Things you hate about working in the mobile phone industry.

danger mouse

Ah i have lots but my worst is customers coming into buy a 59 euro phone with a 20 euro trade up (cpw staff know what im talking about) and expecting the rolls royce treatment a la copy all my sim contacts over there dear, i only have 500 of them, shouldnt take you too long and i have few pictures of the grand kids could you please put them on my new phone " usually saying some ****e like im not very good at this technology stuff"..Argghhhh I hate customers lol Why buy a phone if you dont know how to work the ****ing thing.... cu.nts

KTRIC

I work for a company at the start of the whole chain (manufacturer) and I have grown to despise the whole industry and everything it stands for.

Sam Vimes

what do you mean water damage!?!? All i did was use it during a hurricane!!!!!!111!!!

Ah-Watch

1. Sam got there before me- It s water damaged, Its beyond economical repair- but it wasn't near water how did that happen?

2. " Thank you for continuing to hold,all of our customer care........"

3. As above will you copy over my stuff onto my new phone

4. People buying €49 phone even when I say that if you want it for a decent camera or be able to put music onto it you'll need a dearer phone(decent memory/expandable memory)- oh no this one will be the finest- 2 days later- You sold me this phone and I can't save anything on it!:mad:

Not always but the people who constantly refuse to buy a phone from you because they can get it €10 cheaper in a shop elsewhere(some special price or something of the like ) and are constantly in with it will you do this will you do that.

theteal

Sam Vimes wrote: »

what do you mean water damage!?!? All i did was use it during a hurricane!!!!!!111!!!

+1

common scenario 1
customer - "but it's a MOBILE phone, it's in your pocket with keys and money and stuff, it's not supposed to crack, that cost me 200 euros, that's a fault that is"

theteal - "is this a hidden camera show?. . .oh it's not. sorry sir, the term 'mobile' simply means that its not plugged in, that's physically damaged, warranty void"

common scenario 2
customer - "are you honestly gonna tell me that you never answer your phone in the rain? now dont lie"

theteal - "sorry sir i can very much assure you that i dont use my phone in the rain, similarly i dont watch telly or use my laptop in the rain"

customer - "but they're not the same type of thing"

theteal - "you're quite right sir, my mistake, they're definitely not electrically dependent items that get f**ked up when brought into contact with liquids"


(disclaimer - theteal's responses above are exaggerated musings of what's going through his head during such instances and not what actually happens. . .most of the time)

120_Minutes

"i want to buy a phone"

sure, what network?

"nokia"


I have thousands more like that. but what really sickens my hole is when someone brings back a phone, either damaged by themselves, or due to a fault and they expect it to be replaced straight away, and when told otherwise they reply "thats ridiculous" i now hate the word ridiculous. it isnt ridiculous, whats ridiculous is that you're still alive you ****ing idiot.

coreilly1

danger mouse wrote: »

Ah i have lots but my worst is customers coming into buy a 59 euro phone with a 20 euro trade up (cpw staff know what im talking about) and expecting the rolls royce treatment a la copy all my sim contacts over there dear, i only have 500 of them, shouldnt take you too long and i have few pictures of the grand kids could you please put them on my new phone " usually saying some ****e like im not very good at this technology stuff"..Argghhhh I hate customers lol Why buy a phone if you dont know how to work the ****ing thing.... cu.nts

Why should your customer not be offered the service of their contacts being copied over,no matter what the price of their phone is?

krudler

Sweet jesus where to start?

- people who ring in that have a problem with a phone, and call in ON the phone they have a problem with, coverage issues are the most common ones, "h...i...ant....one...signla keeps....ing....hel.....o?" gaaaaahhhh ring in from another line! customer care doesnt have a magic line that works no matter how crappy your signal is!

-people who ring in while driving, using a carkit that only seems to pick up every other background noise aside from the customers voice, the sound of traffic whooshing past doesnt make it any easier to hear you either, pull over or ring when you're at home

-people who ring in who have screaming kids, are in a pub or have a tv blaring beside them making it impossible to hear them.....WHY?

- "hi i'd like to unlock my phone?"
ok what model of handset is it?
" a nokia..."
ok do you know the number? 6300? 2626?
" ........its black, oh and it has a camera!"

narrows it right down....

- "my bill is huge!"
ok well checking your usage you're allocated 150 minutes per month on your tariff and last month you used 2453 minutes of talk time
"but why is it so high?"

SIGH some people you need sock puppets and blackboard to explain this to them

working in a call centre dealing with the public, but especially about their phones, is soul destroying at the best of times, granted there are plenty of nice, polite people who actually listen to you explain something instead of butting in with questions that you were going to explain anyway if they'd just shut the **** up for 2 minutes, but they are few and far between

drunkmonkey

I hate ignorant 3 customers who complain that customer care are ****e but they won't call them because they "can't understand a word the pakistani bastards are saying" it really shows up the worst side of Irish people.....I hang my head in shame everytime some fuppin edjit says that in front of me....racist pricks and nothing more...

+1
for eveything eveyone else said...

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

drunkmonkey

Solitaryman666 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

No it dosen't, we all have trouble understanding people from time to time but When you call them Pakistani Bastards your crossing a line, i've heard that phrase way 2 many times, it genuinley makes me mad. The language barrier is not that bad, anyone that's managed to order a big mac meal with no sauce in this country in the last 10 years should be able to understand them....

I've more trouble understanding someone from wexford than I do someone for India....

Garth

Ah the memories

*looking at 29 euro RTG phone*

"Is that the cheapest one you got?"

*sigh*

"Is it any good?"

*sigh*

---

"I want a flip phone, with a really good camera, music and internet oh and it has to be a nokia. Oh and I only have 60 euro because I top up by about 300 per month. Bill pay? NO, it's a con."

---

And *word* about the racial slurs thing in work. We used to have a foreign guy working with us, and his english was at least as good as half of our Irish customers' was and all we got were lies where people would come back and insist the foreigner had misinformed them, because he was, y'know, foreign and therefore either a lying bastard, or a total moron.

Something inside dies a little everytime someone starts up like that. Mind you, some of my colleagues were equally racist about customers.

---

The water damage thing is the worst ever. People are such morons. I saw phones come in visibly wet from rain or sweat and have the customer swear in front of me they didn't know how it got wet.

OR the best ever...

"But my 8 year old says he didn't break it. It just went that way on its own. Are you calling him a liar?" *while the woman starts shrieking hysterically and you think to yourself, I'd bloody lie if you were my mum too.*

So glad to be done with that life. Jerk-offs on both sides of the counter that aren't worth a damn.

120_Minutes

has anyone else come across the "anger of embarassment" as i call it? you know the one. customer comes in to complain, sales assistant points out in a diplomatic way that customer is totally wrong, customer, now realises their error but instead of admitting defeat loses the rag.

i ****ing hate that.

Gillo

Repairs; No but I really need my phone, really needing a phone is when you're waiting on a liver transplant and are top of the list, it's not wanting to spend every minute of the day texting your bestest bebo friend.

People who don't know their number.

I don't mind people who don't understand the technology, but it really pi$$es me off that they won't at least try to understand it no matter how you try to explain how to put top-up on, they just say sure I don't understand technology.

People who spend an absolute fortune- twenty euro a month is not a fortune.

Junkies, think thats just art of working on Henry Street, but you can get a laugh out of them also, like the guy who wanted a sim card for his multi-meter.

iPhones', it's not a cure for HIV, it's a phone.

drunkmonkey

Gillo wrote: »

People who don't know their number.

Me: "Were all out of 02 Upgrades i've only got this crap €49 phone left, would you consider moving to a different network, you could save a pile of cash"

Customer: "No, i've been with 02 for 10 years, i'd never leave them, I'll take the €49 phone."

Me: " Are you sure it's a complete piece of ****"

Customer: "I'm sure, can you copy all my numbers"

Me " Sure, no problem" (DM copys all customers numbers to there sim)

Customer: "That's a really handy device"

Me: "What's your pin nunber?"

Customer: "I've no idea"

Me: " Ok, we'll call 02 and we can get the puk code and reset the sim"

Customer:"Cool, sorry about that"

Me: "No problem, what's your phone number, I just have to type it in here"

Customer:" Ahh, 086.......let me think, Ahh, no i'm not sure"

Me:" Your a donkey":D

Sam Vimes

Gillo wrote: »

I don't mind people who don't understand the technology, but it really pi$$es me off that they won't at least try to understand it no matter how you try to explain how to put top-up on, they just say sure I don't understand technology.

you feel like saying "but do you have the ability to read the instructions that are written on the piece of paper I just handed you? Or when you say technology, do you mean anything invented in the past 1000 years?

drunkmonkey

Sam Vimes wrote: »

you feel like saying "but do you have the ability to read the instructions that are written on the piece of paper I just handed you? Or when you say technology, do you mean anything invented in the past 1000 years?

Grrrr.....

Customer:" Your a genius with phones, how did you learn how to do that?"

Me: "I read the instruction book"

Customer: "Jazuz, i'd never read one of them"

Me: "Well if you did, you might be able to set up a speed dial all by yourself, you donkey!"

Garth

i often wondered how these people managed to get themselves dressed and into the shops all by themselves.

The things they say they can't do!

1. manage an IVR
2. top up
3. see the number on the top up
4. send a text
5. add a number to the phone book
6. change the ring tone
7. read the instructions
8. go without a phone for a day even
9. afford a deposit for a loan phone
10. remember their phone number
11. register online
12. register over the phone (back to those damned newfangled IVRs)
13. back information up to their computer
14. get their husband to come in to sign for the phone that's in his name
15. get to the shop at all, despite the shop being open 12 hours a day, because "I work"

sigh sigh sigh

drunkmonkey

Garth wrote: »

9. afford a deposit for a loan phone

What's they average deposit? What's the T&C's , i'm owed way to many phones at this stage, i'll have to get a lot tougher now that the recession is here....

Fratton Fred

Why do people think Mobile Phone networks are charities? Do people not realise that if a network gives them a €500 phone for free, there is some sort of payback, such as being tied to the network for the next 18 months.

Because you can get a free phone, it does not mean it is free. Nokia don;t turn up at the Vodafone warehouse once a week with a lorry load of free handsets to give out. If you break it and you don;t have insurance, you either have to but a new one or go without. its as simple as that.

And no, just because i work for a network, I can't get you a phone. :rolleyes:

Having said all of the above, i worked in the industry for 7 years, if I phone cusotmer care and they tell me to take out the SIM card, lick it and call them back, i know they can't fix the problem and want to fob me off on someone else, so forgive me if i get shirty.

it would also be nice if customer care agents got told about new tariffs and offers before they were launched, that way people can have a meaningful conversation with the agent when they phone. Not the reps fault i know, but not the customers either.

astrofool

To be fair to the customer, it's the phone industry's ineptitude that they haven't worked out how to seamlessly transfer all contacts between any phone in a matter of seconds.

silvine

Why do people think Mobile Phone networks are charities? Do people not realise that if a network gives them a €500 phone for free, there is some sort of payback, such as being tied to the network for the next 18 months.

Might be something to do with the way the mobile operators market their phones?

In fairness to people who are adverse to technology the sheer amount of mobile phones available can be bewildering and it's not like the names are intuitive the Nokia 6120, the Sony Ericsson K750i etc etc. It would make things a lot simpler if the manufacturers actually gave the phones a name rather than a number.

godskitchen

I worked in a very large Electrical retail store (44'000Sq Ft) for 7 years, I thought some of my stories were bad until I read these.....

http://www.retail-sucks.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=1

There is one about some guy getting stabbed by a customer in there!

120_Minutes

Customer walks into shop: "do you sell phones?"

or

phone rings, i pick it up

"Hello (where i work) me speaking."

customer: "is that (where i work)?"


*facepalm*

drunkmonkey

I've had a screamer this morning.....

Me: "What's Up?"

Nobjockey: "Cancel my contract, I keep dropping calls"

Me: "Ok calm down, when's this happening?"

Nobjockey: "All the time"

Me: "What have technical support said?"

Nobjockey: "I'm not talking to those Pakistani ***tards, you sold me the phone, you talk to them"

Me: "You have to talk to them if you've a problem, It's the only way try and get it fixed, Look if they can't fix your problem, I'll talk to them about getting the contract terminated"

Nobjockey: "I'm not talking them, i'm going straight up to the solicitor and getting him to write them a letter"

Me: "That's not really the right way to go about it, why don't you just call them and see if they can fix the problem"

Nobjockey: "I'm not talking to them, they take me for a fool, just look at the size of my bills"

Me: "Jazus christ man, you have to talk to them"

Nobjockey: "No fup you, your a con man"

Me: "Steady On, before I call on your behalf would you mind paying me the money you owe me for the last 3mts"

Nobjockey: "Here's your fuppin money, i'm off to the Solicitor"

Me: "Dude your acting like a 2 year old, you could have a problem on any network, the last person in had a 02 text problem"

Nobjockey: "Your bull****ting me, i'm off to the Solicitor"

Nobjockey calls an hour later, what's the tech support number....

still ongoing......:mad:

chrislad

Too many to even recall.

Current one is a guy I signed up. He was using about 400 minutes a month on Meteor Anytime Xtra, with a lot of evening calls. Paying about 100e a month on credit. Switched him onto Meteor Talk 300 with free Evening/Weekend Calls for 50e a month. His usage went up to about 550 mins per month and his monthly spend went down to about 60 to 70 euro a month. He also got a free phone. You'd think he'd be happy.

Nope.

The phone became faulty. He said it was texting other numbers by itself. Sent away for testing. No fault found. He was told it can take 10 working days for the phone to come back and he was given a gratis loan phone for the period. He called in every 2nd day asking was it back, getting quite irate each time. I'd say something if it was a really good phone, but it wasn't. The only phone he wanted was a Nokia 2760, and he was given a Nokia 1101 in the meantime to cover him. Hardly a massive difference. Anyways, he got the phone back and was back in the next day - screen was smashed. Apparently, he just opened it up and lo and behold, it was broken. Went off the handle at being told it would cost 35euro to fix it. Said he was cancelling his contract, moving networks etc.

This despite the fact that he came into the store to a) pay 60e for a PayG phone and b) ended up saving 60e on the phone and at least 30e a month on his usage, which went up by over 25% as well!

Crazy.

People can get so ratty though. I've had two phones thrown at me (to which I answered "That's physically damaged now. That's not covered by warranty"!), countless threats (one guy was going to put my name on his blog and get all his internet friends to get me because I apparently charged him 1euro to register him and I didn't. Never happened).

Fun times.

metalfest

hmmm...did you ever think this thread is a ploy to find out who's on the inside with the operators...muhaha prepare to be spammed by ppl :P

120_Minutes

...then there was the african gentleman i sold an o2 bill phone to. he was granted domestic and roaming..no international calls. i told him this and asked him was that ok....he barely grunted a yes. few hours later he's back saying he cant call his gf. i asked where she was...."austria" was the reply. seems domestic and roaming wasnt ok after all....:rolleyes:

those type of customers always remind me of this guy...

NSFW!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A16ghqtLYLI

krudler

completely true story, transcribed as best i can remember it:

customer (posh D4 accent) " oh hello dear I'm afraid I dropped my phone in a bucket of cement while i had some builders around, now its all soggy and it wont turn on, how soon could you have a replacement out to me?"

me : oh ok well unless you have insurance that kind of damage isnt covered under the warranty I'm afraid

customer (after long silence) "so what am I to do?"

me (trying not so sound so ****ing obvious) "buy a new phone?"

customers (sounding like i just told her i ****ed her mother) "EXCUSE ME?!"

me: well I'm sorry but we dont offer replacements for damage, unless you have insurance which is 6 euros a month and they'll offer a replacement

customer: " well can i get that now?"

me: no.....they wont cover you after the fact

customer: "listen i top up my credit or whatever it is by a considerably large amount and you wont provide me with a new phone, what kind of service is this?"

(she topped up by a gargantuan 60 quid in the year she'd been on the network)

me:" i'm sorry but damage like that isnt repairable and we cant offer you a replacement phone"

customer:" put me onto a supervisor or someone who knows how to do their job!"

me: (failing to stay came and taking the bait with gusto) "well I'm sorry but nobody here will offer you a replacement phone for accidental damage, if you bought a car, drove it off the lot and into a wall damaging it irreperably would they replace it if you werent insured?"

customer " of course not what a silly question"

me "so what else can i do for you?"

theteal

metalfest wrote: »

hmmm...did you ever think this thread is a ploy to find out who's on the inside with the operators...muhaha prepare to be spammed by ppl :P

dude, there's no secret that a lot of the visitors here work for the networks and CPW. . .to be honest, i've seen more issues resolved here than by CC!!!!

what this thread is though, is brilliant, its like therapy

metalfest

haha, aw

Garth

Krudler, the shop I worked in was in a very posh area and I had tonnes of these poshies with poxy prepay phones. Drove me bonkers because they were used to people doing everything for them, and expected the kind of service they'd only get with a bill (and insurance).

I started saying things like, "OH... Pay as you go, really?" in a really shocked way and then making sure I work in later that Pay as you go phones are ideal for the elderly, children and (very discreetly) people who can't pass a credit check.

That got all the poshies on contract swiftly enough. Hilarious.

Edited to say, it wasn't really dishonest. In the end, they were far happier with the level of service they received and got a much better product too. It just takes different ways to get through to different people.

theteal

Sigma

Ah-Watch

theteal wrote: »

Sigma

Sure about that??!!! haha

Keith186

My workmates!

Only kidding but it's the same as all retail jobs really, you hate the customers.

theteal

Ah-Watch wrote: »

Sure about that??!!! haha

if i wrote any more i wouldn't be able to stop myself and would, without question, get banned

drunkmonkey

theteal wrote: »

Sigma

Let's have a little game, who can spot the man from 20/20:D

Ah-Watch

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Let's have a little game, who can spot the man from 20/20:D

You'd be looking in the wrong direction!:p:p:p:p Throwing people off a scent is exciting!

chrislad

theteal wrote: »

Sigma

HA! They've gotten better though! Though, they couldn't have gotten much worse.

redmosquito

krudler wrote: »

me: (failing to stay came and taking the bait with gusto) "well I'm sorry but nobody here will offer you a replacement phone for accidental damage, if you bought a car, drove it off the lot and into a wall damaging it irreperably would they replace it if you werent insured?"

I have used that line, nearly identical word for word on a couple of occasions! Woman on other end of the line one time got actually fairly annoyed at this cheeky me that she arrived into the shop to have a go at me, I actually smiled in her face when I looked at the phone and the screen was mangled and there was, what I presume was chocolate, in around the battery.
In the end she stormed out of the store saying she was moving to another network. She actually came over to me the following weekend when I was out and told me that she had moved and tell me how rude I was!

Which is another thing I hate, you're on a night out and somebody sees you and recognises you from the store and comes up with a query :mad:

Sam Vimes

metalfest wrote: »

hmmm...did you ever think this thread is a ploy to find out who's on the inside with the operators...muhaha prepare to be spammed by ppl :P

i want to make this absolutely clear. At no point did i ever work for cpw. And i never worked for 3g even more than i never worked for cpw.

Ah-Watch

redmosquito wrote: »

Which is another thing I hate, you're on a night out and somebody sees you and recognises you from the store and comes up with a query :mad:

oh man i hear u!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doctor DooM

ignorant customer walks into shop of doom.

Doom himself is working away with another customer.

Ignorant customer strides up to counter, complaining to work mate about his phone not working, its a disgrace, blah blah blah

doomcolleague asks to see phone.

Ignorant customer, far too indignant to actually hand the phone over, slides it along the counter.

Unfortu ately a bit to forcfully, it glides off the other side of the desk and shatters into many pieces.

Doom makes his excuses and runs out back to burst out laughing!

The customer actually tried to make out like it was my colleagues fault.

krudler

Heres one for ye, one time a guy couldnt recieve mms so i stupidly sent one to him from my own phone, got it working and about 2 weeks later got a call from a number i didnt know while on a night out, thinking it was one of my friends who ran out of credit using someone elses phone i answered and this assclown starts rambling on about his bill! never did that again....

swingking

this thread is brilliant. Had me laughing so many time

keep the stories coming. :pac::pac:

Sam Vimes

a woman came in saying her phone had turned off and i was going through the normal troubleshooting testing procedures. I plugged it in to charge and it turned on so i asked her if she'd kept it charged. She looked confused. Turns out she had the phone 6 months but only turned it on a few minutes a day and didn't know what the 'plug in the box' was for. more funny than annoying

some 60 year old guy made one of the girls cry. We never quite figured out what he wanted but we think he wanted us to sell him a polish sim card

there were of course the group of romas who thought that we wouldn't recognise them from the previous 10 weeks when they tried to sign up with dodgy id. One of them came in with a bank statement with the date written in pen ffs!

3 were giving away an electric skooter with contracts and we had a dummy one in the shop. One busy day some scumbag skooted out past all of us and we didn't see a thing. We only noticed it was gone a few days later and checked the cameras to see him hovering out past us

the woman who picked something up off a hook at the front of the shop and tried to get a refund for it with a story about buying it for a friend in hospital who'd just died

the guy who'd been paying insurance of e10 a month for 7 years on a phone he hadn't had for 6 years. I wish i had so much money i wouldn't notice something like that

the woman who said 'you shouldn't be selling things that can break'

the woman who had her phone around her neck on a lanyard. She said it had stopped working so i asked if she'd had it round her neck like that while walking in from the current extremely heavy rain storm. Her response: "is that bad for it?"

Tarakiwa

swingking wrote: »

this thread is brilliant. Had me laughing so many time

keep the stories coming. :pac::pac:

+1! Great stuff!!!

Gillo

Sam Vimes wrote: »

you feel like saying "but do you have the ability to read the instructions that are written on the piece of paper I just handed you? Or when you say technology, do you mean anything invented in the past 1000 years?

Had a similiar one years ago in "Let's Talk Phones", youngish guy mid twenties, well dressed
Dude- I want to return this for a refund
Me- No problem, so what's the issue with it
Dude- I can't work it
Me- ok, how do you mean I can't work it
Dude- I won't work for me

This goes back and forth a bit, until the penny drops it's not that it won't work it's that this guy hasn't a clue how to use it

Me- So basically you don't know how to use it? how were the instructions when you read them
Dude- Sure why would I bother reading them


I had a guy in last year, bit of a regular customer he's a director with a very large Irish electrical retailer, complaining his phone wasn't working, I checked it and turned out it was liquid damaged, pointed this out and he replies (very thoughtfully) "yeah, I suppose I shouldn't really use it in the bath". I mean off all people you'd think this guy would know.


Another day, one of my colleagues was getting his ear bent by a customer who's daughter's phone had gotten liquid damage, he was getting nowhere so he again used the car line, "It's like if you drove your car into a wall", your one shouted back "now you're saying I crashed my phone"

And yeah I've been stopped in a pub once or twice, or worst still taxi's, at this stage if I let it slip where I work, I then back track and say "Yeah, I'm with X, but work in accounts, I can sort your books out for you, do a good price and all. But haven't a clue about the phones". Usually works.

The funniest I can remember was another girl in the store serving this lady, basically she thought her phone wasn't sending text messages but when we tried in store, it was grand. The girl serving her tried different things and asked a lot of questions, it turned out the lady had had a argument with her boyfriend and now he wasn't replying to her messages, so she assumed the phone was broke. In the end we had to send a message to the boyfriend, basically saying, sorry, I love you blah blah. Your one then ask's and will he write back this time? What can you say to a customer at that stage.

In fairness though, there are some really sound customers also and it's like any other industry out there you get a few nut jobs.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

drunkmonkey

Solitaryman666 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I'm just back from lunch, my regular drunken retard customer was in while I was gone, he left a message with one of the girls that he can't call Sky from his phone cause he's got insufficent credit, he's calling back in a while for me to fix it.....he wouldn't deal with the girl in the store.....can't wait for him to arrive:o
I'm really surprised and how ofter people surprise me:)

cgarvey

/me looks forward to the follow up thread on the things you hate about those working in the mobile phone industry!