Customer care hell...

if your nice to customer care people on the phone ,the more they help you.

wardy2 wrote: »

if your nice to customer care people on the phone ,the more they help you.

That isn't always true unfortunately.

I've worked in that area for a number of areas and it's generally the customers who complain the most get their way (sad but true).

You learn to deal with them.

I'm a programmer so I try to have as little contact with people as possible but due to where I work I occassionaly have to take phones.

I have learned many things working the phones but one thing sticks out more than anything else: People are assholes.

I have a theory called the Black Box Theory, derived from the science and engineering model, that because people don't know nor care how the inner runnings of the business work they assume you are capable of meeting their demands and expect everything to run smoothly despite the fact you operate in the real world where unavoidable things occur.

They reject your statements of things occurring that are outside of your control such as deliveries not arriving or arriving damaged or people getting sick etc. because those are issues within the business. Their interface with the business is supposed to hide that from their view and they simply don't care. As a result they get angry and frustrated when they realise they cannot have their demands met and, as per Black Box Theory, they take it out on the guy on the phone who, ironically, is the one with the least amount of power within the business.

Fortunately with experience you learn how to deal with these people. Spend two months and you'll learn how to tell them what they want to hear. You know and they know what you say makes no difference to what they want to get done but ultimately they just want you to listen to them and give them positive feedback.

If I ever hear my friends give out **** to someone on the phone I will, without exception, slap them full force across the face. That's not hyperbole either. I've had people make my day hell because they've nothing better to do than scream down a phone and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

When it comes to how things work people are wilfully ignorant and, worst of all, they use that ignorance to justify making someone's job the worst job in the world.

Fuck. Those. People.

I always try to be as polite as possible but on more than one occasion I've been completely frustrated by them and have lost the head.

To be fair much of the frustration can occur while being on hold for 27.8 minutes before your call is taken.

Always try and be polite & civil to them after working in 1 myself before.
The only time I got annoyed was Vodafone. They cut my service cause I apparently hadnt paid my bill(I did) and when I rang them up the fella on the phone said he could see the payment on my account but wouldnt unblock it until I sent a fax proving id paid it -_-

Seachmall wrote: »

If I ever hear my friends give out **** to someone on the phone I will, without exception, slap them full force across the face. That's not hyperbole either.

That's a bit strange - apply physical force to make people speak nicely on the phone. I can't see how it works because if you were my friend and slapped me full force across the face you'd never see/hear me on the phone again unless it was on one of those prison visiting phones with you on the inside.

MCMLXXV wrote: »

I always try to be as polite as possible but on more than one occasion I've been completely frustrated by them and have lost the head.

To be fair much of the frustration can occur while being on hold for 27.8 minutes before your call is taken.

dont blame the call centre for that, blame the ****wits who ring in constantly with trivial stupid queries that a 10 second google could answer who make the queues longer wasting the agents time, its not like people who work in customer are sitting there tiwddling their thumbs answering the phone when they feel like it, you get no time between calls, like none, one ends another one comes through straight away, you can take yourself out of the queue but then you impact everyone else.

I work in a call centre, its where you see, or rather hear, the general public at its very worst, people dont seem to understand that screaming at agents gets you nowhere, at all, it'll get you put on hold to calm down ("I'll just go talk to a supervisor" really I'm just sitting there or gone to make coffee and hope you hang up) or just hung up on if you get abusive.

I could, and probably should, write a book about working in a call centre, its hilarious and horrifying at the same time.

Seachmall wrote: »

Friend or not if you put someone in that position I'll slap you.

And I've that kind of relationship with my friends, my best friend once decked me a few years ago over something stupid. He bought me a pint and we laughed it off. Good times.

So what do you do when you find me in tears on the phone trying to get some satisfaction from a customer service agent who is parroting the party line and refuses to let me speak to a supervisor?

up for anything wrote: »

So what do you do when you find me in tears on the phone trying to get some satisfaction from a customer service agent who is parroting the party line and refuses to let me speak to a supervisor?

Oh well clearly I smack you because "context" does not exist in my world.