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What's the easiest path? Does simply asking for a supervisor usually do the trick, or is there a secret trick?

by spicyj 16y ago

patio11 16y ago
It depends on the company. Here, the agent is practically begging him to call the right people. That is the forward path. He should have done so. If you're getting the run around, asking for escalation usually works. If not, ask in so many words what information you could provide which would require someone else to evaluate, then repeat that exactly. You can also do social engineering in a good way -- I prefer paper for issues which are not time sensitive. Paper to the CEO's office or VP of CS is the way to resolve most bank issues, for example. Another favorite trick is calling Investor Relations. (I am an investor in AT&T. I own probably eight tenths of a share in an index fund. That is enough to call IR with the expectation of favorable treatment.)
- fleitz 16y ago
  Love it, when I did tech support I would always get in trouble for my customer appreciation letters usually involving the customer being happy that I did something that I wasn't allowed to. I eventually learned to tell customers not to write letters of appreciation as I feared it would lead to my termination. Also, I was frequently in trouble for letting my average handle time fall below average, what I mean by this was that my AHT was 4 minutes instead of 6. Largely because I didn't waste the customers time doing things I knew they didn't need to. It turned out that Berkshire Hathaway owned a > 5% stake in the company, a good friend of mine who worked there learned of this from reading the stock info on Yahoo. He actually wrote Warren Buffet and explained the insanities, a couple weeks later he was taken into a supervisors office and asked politely not to write letters to company shareholders. Oddly enough he now works in IR. A few weeks after that the policy regarding reprimanding employees for below average AHTs was also rescinded.

What's the easiest path? Does simply asking for a supervisor usually do the trick, or is there a secret trick?

by spicyj 16y ago

What's the easiest path? Does simply asking for a supervisor usually do the trick, or is there a secret trick?

It depends on the company. Here, the agent is practically begging him to call the right people. That is the forward path. He should have done so. If you're getting the run around, asking for escalation usually works. If not, ask in so many words what information you could provide which would require someone else to evaluate, then repeat that exactly. You can also do social engineering in a good way -- I prefer paper for issues which are not time sensitive. Paper to the CEO's office or VP of CS is the way to resolve most bank issues, for example. Another favorite trick is calling Investor Relations. (I am an investor in AT&T. I own probably eight tenths of a share in an index fund. That is enough to call IR with the expectation of favorable treatment.)

fleitz 16y ago
Love it, when I did tech support I would always get in trouble for my customer appreciation letters usually involving the customer being happy that I did something that I wasn't allowed to. I eventually learned to tell customers not to write letters of appreciation as I feared it would lead to my termination. Also, I was frequently in trouble for letting my average handle time fall below average, what I mean by this was that my AHT was 4 minutes instead of 6. Largely because I didn't waste the customers time doing things I knew they didn't need to. It turned out that Berkshire Hathaway owned a > 5% stake in the company, a good friend of mine who worked there learned of this from reading the stock info on Yahoo. He actually wrote Warren Buffet and explained the insanities, a couple weeks later he was taken into a supervisors office and asked politely not to write letters to company shareholders. Oddly enough he now works in IR. A few weeks after that the policy regarding reprimanding employees for below average AHTs was also rescinded.