Have you ever worked in Customer Care?

Cows Go µ

fryup wrote: »

it wouldn't come to that surely

You'd be surprised. I was working in a call center for a phone insurance company and the abuse was unreal. Luckily it was for an English company but they certainly threatened to come find me for refusing a claim.

We were allowed to hang up after they swore at us twice so long as we gave a warning the first time. We also didn't have to give out surnames because, and I quote, they didn't pay us enough to put up with that.

Iwouldinmesack

Grayson wrote: »

Twice I had to talk to deaf people on calls. I'm sure you're aware of the process but for those that aren't...

The deaf person has a keyboard that they type stuff into. That goes to a separate centre where someone reads it out to me. I say something back and they type it in for the deaf person.

So I have to give very clear concise short sentences. And I have to wait each time for the reply.

One of the calls involved a guy who had a computer with the sound not working. He had a young child who could hear and the sound needed to be working for her. So I got him to do stuff to the computer and if it worked she would let him know there was noise.

Because of the length of time it took for the conversation the call went on ages. At one point my boss came over and said "You've been on that call a long time. Is everything ok" I said "I'm troubleshooting a soundcard with a deaf guy". He just looked at me for a second and said "Take all the time you need".

Deaf with a capital D , ie first language is Irish Sign Language.

Also when they demand the Deaf person talks into the phone to confirm identity, how belittling is that, if we could hear and talk wed do it ourselves rather than get someone to do it for us. Your boss would have been a right xxxx if he had said anything else to be honest. Life can be hard enough doing the small things people take for granted let alone individuals taking it on themselves to making things harder for us. If hearing people get frustrated dealing with Deaf people imagine how we feel, we are expected to understand a language day in day out which we have never heard.

Whatsisname

Worked in 2 in Waterford for a total of just under 2 years while I was in college. (Neither were Eishtec)

I've had people screaming at me, even threatening to take me, personally, to court. You become pretty immune to it quickly, then it just starts wearing you down day by day.

Absolutely soul destroying experience. Left the second place after having a panic attack on the floor. It left a lasting impression on my mental health and confidence in general.

A year on, I've relocated after college, got a job in my field and I'm appreciated by my bosses and my anxiety is almost non existent.

I genuinely can't understand how anyone can work in a call centre for years on end.

Grayson

Cows Go µ wrote: »

You'd be surprised. I was working in a call center for a phone insurance company and the abuse was unreal. Luckily it was for an English company but they certainly threatened to come find me for refusing a claim.

We were allowed to hang up after they swore at us twice so long as we gave a warning the first time. We also didn't have to give out surnames because, and I quote, they didn't pay us enough to put up with that.

The reason we had false names was because at one point a disgruntles customer drove his car into the lobby.

FanadMan

I spent my time in hell (or Dell as it was commonly known). We had the three strike rule for abusive language. Had to use that loads of times. But mostly for Irish customers - were the most ignorant and hateful. Had been threatened a few times that they'll come to HQ in Bray and sort me out. Not that that would work - I was based in Derry in an outsource company Great think was we could leave these details on their records.

Greyfox

Whatsisname wrote: »

I genuinely can't understand how anyone can work in a call centre for years on end.

Over time you build up a very thick skin, you learn there's things you have to do and many things you can get away with not doing correctly or just waiting for the customer to call back again, you learn quickly that you cant do everything. Also you'll find that most people who work in c care are friendly and nice people as agents rely on a bit of banter with each other to get through the day.

fryup

BuboBubo wrote: »

My brother worked in a notorious call centre in Waterford.

talk talk?

Agricola

Whatsisname wrote: »

I genuinely can't understand how anyone can work in a call centre for years on end.

In my experience only two kinds of people can last. The ones that either are born with a thick skin or those that develop it.

I was a couple of years doing the job when my latest team leader (we tended to have a new one every 6 months) decided to give me some extra training by listening in on calls with a seasoned pro who'd be working in the place for absolutely ages. This girl had astonishing stats as a an agent, real model employee.
So after about half an hour I realized her secret. You treat the person on the other end of the line much the same way that many customer's treat agents....ie an obstacle to be overcome. She didn't engage in any way with them on a human level, sounded robotic, but efficient and spent every short call trying to find ways to extricate herself from the situation. I was astonished how adept she was at placating the caller, giving them reassurance and some instructions and then telling them to go away and try that out. They'd come on tearing their hair out and five minutes later be whistling.

If you can do that in a call centre, every situation is water off a duck's back and you can stay the course. If you let it get under your skin and every call is a chore, (as most were for me) you better be doing your best to get out of there or it will consume you.

ollkiller

Worked in a call centre for 3 months. No thank you. Next job was working the 999 lines for the fire service. Did it for 11 years. A small percentage of callers would be very abusive as they are in shock as they are calling. Now we had 4 months of training before we ever took a live call. You could say ANYTHING, and i mean literally anything on that call and i wouldn't react. I received vile abuse and it didn't bother me one bit. But that's because of the training.

There are tools to calm a caller down. One is repetitive persistence. Get the callers first name and repeat it to them 3 times in one or two seconds. Normally that will trigger a response to calm down. I do feel for people in customer care as there are people out there that there is no reasoning with at all. And if you find yourself worrying when you are at home about an abusive caller, just remember, you're not getting paid while you are at home so don't give it a second thought.

seamus

Did shop work and call centre work, as well as the usual support desk work after college.

People aren't that terrible tbh. It's a bit of a shock to the system I supposed when you're under 25, you haven't had that much exposure to the public and their craziness and you don't have the level head and self-confidence to deal with it. You take the crap way more personally than you should.

In hindsight these were all pretty cushy jobs, clock-in, clock-out, get paid, no real worries, no stress to take home with you.

If I were to win the lotto though, you'd never find me back in a call centre, mainly because of the repetitive nature of it. 100 calls a day, and half of them the same question, or the same request. Your brain turns to mush.

jimgoose

Bazzy

Worked in a phone call centre for a good few years

Few things that stick out

The woman who rang @ 23:59 ( we finished our shift at midnight) to see if her phone was working as her son didn't call to wish her a happy birthday was quite sad really that she was that far thru she decided to ring us.

There was any amount of abuse Joe duffy etc always told them get Joe to ask for me when he calls with your permission i'll give him the full story that usually shut them up

Your timed for everything we we're only allowed personal time toilet etc for 3 minutes a day when you should have been on the phone

Been invited for a fight in the car park after work a few times.

I got promoted and left the call centre world I kinda missed the buzz of fixing problems for people and being kept on your toes the stats where a pain in the hole

In my last job I looked after all the incoming and out going calls when we were setting up the call centre. I made a point of playing back calls to people who had lied and trust me there was a lot of them

i'd imagine in the world of outsourcing its only gotten worse we went to waterford to test one of the outsourcing centres and the office/centre was grim to day the least i wouldnt have fancied spending a 12 hour shift there anyway

Under His Eye

Agricola wrote: »

So after about half an hour I realized her secret. You treat the person on the other end of the line much the same way that many customer's treat agents....ie an obstacle to be overcome. She didn't engage in any way with them on a human level, sounded robotic, but efficient and spent every short call trying to find ways to extricate herself from the situation. I was astonished how adept she was at placating the caller, giving them reassurance and some instructions and then telling them to go away and try that out. They'd come on tearing their hair out and five minutes later be whistling.

The problem is if you do that to a customer and they ring back 5 minutes later you will have some other angry agents standing over your desk with daggers. Happened to me loads of times. I was told to cop on by other agents and engage the customer and to fix the problem.

PlaneSpeeking

In my youth yeah, I've done my share in Call Centres.

The bad side is well documented by all I'm sure but one of the best jobs was working for TypeTalk - it's a texting system for the deaf.

On Saturday nights you'd be asked to type all manner of filthy talk!!!!

amcalester

Worked for a large bookmakers taking bets over the phone, it was usually grand and paid the bills while I was studying.

One call I asked the customer a fairly innocuous question and he went mental calling me all sorts of names and then went on to say that he had cancer and that people like me have no respect, more names and abuse blah blah blah.

I replied, that it was no wonder he had cancer and hung up.

Took off my headset and walked out the door, ne'er to return.

cocokabana

Worked in a call centre in Clonmel for broadband support and tv support for UPC for 6 months. It was the most soul destroying time of my life. 99% of customers rang to complain they weren't getting the 100mbs of speed they were paying for despite us trying to explain it was UP TO 100mbs and having 50 different devises connected didn't help. It was torture.

Worst shift was Saturday evening as drunk lad's playing online would ring shouting their internet was slow. It was just a merry go around of changing channels and telling them try that for a few days and sure enought they'd be back on shouting again.

When I worked on the TV support 99% of calls were elderly people who couldn't use their remote and find the AV source to get the news on.
Actually started crying on a call coz I had some psycho Spanish woman who'd come home from holidays and could't get the TV to work (av problem again) and no matter how many times I explained to her how to fix it she wasn't listening. I left not long after that. Said no job is worth crying over.

I've a friend who works in that "notorious" call centre in Waterford, they are there 4 years but only work part-time. only way to survive there.

fryup

Agricola wrote: »

In my experience only two kinds of people can last. The ones that either are born with a thick skin or those that develop it.

and thirdly those who are so thick in the head that they don't know any better jobwise

Agricola

Under His Eye wrote: »

The problem is if you do that to a customer and they ring back 5 minutes later you will have some other angry agents standing over your desk with daggers. Happened to me loads of times. I was told to cop on by other agents and engage the customer and to fix the problem.

True, that's assuming that you don't fix the problem. But quite often it's a matter of identifying the right fix quickly (or using a catch all fix which sorts a number of similar issues) and then letting them off to try that.
This girl had it down to a fine art and since her call handling times were low and the metric which measured how many of her callers came back again was equally low, the managers were happy with her.

PlaneSpeeking

Not strictly speaking a call centre per se but I've a pal in the UK works on the 999 line.

Can you imagine the weekend calls ? "I need to get home and I missed the bus", is pretty typical.

How he hasn't snapped yet is beyond me.

Laois_Man

First job out of college was sort of a more advanced call centre where our customers were hi-tech system/network/hardware engineers, mainly at very large corporations across Europe

First day out of training on the front line, and my very first support call was from a dude in Sweden moaning that his staff were suffering ergonimic injuries due to having to reach over and back between keyboard use and mouse clicks

I didn't stay long.

Steve F

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Not strictly speaking a call centre per se but I've a pal in the UK works on the 999 line.

Can you imagine the weekend calls ? "I need to get home and I missed the bus", is pretty typical.

How he hasn't snapped yet is beyond me.

I really do believe anyone that calls 999 in those situations has to be "mentally challenged":mad:

PlaneSpeeking

Steve F wrote: »

I really do believe anyone that calls 999 in those situations has to be "mentally challenged":mad:

Usually locked or stoned to be honest.

They did have one not long back where a woman called 999 as her tattoo "didn't look right".

He earns every last penny IMHO!!!!

Steve F

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Usually locked or stoned to be honest.

They did have one not long back where a woman called 999 as her tattoo "didn't look right".

He earns every last penny IMHO!!!!

Truly unbelievable :eek:

PlaneSpeeking

Steve F wrote: »

Truly unbelievable :eek:

Thing is, I only speak to him about work perhaps a few times a month - I maintain you write ALL the dodgy calls down, you'd have a book in a fortnight.

Deiselurker

I've worked in those roles for many years but hoping to either got a role off phones or move on to another employer as can't see myself doing it much longer. Call centre problems Facebook page sums it all up if anyone follows that. Most callers are fine but the odd one is abusive. A woman swore at me and hung up then today. The job is repetitive and stressful and senior management don't seem to care. There aren't many chances for promotion because everyone goes for a small number of positions. Time for a change at this stage.

Sebastian Dangerfield

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I have, in a few different places, worked for O2 before they became crap (2003/2004), then went to Chorus before they were bought out, have worked for Vodafone (ugh) and now working in customer care for an IP based motion detection cctv. All of them were quite different, all of them were crap in the end.

I worked in O2 around the same time as you for a couple of summers. I got a shock the first week when I was told my toilet breaks were averaging 12 mins a day (you had to input a reason code when you left your desk), and could I keep it below 10 mins. Some genuinely hard to believe calls - e.g someone called the helpline to say the 9 button had fallen off their phone and what could I do over the phone. I think the number to call was 1909... figure that one out. Men calling up putting on womens voices trying to get their call info was fun too. But the worst was text alerts and ringtones taking peoples credit...they'd swear blind they NEVER signed up to a service, threaten you with Joe Duffy and everything else, then sheepishly concede when you proved they downloaded Crazy Frog. Bit of craic to be had at times, but I swore Id never do it again. Then I worked in Telesales and saw true hardship.

Gimme A Pound

Yes I have - did a good stint of it during the recession. Actually I've just been on a thread in the Three forum where there is a valid grievance but as usual the poor customer service agent on a pittance with zero say is getting it in the neck. And otherwise rational people are ok with that. That's the thing about customer service - the stories can be astounding, absolute psycho stuff... but they're mostly normal nice people; your friends and family, who would be appalled by bullying and harassment otherwise but for some reason there is this blind spot when it comes to dealing with customer service agents, and it's somehow fair game to unleash one's inner demon on them. You'd have to work in customer service to appreciate it fully I think. Sometimes people think they have reasonable grounds for such behaviour - they truly believe that the agent is "in on" the process they take such issue with, but they actually have no more say than the customer has.

If they just knew how difficult it can be for someone having to put up with that crap constantly. People understandably get frustrated with having to wait for ages to get their call answered but that's because there aren't enough people to answer the calls quickly enough because it's hard to get staff/the turnover is so high. It's a human being just like anyone on the other end of the phone. Plus the entitlement culture, abdication of personal responsibility and persecution complexes of this country make it even worse.

That said, I mostly liked it and got on ok at it too. A significant minority of customers are maniacs but the majority were grand/nice and I've no problem with people being annoyed when they've grounds to be, once they're not abusive.

It gave me more empathy too towards frontline workers and an understanding of the running of a call centre (much more complex than you would think) and it makes you think more critically when you see these awful stories about particular companies on social media - there's likely more to the story than they're letting on.

Potential-Monke

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Not strictly speaking a call centre per se but I've a pal in the UK works on the 999 line.

Can you imagine the weekend calls ? "I need to get home and I missed the bus", is pretty typical.

How he hasn't snapped yet is beyond me.

I was a Garda for 9 years, spent a lot of time answering the 999 phone (you ring 999 here, you get through to ECAS in Navan, who route it to the local Divisional HQ). He's not lying. People ring 999 for the stupidest of things. I had to talk to one lad who bought a bag of basil instead of weed. Wanted me to prosecute the dealer, but wouldn't tell me who it was... Every division then has repeat callers. We had one who just rang up to abuse us. And you can't block the number, in case they have an actual emergency. He could ring at any time of the day or night. Mad thing is, it costs the state €2 per call answered in Navan, so this lad was costing the state hundreds every month, and not a single thing could be done about it. Not to mention he could have been tying up the line from someone else with a genuine emergency. But you get all sorts on the 999.

Agricola wrote: »

True, that's assuming that you don't fix the problem. But quite often it's a matter of identifying the right fix quickly (or using a catch all fix which sorts a number of similar issues) and then letting them off to try that.
This girl had it down to a fine art and since her call handling times were low and the metric which measured how many of her callers came back again was equally low, the managers were happy with her.

And that's why call centers are horrible places to work. One of my colleagues does 4 times the tickets as anyone else, but she picks and chooses the easy ones. And she's let do it, otherwise they would have to hire 4 more to replace her. It drives me mad, because I get pulled on small things she doesn't even consider doing. Quite annoying. Customer care should be about the care, not figures.

Sebastian Dangerfield wrote: »

Men calling up putting on womens voices trying to get their call info was fun too.

We've come across this recently, and with the whole gender fluid thing, we've been advised to validate the call regardless of what the person sounds like, and if all information is correct, you work away. People need to be setting passwords for these things nowadays!

Paddy Cow

Analia Deep Trigonometry wrote: »

That's the thing about customer service - the stories can be astounding, absolute psycho stuff... but they're mostly normal nice people; your friends and family, who would be appalled by bullying and harassment otherwise but for some reason there is this blind spot when it comes to dealing with customer service agents, and it's somehow fair game to unleash one's inner demon on them.

You're spot on there.

Analia Deep Trigonometry wrote: »

You'd have to work in customer service to appreciate it fully I think.

It's not just customer service. It's any minimum wage customer facing job. People treat you like dirt and companies let them as "the customer is always right" :rolleyes:

John Hutton

Four years in two call centres in Kilkenny. Still dream about murdering a particular prick of a TL . I was very good at my job which meant I got all the ****, and management still is basically to break you down and make you feel incompetent and constantly watched - almost worked on me but you see people there years who are so beat down by the job and management that they think they are stupid and lucky to have the job, when in reality they can do far better.

Honestly say I would rather sit on the dole than be in a call centre again. It was such a novelty not to be timed when having a dump when I got a normal job. Once got a lecture for taking an additional 30 seconds over the allotted 10 mins a day.

bilbot79

A lot of people do this. Why would they stay in it though?

martinedwards

I love it!

I was in UK Passports for 18 months and one of the big UK banks now for coming up on 4 years.

as to Call centres having a revolving door employment policy..... well, some people don't stay long, but in my team of 12 I'm the newest at 3 yrs 8 months.....

several of my colleagues are over 15 yrs in the same place.



yes, many customers are idiots.

but there are a tiny number of abusive fools "you stole my money" "no we charged you for using your overdraft" there is a great feeling when you help someone who genuinely needs support.

I'm in online support now, which gives us access to the customer's online log. not passwords or anything, but we can say "that payment that you say you didn't make...... at 2:23 am on thursday 24th...... you used the same phone that you're speaking to me on now to log into the app, set up the new recipient, get the automated verification call to this same number, then you went back in and sent the payment. and yes, we CAN see the reference that you put on it."

seriously takes the wind out of their sails!

as to references on payments?

the guy organising the work trip to the Panto.... "behind you" "Oh no he isn't" etc.....
"sexual favours" is common.....
"dildos and anal beads" I've seen more than once.....

One guy was paying back a loan to his Mother in law and genuinely didn't know that the MASSIVELY abusive reference would appear on the poor dear's statement.....

My back is screwed so I need a sit down job, so I had to pack in teaching, but I've worked in restaurants and retail, and I love it.

DoozerT6

I haven't worked in customer service per se, but I do deal with the public on a front-line level and all I can say is people are fcuking stupid.

That is all.

bilbot79

In fairness you tend to walk out the door at 5:30 which other lines of work don't always offer

Sirsok

"Why cant I see my bank account on my banking 365?

Whats your account number?

12245443

Ok thats an ulster bank account

So?

This is Bank of Ireland

So? You should have all my accounts"

Worked in a bank for 6 years, both phones and customer facing....stuff of nightmares

The J Stands for Jay

"Hi, is that director enquiries? I need the number for a hotel that hasn't been built yet."

The J Stands for Jay

McGaggs wrote: »

"Hi, is that director enquiries? I need the number for a hotel that hasn't been built yet."

The amount of people who ask you what page of the phone book a number is on when you get it for them...

Nitrogan

Life Hack Rule #1: Be nice to people

Life Hack Rule #2: Be nice even if they're a ****.

Rule 2 is a lot easier said than done but it's worth it if you can.

The J Stands for Jay

I know someone who worked in a bank and the customer complained to them that they said their balance as if it wasn't a big amount of money. Maybe they didn't sound awed enough. They probably were just depressed at needing to work for 3 years, pay no tax and spend nothing to get a similar bank balance

Gimme A Pound

bilbot79 wrote: »

A lot of people do this. Why would they stay in it though?

They don't.

It's true you don't have to take your work home with you but you may not finish at 5.30, you may finish at 11pm! (In fairness though, people know this when they sign up). Despite this though, if the abuse is constant it would grind people down.

That's so funny about those phoning one bank and expecting it to have the details in another bank. Sometimes the brain-dead stupidity is worse than the abuse.

No way would I be nice to someone if they're being a **** - people I know who attempt that approach just get an even worse time. I find the key is to be extremely polite and informative... but not nice!

Greyfox

Analia Deep Trigonometry wrote: »

Sometimes the brain-dead stupidity is worse than the abuse.

This is so true. Give me an abusive idiot over a stupid one any day, having to explain very very simple things 7/8 times is very common. calls can go on for some time due to customers inability to answer the actual question they are asked.

Potential-Monke

Latest in the amazingness of my current job. One of the agents is shockingly bad (there's <15 of us), so much that we know he's the next to get fired (quite a few have been fired for incompetence). He made a stupid remark on a call, and instead of reprimanding him, he gets put on only 1 incoming line. So while the rest of us are doing all the lines, he's sitting back laughing while waiting for something to come into him. The line he's on is crazy quiet. But here's the clincher, we're also on the same line, so even if he's free, we can get the call ahead of him.

Infuriating to say the least. What's the point in working hard if when you make a mistake you get less work to do? Blood is boiling at this stage... I thoroughly enjoy giving proper customer care, but it's always the internal crap that gets to me. Yet again, society ignoring the hard workers and looking after the crap ones. Smh

The J Stands for Jay

Analia Deep Trigonometry wrote: »

They don't.

It's true you don't have to take your work home with you but you may not finish at 5.30, you may finish at 11pm! (In fairness though, people know this when they sign up). Despite this though, if the abuse is constant it would grind people down.

That's so funny about those phoning one bank and expecting it to have the details in another bank. Sometimes the brain-dead stupidity is worse than the abuse.

No way would I be nice to someone if they're being a **** - people I know who attempt that approach just get an even worse time. I find the key is to be extremely polite and informative... but not nice!

Loads of people phone directory enquiries and ask them to undelete a message they deleted from their phone...

Pug160

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm almost 3 years into it and I'm thankful that it got me back on the job ladder again when I had previously been in quite a lot of temporary and seasonal jobs. I can't speak for all call centres but the most eye opening aspect for me is the sheer amount of people (in the call centre I'm in at least) who quite clearly have higher than average intelligence. In fact, there are so many of them, no one particular person really stands out. I have often wondered if this is somewhat unique to this line of work, given that almost anybody who is at least reasonably competent can do it.

As for the job itself: it can be boring, repetitive, and you don't feel particularly well valued, but that is to be expected. There are bonus structures, but these often reward those who know how to play the little games needed to hit the targets, rather than reward good customer service. As a job it's not great, but it's less bad than some other jobs I've had. The shifts can be a real drain and if you're not careful you can let yourself go physically, which I make sure I don't do. But maintaining a hobby can be challengng. It's far from ideal but there will be better days ahead.

monkeysnapper

Years ago I went for a job interview in a call centre and as part of the interview i got a headset and sat with a lovely lady for 30 mins while she took calls ..

My feet didn't hit ground as I left building ...

..... .run run RUN