4 ms·

I have worked in several call centers and well past tier one support. Having people on the line costs money, you are instructed to get them off the line as soon

by adamcw 16y ago

I have worked in several call centers and well past tier one support. Having people on the line costs money, you are instructed to get them off the line as soon as possible. For tier 1 or 2 support, they are also working off a script, and very few reps actually know what's happening outside of that script. Forcing them off script is the quickest way to get bad information and for them to likely get punished.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>Having people on the line costs money The only times I've had to ring support have been to get recovery disks or initiate a return or what have you. However on those occasions they always wanted to walk me through the whole script ("yes I turned it off and on again, send me the disc please, yes I checked my network cable, ... could you ..., yes I ran check disk, ..., etc., etc."). But then at €1.70 or whatever a minute I kinda expect that. How do you lose money when they're billing at sort of rate? How do you make more money by completing calls quickly? Prepaid support obviously different.
- adamcw 16y ago
  Entry tier support usually are fairly inexperienced reps. They are expected to stick to the script, because they typically don't know enough to go off-script. It can make an individual call longer, but it makes most calls shorter by standardizing the procedures that fix most cases. The scripts are designed for solving issues that novice users have. That said, you are putting the rep in a position of possibly getting disciplined if you try to force them off script. At least at some of the places I've worked in the past. (I don't do support now, this was several years ago.)
yuhong 16y ago
Now of course both are fundamentally flawed. In fact, top-down control of call center agents is fundamentally flawed, and call center agents are not industrial workers.

4 ms·

I have worked in several call centers and well past tier one support. Having people on the line costs money, you are instructed to get them off the line as soon

by adamcw 16y ago

pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>Having people on the line costs money The only times I've had to ring support have been to get recovery disks or initiate a return or what have you. However on those occasions they always wanted to walk me through the whole script ("yes I turned it off and on again, send me the disc please, yes I checked my network cable, ... could you ..., yes I ran check disk, ..., etc., etc."). But then at €1.70 or whatever a minute I kinda expect that. How do you lose money when they're billing at sort of rate? How do you make more money by completing calls quickly? Prepaid support obviously different.
- adamcw 16y ago
  Entry tier support usually are fairly inexperienced reps. They are expected to stick to the script, because they typically don't know enough to go off-script. It can make an individual call longer, but it makes most calls shorter by standardizing the procedures that fix most cases. The scripts are designed for solving issues that novice users have. That said, you are putting the rep in a position of possibly getting disciplined if you try to force them off script. At least at some of the places I've worked in the past. (I don't do support now, this was several years ago.)
yuhong 16y ago
Now of course both are fundamentally flawed. In fact, top-down control of call center agents is fundamentally flawed, and call center agents are not industrial workers.