CallCenter Life III

This one is based upon a call I made TO Customer Service:

Thank you for calling Acme National Trash Services, how may I help you??

My trash was not picked up.

OK. Let me look at your account.  I see that your bill is past due, and services were cut off.

Yes, and whether I’m an air head for having missed the payment is still under review, but I also recieved a letter from your company today (the 7thday of the month) stating that the were willing to work with me as I was a “valued customer.”

Yes, sir that letter was mailed out on the 1st.  We cut off your services on the 2nd.

So you mailed a letter to me on the 1st promising to work with me, and I don’t receive it until the 7th.  There is no way I COULD have received this letter by the 2nd, and yet that is when you cut off my services.

Yes sir, that’s the policy.

Young lady, I hope this call is monitored.  Not because you have done anything wrong, but so your managers can listen to how stupid what they just made you say sounds.

NOTE:  I have since changed trash companies.   The old one has yet to come pick up their container.  If it’s here much longer I’m going to sell it at a yard sale.

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Thank you for calling Blah Technical Support, my name is Ishmael, how may I help you?

I’m having trouble connecting to the Internet.

Who is you service provider??

Internet Explorer.

No, I mean who did you contact to connect your computer to the Internet?  Do you use AOL?  CompuServe?  A local ISP?

You mean I have to call someone else to connect?  You sold me this computer, YOU should make it connect for me!

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Thank you for calling Blah Technical Support, my name is Ishmael, how may I help you?

Every time I try to dial into the Internet, I get an error that says “No Dial Tone.”

Are you sure that telephone line is active?

Yes, we’re speaking on it. 

How many phone lines do you have in the house?

Just this one.

Is someone else using the phone when you get these errors?

Yes- what difference does that–OH!!

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This is addictive

Now it’s been 30 days since the green-eyed devilchallenged me to start my own blog.  I used to think blogs were pathetic exercises in narcissism by geeks in desperate need of a life transfusion.  I can still see examples of those within the blogosphere, but I’ve also seen ones with intelligent conversations useful discussions.   It reminds me of the early days of the Web.  There were a lot of web sites put up that were a waste of bandwidth, but the worthwhile ones survived. 

Will mine survive?.  Probably, simply because I’ve become addicted to writing like this.  I really don’t care who reads this it, or if anyone even does.  I write the way I always USED to- just for.  My e-mails at work used to be legendary, until they told us to make everything more “professional.”   If I can find a way to protect the innocent, I’ll post one of my favorites (which I was not allowed to send.)  Now I’ve found another outlet for my ranting and expressive side. 

Maybe more good things will come of this– and all because an old friend updated her e-mail.  Synchronicity.  Great album- freaky feeling.

Call Center Life II

Having received encouragement from an independent source (thanks, Rich McLafferty http://richmclafferty.wordpress.com/ ) I shall continue:

Thank you for calling Blah Tech Support, my name is Ishmael, how may I help you?

Yeah, like, I stole this computer, but it ’s password protected. Can you help me?

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Thank you for calling Blah Tech Support, my name is Ishmael, how may I help you?

My computer is laughing at me.

Excuse me?

Every once in a while, I hear laughter from inside of the box.

O…K,  What exactly does the laughing sound like?

You don;t believe me, do you? 

That’s not the point, ma’am I’m trying to determine what may be causing the sound that you hear.

IT’S LAUGHING AT ME!!  I SUPPOSE YOU ALL ARE HAVING A GREAT TIME WATCHING ME TRY TO DO THINGS ON MY COMPUTER AND MAYBE IT’S YOU I HEAR LAUGHING!!  I want it stopped!!!!!

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Thank you for calling ABC Cell Phone Customer Service, how may I help you?

I want to dispute part of my bill.

May I have your phone number, please?  (pause)  I’m looking at our bill, which part do you want to dispute?

It appears that there are over $400 in text messaging charges that I didn’t make or authorize. 

They were made from a phone on this account.

Well, yes, they were made by my children, but I don’t think I should be responsible for them since I didn’t make them. 

(On mute) The messages or the children??

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Call Center Attendance Line, are you going to be absent or tardy?

Female Employee:  I’m sick and won’t be in today. 

(Child’s voice in the background of the call) Mommy are we going to Wal-Mart yet?

CLICK!!  (Obviously going to get medicine)

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Thank you for calling Blah Tech Support, my name is Ishmael, how may I help you?

My girlfriend threw my computer off off the balcony in my apartment. 

That’s not covered under your warranty, sir.

I figured that, but is it covered under my Accident Protection Insurance?

____________________________________________________

Thank you for calling Blah Customer Service, my name is Ishmael, how may I help you?

I want to return my computer for a refund.

When did you purchase the computer?

Spring of 1995.

Sir, that’s over 10 years ago.

So?  it came with lifetime support, they can’t help me fix it, so I want my $2400 back.

___________________________________________________

That oughta be enough for now.

Be Careful what you Ask For

Last Wednesday, Bailey went in to be groomed.  It had been a couple of months, and she was beginning to look somewhat “scruffy.”

Bailey pre-groomer

OK, DECIDEDLY “scruffy.”  Anyway, it was determined that she needed to visit the groomer, and an appointment was made. 

Now, you must understand that, in matters of style and/or design, I leave that all to my wife, Mary.  When she met me, I was buying all of my clothes from Farm & Fleet: fleece-lined corduroy jacket; harness boots; REAL denim blue jeans; and flannel lumber-jack shirts.  I thought it all looked just fine.  Flannel shirts are STILL banned from my wardrobe.  So it is that I rarely make any decision on appearance without consulting her.

Life was simpler in the Army.  Not only did I not have to THINK about what I wore, because it was all out-lined for me,  but everyone wore their name on their uniform.   This is a tremendous boon for someone who wins easily at Trivial Pursuit but can’t remember the names of people with whom he has worked for years.  But I digress.

So it was that I called Mary at her office from the groomers to ensure that I had her instructions correct in my head.

“How did you want Bailey’s hair?” 

“Short,” was her reply.

“Didn’t you want some particular style or something?”  I asked.

“I don’t know, you know, SHORT!”  were her instructions, which I passed along to the groomer. 

Bailey Post-Groomer

Mary said when she picked her up she almost didn’t recognize her.

So as I said in the title of this post:  be CAREFUL what you ask for- you just might get it.  Bailey probably won’t need a haircut now much before Thanksgiving. 

I fear I’ve written myself out for the evening.

I’m sitting here wondering what else I could possibly write about.  I could write about the crime stories I’ve seen on the web,  but that’ll just upset me all over again at how cruel “humans” can be.  I was once asked if I believed that humans evolved from apes.   “No,” I said, “we ARE apes!” 

 ! THIS IS NOT TO BE TAKEN AS AN 

INVITATION TO START ANY SEMI-

RELIGIO/SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION

OF EVOLUTION,CREATION, OR

INTELLIGENT DESIGN ! 

It is merely an observation.  If you don’t agree, that is your right.  You have the right to remain silent, and I have the right to not hear your views unless I want to, which I have stated in very bold print that I do not.

So about what shall rant this evening?

I could write about Bailey’s haircut, but I don’t have an after picture yet. 

Bailey pre-groomer

 I could write about the political races, but to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin from the musical 1776 “I won’t put politics on (electronic media)/ it’s a mania!”

Aw, what the heck, I’ve ranted enough for this one to count.

Common Sense VS. Quality Assurance

(See Rich McLafferty’s on my blogroll for this posts inspiration.)  Once again, the nail has been roundly struck headwise by Rich McLafferty.  Quality Assurance is supposed to guarantee the CUSTOMER has a quality experience.  You remember them- those funny people on the other end of the phone??

 I remember a call where the customer knew she had the wrong department; she just wanted to be transferred. Great call- nice & short. I failed the QA because I didn’t hit all of the required phrases, and because I didn’t upsell. Fortunately my supervisor at the time not only had common sense but also had also monitored that particular call, and was able to immediately appeal and correct the score.

I’ve seen QA agents go back out onto the floor, only to be terminated because they were worthless as CSR’s. They could talk the talk but not walk the walk. At least now where I work, QA agents are required to take a certain amount of calls per month.

Common sense would correct many of the issues I see in call center life. A cell phone client requiring 300 agents to be available on Christmas Day has no bearing on logic. (However, the center did get a good cleaning that season.) A computer manufacturer requiring a sale on every call leads to unnecessary, incorrect or incompatible parts being sold and shipped by Customer Service agents who really don’t know anything about computers. Otherwise, a customer would not have been sold a memory upgrade for their portable computer and received RAM for a desktop.

And even before I got into call centers, there was a newspaper that began to push the readers as “customers”, and hired writing coaches. One of the reporters sniffed “If they can’t understand my writing, they need to go back to school.”  You will note that “dead tree” newspapers that ignore this precept are now in decline.

Bleah!

Sorry, but that’s the way I feel tonight.  For two magic beans I wouldn’t go back to that job again if I could help it.  No backing, no clear leadership, no allowance for the people who KNOW what’s going on to actually perform their jobs.  In a crisis situation, all of the managers are too busy trying to show how THEY can handle it rather than allowing those who are SUPPOSED to handle it do so.  It’s like hospital administrators criticising a surgeon’s suture technique.  They don’t really know what they’re talking about, but they don’t want to appear inept, so they do SOMETHING.  Never mind that the people whoare SUPPOSED to be controlling call flow are being ignored and not even consulted.  We finally told agents not to even bother to call and ask us, because everyone else with a radio had the situation well in hand.  Of course, there was no co-ordination, and some were doing one thing and others were doing the opposite, but never mind– they management had the situation well in hand. 

And the wonder why my attitude stinks.  I tell them I don’t have an attitude problem- I have the attitude, THEY have the problem with it.

The local Animal Control Officer makes more than me.  Maybe next time they advertise I should go for that.

Life returns to what passes for normal around here.

The year’s at the spring,

And day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hill-side’s dew-pearled;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in his Heaven –

All’s right with the world!

 Pippa Passes, by Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889)

I have repaired the wireless connection, which is good, because my son returns from GenCon Indianapolis 2008 this evening.  Actually, early tomorrow morning since he decided to take the train as it was easier than driving and cheaper than flying. 

I won’t miss the set up he has in his room.  It’s been useful, but it’s set up for someone with a spine 24 years younger than mine.  We won’t go into what has happened to my spine and other joints in the ensuing years.  I retired from the Army/Army Reserve with 27 years of service- `nuff said.

Having access to two computer, however, has given me more opportunity to write in my blog.  I can’t access it from work (which would be inappropriate anyway) and in the evenings when my wife and I are both home, it can be a race to see who gets to the keyboard first.  Andrew lives with us, and as an adult we give him his own space- which means we don’t enter his room without permission, nor do we use is equipment without permission. 

Getting his permission while he’s present, however, is akin to peeling a pomegranate.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s not so much a computer as his electronic life support.  Yes, he still lives at home, even though he’s 29.  He’s what you might call a “late bloomer.” 

Actually, he’s more what you might call a NON-bloomer, since he has only recently began to develop friendships and relationships that do not involve the computer.  He has a form of autism known as Asperger’s Syndrome.  It may seem odd to some  that he’s never lived outside of the home,  but not to us. 

Asperger’s presents as above-average intelligence but below-average social skills– sounds like the definition of a nerd, doesn’t it??  Individuals can also exhibit obsessive/compulsive behavior and disorganized thought processes.  Andrew even had seizures when he was younger, for which he took medication.  He SEEMS to have out-grown them- we hope.  Albert Einstein is suspected of having had this disorder. 

As he gets older, Andy becomes more confident and able to deal with unexpected situations on his own.  However, he is definitely behind his peers, for whom he has little use.  I once asked him what it was he disliked so about people his own age.  He said he considered them “vapid.”  (Extra points if you know what that means- a gold star if you’ve ever used it in a sentence. ) 

He reads Time® magazine cover-to-cover every week, and has taught himself Japanese.  But if you could see him struggling with asking a simple question in a store or watch his frustration when something unexpected occurs that throws his plans off is to better understand why he’s still living at home.

Call center life

This post is actually an expansion on the theme of a comment I left at http://richmclafferty.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/metrics-schmetrics/

Oh hallelujah!! Finally someone with a common-sense approach to CSR performance. I find myself slowly inching up from the floor within the call center evolutionary chain, currently working in the operations section of a call center in Kansas. I currently work with Volume Management and Log-In Ordering, but have done Work Force Management. Most of my call experience is with inbound computer/ISP issues, except for a brief stint in an out-bound telemarketing facility (that period is like my brother the lawyer- my family still loved me in spite of it.)

Well I recall the double-edged sword of Customer Service: AHT (Average Handle Time) and FCR (First Call Resolution). These were mantras drilled into our heads by increasingly flustered managers. Service Level Management (SLM) desk always ringing your phone or sending Roamers out to see if you needed help. Don’t bother to ask for help- the answer is in your resources. Never mind arguing the illogic of this oxymoron- you’d probably get written up for insubordination, although I doubt if any of them could even properly define the word.

Moving to Tech Support offered some relief. They STILL wanted it, but understood better that each problem was unique. Glory be for wrong numbers and hang-ups– they could help keep your AHT down.

There were posters around telling you to be prepared to provide your Billable Utilization (BU) on demand of a member of management, with a simple quadratic equation on how to determine this metric.

The newest client we have is a major cell-phone service provider. They’ve been stressing service over handle time, but recently I’ve seen disturbing references to BU creeping into the literature. The company for which I work is already having issues with burnout and retention. I was happy to get off the floor when I did, even if it meant creating schedules for the entire center – in Excel.

No one ever really took the Customer Satisfaction surveys seriously, which I felt as a mistake. Certainly, they were a pain to compile, but WAS THE CUSTOMER SATISFIED should have been the determining factor over handle time. I listened to others taking calls and finishing them in record time- by giving out inaccurate information.

 I was proud of the fact that I NEVER scored perfect on a Quality Analysis. I was more concerned with making certain the customer got what they needed, if it as within my power and abilities, over whether I used the correct phrasing. 

The next time you call  Customer Service or Tech Support, and the person seems in a rush to get you off of the phone or absolutely flustered, perhaps now you’ll understand a little better.  A common response to the threat “I’ll have your job!” from a caller was “You couldn’t do my job!”,  hopefully said with the Mute button depressed.

 

 

 

The Paperless Office and other fantasies

I read with interest, vague though it may have been, of the revelation of a gen-yoo-ine Big Foot in a deep freeze in the state of Georgia.  Damn–  no wonder they haven’t been able to find any!!  Rednecks have already hunted `em down and are saving them up for Dale Earnhardt, Sr.’s resurrection celebration!!!   That’s gonna be one heck of a shee-bang, let me tell ya.  They can have that giant ”Hogzilla” killed in Alabama by some kid last year, too. 

Speaking of pipe dreams, at work today I tried to print out a list of customer service agents who had temporarily been switched to another line of business because of call volume.  I put out over the radio and in an e-mail that the list would be printing out at a particular laser printer in the building, so that team managers could ensure that the little darlings– I mean AGENTS would complete the process by actually logging in and out of their phones.  This keeps the client from over-delivering calls to us, or at least they have no good excuse if they continue so to do.  Trust me, it makes sense to us.

Anyhow, I notice that the PRINT Icon doesn’t go away, nor did I get a message telling me my document had been successfully printed.  So I opened the printer queue for that machine- 59 documents and CLIMBING!!   Our local IT department and I have a genial truce between us.  They don’t treat me like an idiot, and I don’t make fun of their pocket protectors.  So I tried to be as nice as I could when I called them, politely inquiring if they were aware of the problem with that printer.

“Huh?” was the reply.  I am forever in awe of this man’s command of the Klingon language.  Then even through the phone I could see the propeller on his beanie start to turn.  “Oh,” he said, “I must have forgotten to turn something back on.”  It’s like calling Microsoft Tech Support; a technically correct answer that is absolutely useless.  However, in the interest of peace and keeping my own profile active, I refrained from further comment. 

I finally used a different printer, and let everyone know that due to technical problems beyond my control, the list could now be found elsewhere.  However, it got me wondering.

Fifty-nine documents, some of the multiple pages, eventually printed out on that laser printer.  I know they did, because I walked by the poor wee beastie on my way home, and I saw it groaning under the load.  Probably all of those documents, which were each absolutely vital to the preservation of the American Way of Life, were printed at another printer. 

Who out there remembers The Paperless Office?  C’mon, both of you raise your hands.  Have you ever seen one?  Neither have I.  I often contemplate how many trees we kill with worthless TPS reports, memos, meeting notes which were e-mailed to all participants and dart-targets featuring the image of a “beloved” supervisor. 

I have the answer.  After years of careful research, I have determined what happened to the The Paperless Office.

It’s in a deep-freeze somewhere on the North American Continent.   The exact location is classified.