Complaint about Thomas Cook - worst customer service I've ever received

baza52

hollydays wrote: »

My comment wasn't that males In IT are right, it's that in IT in particular, it's males that have an ego problem.You've imediately confirmed that.. bless.

Why does being correct mean i have an ego problem?
So i was good at my job and knew what i was doing. Having a pre conception and taking it out on the person trying to help you is never going to end well is it?
I also had the pleasure of working with some very technically minded females who were also very good at their job.

Can you see where im going with this lol

LABMAN

hollydays wrote: »

An answer that's not based on fact ..
A typo , unfactual..Why do you ask?

Because I didn't recognise infactual as being a real word. So an infactual answer is not an answer that's not based on fact in fact. You have been unfactual.

baza52

i see you edited your post to now read "My comment wasn't that males In IT are always right, it's that in IT in particular, it's males that have an ego problem.
Name dropping a celebrity who's " dumb" is another example of ego.

Interesting that's how you immediately interpreted it .
You've imediately confirmed that.. bless.

Just because some age groups don't understand IT doesn't give you the right to
think you are superior .They probably speak 16 languages..

I never said the "celebrity" was Dumb did i? I said he didnt know his way round a computer and then went on to say that i went out of my way to help him. I did this because he showed me a lot of respect and genuinely needed my help. I never one spoke down to him or was egotistical as that what i was at the end of the phone for, To help people.

As for playing the age card, i was the oldest person on the helpdesk by far lol. When i went to school we didnt have a computer and what i learned was all self taught.
Being of the older generation myself i would go out of my way to help someone that thought something was beyond their means and when this happened the feeling of acomplishment they had at fixing a problem they thought was beyond them was a great call.
I see from your profile you are also in your 50s the same as me

16 languages lol. now who is being silly......
Its more stupid to not ask a question if you dont know the answer than it is to ask the question.

Laz123

LABMAN wrote: »

Because I didn't recognise infactual as being a real word. So an infactual answer is not an answer that's not based on fact in fact. You have been unfactual.

Look, as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

So, now you know.

DoaM

There's those that know
And there's those that don't know
And there's those that don't know they don't know

(Kudos for anyone who remembers which advert that comes from)

hollydays

LABMAN wrote: »

Because I didn't recognise infactual as being a real word. So an infactual answer is not an answer that's not based on fact in fact. You have been unfactual.

Yes I did make a typo . But you could have figured it out .

Ant that's the troof

hollydays

baza52 wrote: »

i see you edited your post to now read "My comment wasn't that males In IT are always right, it's that in IT in particular, it's males that have an ego problem.
Name dropping a celebrity who's " dumb" is another example of ego.

Interesting that's how you immediately interpreted it .
You've imediately confirmed that.. bless.

Just because some age groups don't understand IT doesn't give you the right to
think you are superior .They probably speak 16 languages..

I never said the "celebrity" was Dumb did i? I said he didnt know his way round a computer and then went on to say that i went out of my way to help him. I did this because he showed me a lot of respect and genuinely needed my help. I never one spoke down to him or was egotistical as that what i was at the end of the phone for, To help people.

As for playing the age card, i was the oldest person on the helpdesk by far lol. When i went to school we didnt have a computer and what i learned was all self taught.
Being of the older generation myself i would go out of my way to help someone that thought something was beyond their means and when this happened the feeling of acomplishment they had at fixing a problem they thought was beyond them was a great call.
I see from your profile you are also in your 50s the same as me

16 languages lol. now who is being silly......
Its more stupid to not ask a question if you dont know the answer than it is to ask the question.

I've edited my post, yes, so what had I originally put that was so significant?
I am typing on an iPhone .
If I edit posts it's because of typos usually, or to make my meaning clearer.
I never said males in it are always right , but they think they are always right was the point I was correcting.

hollydays

baza52 wrote: »

Hollydays, in the scenario you describe you knew you were correct and the person you spoke to was given the wrong information.
You say "Whatever happened to personal accountability ?" then go on to say "the poor adviser was putting me on hold while she spoke to the team leader, who was giving her infactual answers and downright lies" so in this case the person cannot be held accountable for giving you the wrong information can they?

Your suggestion that males (and those in IT) are allways right is probably true rofl
I have lost count of the number of calls that would be along the lines of "my emails are not coming through and i think its a problem your end."
Me, "can you tell me wht you have for username in the username field?"
caller, "Sarah"
Me, "it should be sarah@ blahblah.co.uk"
Caller, "no its always been that and i havent changed anything. It worked ok yesterday so you must have changed it your end."
Me, no it would have always needed to have sarah@blahblah.co.uk"
Caller, "im not having this, i want to speak to a supervisor. This call is costing me 50p a minute."

Or callers that need help and you ask, can you click on start "yes" then programmes... "yes" then open this programme... "yes" click tools... "yes" then options.... "yes" then accounts.... "yes" then the server tab.... "yes" Whats written in this tab?... "oh im not in front of the comp[uter im at work"

I could go on all night.
Once took a call From Peter Snow who was a presenter on Tomorrows World and had an acccount with Demon Internet. Nice guy but didnt know his way around a computer at all. I even stayed on the line 10 minutes after my shift had ended to help him out and have done this numerous times with other callers.

End of the day, Be nice to people that you need help from and give them the respect they deserve and you will be treated with the same respect in return. Talking down to someone and treating them like dirt will only result in a poor response.
Go in all guns blazing and your likely to get shot down in flames. We are all human at the end of the day and everyone of us has a limit to what we will take on the chin before it bothers us.

If I ring a call centre and eventually ask to speak to the Manager team leader, could it be because the information I'm being given is wrong?

So rather than dismiss the customer, why not put the customer ( me ) through to the manager as I request?
Most call centre advisers Spend time telling you you don't need to speak to the manager.

I did .Often I know I do

I still wasn't put through.
I wasted a lot of time and money probably with this long drawn out call, not to mention the calls I had to make before this to establish where I stood( fsa etc).
Each time she stated a ' fact' and I countered it, she'd have to go off the phone to talk to the manager .
The call took half an hour.
Then they called me back etc.

The adviser stated she couldn't guarantee if she called me back that it would be straight away, as she might get other calls coming through.A call centre worker here should have handed my case at this point to someone who COULD call me back.

Can call centre staff not realise that putting a customer through to a manager straight away is often more time efficient?

In the circumstances , many people would have got annoyed and angry in my circumstances. I'm abroad and this error delayed my
Plans that day by three hours .


I think I must have had the patience of a Saint.
Are you really unable to understand why some customers could get angry as this call was very frustrating?
I gave the adviser ' respect' as you call it, but was my situation being given the respect it deserved?
I think not.
Perhaps being ' nice' and giving call centre employees ' respect' doesn't work a lot of the time hence why customers get angry?
Do you see where I'm going with this?
And I don't think my case was particularly unusual.

SingleSue

I worked in customer services for years, still deal with customer relations now in relation to my website and will be starting a job dealing with the public in a few days.

We didn't receive training back in the day, the only thing we were ever told was to be polite and never lose our rag...oh and never ever ever put the phone down on a ranting customer as it would make a bad situation even worse.

I would have people shouting at me down the phone because their container was being held up through customs (or there was an accident on the M4 or other motorway, or there were adverse weather conditions that meant the ship couldn't berth) but I never reacted rudely, I never put the phone down on them, instead I kept calm, spoke calmly, apologised and eventually, my even, non combative tones tended to calm them down enough so that we could find a way forward.

If working in customer services, be that in a call centre, in an office or in person, angry, ranting people come with the territory and are to be expected, the difference is how you deal with it and an angry response will only escalate the situation.