were found which contained opinions on customers it would be a serious and possibly a disciplinary offence.


With regards to who gets the better service, people are always more willing to help those who are polite and calm and will often go the extra mile to sort out their complaint.


Best advice to any complainers is to remember the person you are speaking to are the experts in their field, if they don't know the answer they will know where to go for it and who to escalate to if needed. They will be restricted for what they can do for you by the company processes and policies and will probably not have any authorisation to go beyond these measures. If you have had to make repeat calls, ask for a reference no or if there is a complaints or escalation process.


And finally we are all people doing a job, be aware of how you treat others as we are someone's mother/father/son/daughter/gran/granddad and we really don't get paid enough money to deal with abusive customers.

GrandmaStar

New Day cancelled my DD to pay my Debenhams Card then sent me letters stating that I had not paid my account & I had cancelled the DD. They charged me £12 for returned DD & £12 for late payment plus interest on my 'debt'
1st Customer Services girl intimated that it must ne my fault ie did I have enough money in my bank A/C! I settled A/C in full over the phone.
Phoned Bank & they confirmed New Day had cancelled DD.
Back to New Day...woman understood situation & refunded charges but had reached the limit on the £ refunds she could give.
It went higher & I was offered a paltry £20 for all my phone calls, trips to Town, stress, way I was spoken to by 1st CSA etc.
Letter is in draft to Financial Ombudsman.
I need a clear head & to get things absolutely straight.

XRAT

I like all the advice above, about nice callers getting their problems resolved.., I wonder if HMRC (18 month enquiry) and the local council (6 year! enquiry) could adopt a similar policy.


I've tried nice, progressed to firm and eventually to rude (my defence being frustration and extreme provocation, when they have threatened the use of bailiffs.)


I have no doubt that I have markers on my files with both.., I don't suppose those markers get removed when it turns out that you are right all along and it is in fact their incompetence that caused the issue.

itsybitsygoth

I used to work in the Debt Recovery department of a high street bank dealing with Career Development Loans.

I was lucky that the majority of queries and complaints I dealt with were via letter or through a member of staff in the call centre. If a customer was rude, demanding or unpleasant they'd get a standardised reply, which most of the time was telling them they were being passed to a debt collection agency. For those who were polite I would go out of my way to ensure I did everything possible to help them.

Being firm is fine, asking for reasonable compensation for inconvenience is fine, behaving like the world owes you something will result in you getting rotten service as no-body wants to be polite to someone who treats them without respect or consideration.

keiran

All these platitudes about being nice to call centre staff are obvious and expected.

Customers have no wish to be rude or aggressive.

They just want their issue/query resolved in a timely and satisfactory manner.

Personally, I'd rather not have to telephone at all...my time/exasperation/phone costs are far too valuable to be going round in circles with "customer services" staff, often having to effectively supervise their work in order to get my issue dealt with

Instead, why not examine the problem the other way round?

Why should the company not deliver on its service promises in a quiet and efficient way, without having to be prompted along the way?

Why, when there is a problem, can they not deal with it in a single phone call, without blaming computer or human error ( which covers every eventuality in the world)

And the long list of menu options and the long wait will already have upset its consumers before being connected to a human being.

And constantly being told by the automated system that the customer could go on line to resolve most queries will infuriate them, as they will have done this if at all possible in preference to speaking to a CS representative.

And it's patronising to to told "your call is important to us" when the company demonstrates clear contempt of us by keeping us on hold for a long time.

It's a meaningless tautology to be told one will be answered by "the next available operator".

And senior staff should be readily available to answer questions. I understand that front line staff will have limited powers and discretion, but if that's the case, then the onus is on the company to make available senior staff to resolve the issue. This is also fair to front line staff so they don't have to "own" an issue they can't

forzaitalia

Being nice does not always work. I rang Dunelm when a sideboard was not delivered. Was told by the customer service person that she would look into it and call me back. She didn't. Rang again 2 days later and politely explained the problem and that no one had called as promised. Dunelm apologised and said it looked like the delivery people were not sent my details, so sideboard would never had been delivered. He said he would sort it out and call me before his shift finished that day. He didn't.

I rand Dunelm the next day and cancelled my order. I then emailed Dunelms top bloke to complain of their useless Customer Service. Again I was polite. Within the hour I had a call from Dunelm expressing their sincerest apologies blah de blah and offered me £50 as an apology.

My point is that I was polite all the way through but still received poor service.

matelodave

Being polite doesn't always guarantee you good service but it helps.

Being rude, arrogant or snotty probably guarantees you poor service or non at all.

I've been on the sharp end and I always tried my best for those who were reasonable, polite and friendly.

Those who weren't got the minimum I could get away with or even got told their fortune.
Those who used bad language were told that it was not tolerated and that I'd hang up if they persisted and I did if they continued - I was not there to be abused, however frustrated the customer might have been.

I am always polite and reasonable but if I feel that I'm getting nowhere then I ask for a supervisor or manager - they are being paid extra to take the flack. I tell them why I'm angry but I'm never abusive, sarcastic or foul mouthed.