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Complaint about Thomas Cook - worst customer service I've ever received
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What your also not grasping is that a call center worker has to meet SLA's and is often given a target of x number of calls per day to hit which would be impossible if every call went round in circles. Ending the call is as important as answering it.
In an ideal world call center staff would work in the way you believe they do but in reality it does not.
Its all about the number of calls taken each day, yes quality is important but SLA's will always come first and that is what the person working in the call center is judged on.
If this is the case then don't you see that that is another example of really poor customer service practice on the part of the company? Again, it's not the fault of the individual being put under pressure to do this, but he or she is the only point of contact that the company expose. That's what the company is paying them to do. If the company says to someone "Go out and tell everyone we've taken their money and there's nothing they can do about it. We'll lock the doors behind you." then you have the choice to take that job or not to take it. You can't decide to take it and then,when the mob start chasing you down the street, start saying it wasn't your fault.0 -
Grassy_Knollington wrote: »Keep your finger on the pulse mate. Good old Martin sold this website for £Millions. They aint his anymore.
We all have an opinion. So, suck it up.
Martin doesn't own the site now but he still has strong associations with it as he keeps plugging it on his slot on Good Morning Britain.0 -
Martin doesn't own the site now but he still has strong associations with it as he keeps plugging it on his slot on Good Morning Britain.
I'm sure he still gets paid for doing that, so he'll keep doing as long as he is paid, regardless of the quality of the site.
Aren't the words "slot on Good Morning Britain" sufficient in themselves to give you a picture of the true value of anything he says?0 -
ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »If this is the case then don't you see that that is another example of really poor customer service practice on the part of the company? Again, it's not the fault of the individual being put under pressure to do this, but he or she is the only point of contact that the company expose. That's what the company is paying them to do. If the company says to someone "Go out and tell everyone we've taken their money and there's nothing they can do about it. We'll lock the doors behind you." then you have the choice to take that job or not to take it. You can't decide to take it and then,when the mob start chasing you down the street, start saying it wasn't your fault.
Ultimately its the comapnies fault for poor service not the person taking the call.
If a company was that bothered they would pay for more bums on seats so the call waiting time goes down and the call duration can go up.
Realistically a lot of companies outsource this work to helpdesk providers who are given a quota of how many calls to answer each day and things like maximum call waiting time etc. (the SLA or Service level agreement)
A company that has such a call center will try and make money so use as few staff as possible who need to get through all the days calls. Sometimes the only way to get through the calls is to keep them as short as possible and when a customer calls and makes the call last longer than it should it means you have less time to catch up with your quota.
Even your GP will have a set number of appointments each day and if some take longer than the alloted time then other patients will have to be seen quicker to get them all seen.
When i worked in a call center 20 years ago i was doing tech support for ISP's for a company that did outsourcing. It certainly wasnt a non skilled minimum wage job.
We did support for about 7 different ISPs and when the phone rang it would show on the display which ISP the call was for as we took calls from of them at the same time.
All they were concerned about was getting the quota of calls answered and back then it was dialup and very few people 2 phone lines so it was very easy to end the call.
Hanging up on people withought good reson would have got you a warning and if caught again you have been sacked.
Being sworn at was a good enough reason to end the call and they didnt get a warning just told im ending the call now and why.
We could give our first name but did not have to give a surname.
I cant imagine much has changed over the years.....0 -
wordsearch wrote: »I have wanted to vent all day about how appalling the customer service I received from the Thomas Cook call centre today was the whole day :mad:
We have had frequent problems with our Thomas Cook flight booking since first making it, however to be fair these issues have always been solved relatively quickly and the customer services team have been friendly. Until today!
I had a voicemail from them asking to call them about my flight tomorrow. So, I did. The first time I was on hold for about thirty minutes and was hung up on quite quickly as they said they couldn't hear me properly. Annoying, but fair enough, perhaps they couldn't actually hear me at all. I went back on hold for a second hour, and ended up in a long argument with who was definitely the rudest customer service representative I've ever had the misfortune of speaking with.
He took an instant dislike to me anyway, to which I did try and apologise. I stated that I understood that they were probably busy because of the hurricane and that I realise that that isn't their fault, and apologised if I sounded fed up but that I'd been on hold for a long time and I had quite a bad cold which always made me sound worse than I actually was. We immediately had a problem as he asked for my booking reference, and I asked if he was able to obtain it from my passport number, date of birth, phone number or anything else. "No, so I'm going to hang up now and you can call back again later when you've got it." We argued about this for a few minutes, but luckily somewhere in that time I managed to get hold of it. He immediately replied with, "Well if you've been on hold for so long, why didn't you go and get it, what were you doing during all that time?" I was at work, and the voicemail said to call immediately, so I did...
Once that was settled, he didn't seem to want to tell me what the call was actually about. He kept saying "Well, I don't know, I didn't call you, why would I know what it's about?" Well, SOMEONE at Thomas Cook called me, and SOMEONE asked me to call this number. I'm now calling this number, can you not check the system to find out what it is because I have no idea, probably the hurricane? "Fine, but I'll put you on hold for another thirty minutes, that's alright isn't it?" ....
As expected, the flight was cancelled. (I sort of wish they'd said that in the voicemail as it would have saved a lot of stress, but there you go) However, this wasn't that simple either. The man used some odd phrasing so I thought I misunderstood. His words were, "Your flight tomorrow is cancelled. You have two choices. You can cancel the flight and get a refund, or you can move it." I clarified this as I thought I must have misheard, as how could I cancel the flight if it was already cancelled? To this he began talking to me like I was very stupid, saying, "Okay, let me break this down really simply so that you can understand it," then repeated what he'd already said extremely slowly and patronisingly. This lead to more drama as I didn't have the credit card I'd used on me to get a refund - sure, perhaps annoying, but I didn't know the flight was cancelled, I was just returning the call. I also don't work in an office, I work for the emergency services and so don't happen to have all of my posessions lying around near me.
By the end of the conversation this guy was being such a douche and talking down to me as much as it was possible to do so. I asked for his name, and he absolutely refused to provide it and we ended up in an argument about it. I asked to speak to a manager and he said, "Why, just because you don't like that I've not told you what you want to hear?" No, that wasn't the problem at all - I half expected the flight to be cancelled and had a backup plan waiting to be put into action, but I DO have a problem with someone being so completely rude and unprofessional to me when it's already an upsetting situation. At one point he even said, "Okay, would you like me to put you through to my direct supervisor?" Yes please. "Well, I'm not going to." More going in circles trying to get his name and eventually he just hung up on me.
I have never spoken to someone so rude and patronising and had someone talk down to me so much over what should have been a fairly simple transaction. I was never able to get his name or get put through to anyone (and of course got to spend a fortune on their phoneline just to be repeatedly insulted) and don't think I can recall a time a phone conversation has left me so angry! I want to complain to Thomas Cook but their complaints number appears to be the exact same one that this delightful man works for, so what would the point be in that...
Anyway, just wanted to get that out I suppose :beer:
You want to try Barclays for poor customer service. They and 4 of their directors are being prosecuted for fraud in 2019:rotfl::rotfl: !0 -
Ultimately its the comapnies fault for poor service not the person taking the call.
If a company was that bothered they would pay for more bums on seats so the call waiting time goes down and the call duration can go up.
Realistically a lot of companies outsource this work to helpdesk providers who are given a quota of how many calls to answer each day and things like maximum call waiting time etc. (the SLA or Service level agreement)
A company that has such a call center will try and make money so use as few staff as possible who need to get through all the days calls. Sometimes the only way to get through the calls is to keep them as short as possible and when a customer calls and makes the call last longer than it should it means you have less time to catch up with your quota.
Even your GP will have a set number of appointments each day and if some take longer than the alloted time then other patients will have to be seen quicker to get them all seen.
When i worked in a call center 20 years ago i was doing tech support for ISP's for a company that did outsourcing. It certainly wasnt a non skilled minimum wage job.
We did support for about 7 different ISPs and when the phone rang it would show on the display which ISP the call was for as we took calls from of them at the same time.
All they were concerned about was getting the quota of calls answered and back then it was dialup and very few people 2 phone lines so it was very easy to end the call.
Hanging up on people withought good reson would have got you a warning and if caught again you have been sacked.
Being sworn at was a good enough reason to end the call and they didnt get a warning just told im ending the call now and why.
We could give our first name but did not have to give a surname.
I cant imagine much has changed over the years.....
" Its the companies fault for poor service"
Whatever happened to personal accountability ?
Poor service starts when the adviser is cocky / bored/ know it all
which has little to do with the company and much to do with ego
Yesterday I had cause to ring a company .
Their adviser had cocked up my documentation big time.
Once I spotted this, I did my groundwork and when I rang the adviser was lovely and apologised for the difficulties I'd had .
Bloody hell! A telephone call centre apologising!
Not seen that for years !At this point she didn't even know they were at fault .
IN customer facing rolls it used to be that you'd placate the customer, but now it seems to be, " what does the customer know? I'm
The expert and I'm right". More so with males, much more so in IT , I'm
afraid to say.
Active listening skills?
Fair play to her, yet I've never understood why call centres are unable to apologise, as someone so accurately said-leave ego at home.
There's a phrase"I'm terribly sorry but"
I noticed one post here said that why do people ask to speak to the manager when they'll just tell them the same?
In my case, the poor adviser was putting me on hold while she spoke to the team leader, who was giving her infactual answers and downright lies( ignorance probably) and when the adviser parroted what she'd been told I was able to correct this.
For example" I'm afraid we can't cancel as you are out of the cooling off period"
Me" But I've been miss sold this and therefore really cooling off period isn't relevant".
Goes off phone again"we will
Listen to the phone call , but you won't be able to buy ... this product again if you cancel ... because..."
Me " I've already arranged to buy this product again before I rang you"
Stunned silence from poor adviser0 -
What are infactual answers?0
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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.0 -
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.
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..0
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