A friend of mine (Mr Bain) is a wise, worldly, well travelled individual gave this advice on call centres many years ago. "If you don't get the answer you were looking for then phone back until you do as its always a question of getting the right individual who knows what their talking about"
For some reason I've always remembered this and today I was phoning up a sore card call centre on behalf of someone else I have a long standing hatred of the banking system and the ridiculous sums of money they make for doing bugger all, so I always relish the opportunity to have a go at them.
They basically for 1st time ever were 5 days late with their monthly payment and were hit with a £12.00 charge. So I phone up and get the standard obnoxious well rehearsed spiel of the £12 is a valid charge and cannot be refunded, you can write to complain to our customer services department but as the charge is valid. I made it clear that as this was the 1st ever time this had happened, year of loyal service to the store etc etc. Nae chance, this bitch just wasn't moving and I finished off with a f**k you and hung up.
So I phone up again, and what are the chances I get the same bloody east European woman who has obviously just recently started working there and really knows f**k all about customer service. I immediately asked to be transferred to a team leader and I was put on hold. There was no background musak so I immediately knew I was being had and had been placed into the ether where she probably hoped I'd be there for a minimum of 5mins. Knowing the game she was playing I hung-up redialled, punched the sequence to get through asap and got through to an American woman.
This woman took one look at the account, ok you've been a loyal customer for years, always paid on time and she said no problem that's the admin charge cancelled. I explained how we were treated by previous woman (although my f**k you comment was prob not very fair on her) and she added 500 store points to the card.
So "Bain" your advice is prob more true today than its ever been and worked a treat. Chalk and Cheese the difference between the 2 Call Centre Agents.
There is a real issue in call centres and the way their driven by the corporate bastards they usually represent. Essentially you get a fairly shittly low wage which is compensated by bonuses for reaching your "targets". These targets are usually ridiculous and are usually a simple case of hitting a certain number of answered / resolved calls each month. What this encourages is a system of blagging the call, giving the customer lip service to get them off the call asap so your within your 2 minute resolution time. The staff that don't get the bonuses are more often than not the ones who do the best job and take the time to deal with the customer's problem and help resolve it.
On a lighter note on how call centres fobb you off a few years ago around Christmas i was on call (for free I might add!) and there was an issue with the network so standard practice is to go through the usual diagnosis but it seemed to point to a problem with the frame relay connection, so I phoned Thus business support to see if there was a fault on the line. It was Christmas evening and I don't think they could be arsed dealing with my query, so they asked me to ring "123" for technical support. The problem was urgent and without questions i dialled and got "At the 3rd stroke the time sponsored by Accurist will be...."
I was fizzing mad for about 10 seconds but then had to see the funny side of their ingenuity and my own stupidity for falling for this.
No comments:
Post a Comment