4 ms·

I'd also say that by the time I've waited 20 minutes, I'm a bit of an asshole (probably). While managing call centre service levels is a very challenging probl

I'd also say that by the time I've waited 20 minutes, I'm a bit of an asshole (probably). While managing call centre service levels is a very challenging problem, I haven't been particularly impressed in the past. Slightly off topic, but a different story regarding cutting off for non-payment: I recently had my ISP invent a new credit card number for me while I used a free trial account in parallel with my actual subscription for a while (it was "123456..."). They then tried to debit this imaginary card to pay for my actual subscription, eventually adding a penalty fee which brought my account into arrears. All of this without my knowledge of anything strange happening. As a result, my account was disconnected a few days before the end of a month I had already paid for. This type of incompetence seems to be fairly widespread these days, and after several emails, phone calls, etc, all I got out of them was a "oh yeah, you should probably change those payment details".

vacri 13y ago
I'd also say that by the time I've waited 20 minutes, I'm a bit of an asshole The flip side of the coin is that the busiest call centres are generally for the cheapest services - and you get what you pay for. Running a support service is extremely expensive. For most services, there's usually an option where if you open your wallet wider, you get better service (often at another company), but the general public don't like that option. This type of incompetence seems to be fairly widespread these days Not just these days. I worked for the telco 9 years ago, and we had a main product and a rebadged rural-friendly product. We could access the main product webpage to help talk people through how to log in (very useful), but the side product was banned for us. I emailed management: please unlock our own product page, it will help us help the customer and shorten our queue times. Management's response? "That's an IT decision". So I emailed IT the same thing. IT's response? "That's a management decision". Come on guys, I'm taking calls 100% of the time and I have the political power of a newt. At this same job I would work 15 minutes unpaid overtime just to finish off the paperwork for the day and leave good notes that I didn't have time for. The other calltakers thought I was deranged for working when not paid. After the above story, it's not hard to see why. Management really didn't care, and that filtered down. It's not like my colleagues were motivated achievers in the first place, but there was also no high bar set at any point, no leading by example. Next time you're angry that no notes were left in your account, realise that more likely it's a management issue. Curiously as a counterpoint, in my next job it was expected that 30% of a field technician's time was put aside for paperwork. Didn't quite work out that way, but that was the nominal benchmark (as opposed to 0% at the call centre). Clusterfucks in billing were the usual error on our side. It was interesting - the call logs off the exchange were almost always rock solid (in those cases where investigations were launched), but billing had mistakes six ways from Sunday.
- danielbarla 13y ago
  I hear you, it's a complicated problem with many sides to it (I was also involved with call centres from the software side). In my particular case, I was just disappointed with everything from the implementation of the actual free trial, their silent changes to my billing details, adding penalty fees when it was clearly their mistake, daring to deny me access during a month I'd already paid for, completely indifferent call centre agents, and lack of any response from their management when I pointed out the original problem to them (multiple times). And this was a small company who supposedly pride themselves on service - I suspect they've grown in size sufficiently to be flooded with support calls now.

vacri 13y ago

I'd also say that by the time I've waited 20 minutes, I'm a bit of an asshole The flip side of the coin is that the busiest call centres are generally for the cheapest services - and you get what you pay for. Running a support service is extremely expensive. For most services, there's usually an option where if you open your wallet wider, you get better service (often at another company), but the general public don't like that option. This type of incompetence seems to be fairly widespread these days Not just these days. I worked for the telco 9 years ago, and we had a main product and a rebadged rural-friendly product. We could access the main product webpage to help talk people through how to log in (very useful), but the side product was banned for us. I emailed management: please unlock our own product page, it will help us help the customer and shorten our queue times. Management's response? "That's an IT decision". So I emailed IT the same thing. IT's response? "That's a management decision". Come on guys, I'm taking calls 100% of the time and I have the political power of a newt. At this same job I would work 15 minutes unpaid overtime just to finish off the paperwork for the day and leave good notes that I didn't have time for. The other calltakers thought I was deranged for working when not paid. After the above story, it's not hard to see why. Management really didn't care, and that filtered down. It's not like my colleagues were motivated achievers in the first place, but there was also no high bar set at any point, no leading by example. Next time you're angry that no notes were left in your account, realise that more likely it's a management issue. Curiously as a counterpoint, in my next job it was expected that 30% of a field technician's time was put aside for paperwork. Didn't quite work out that way, but that was the nominal benchmark (as opposed to 0% at the call centre). Clusterfucks in billing were the usual error on our side. It was interesting - the call logs off the exchange were almost always rock solid (in those cases where investigations were launched), but billing had mistakes six ways from Sunday.

danielbarla 13y ago
I hear you, it's a complicated problem with many sides to it (I was also involved with call centres from the software side). In my particular case, I was just disappointed with everything from the implementation of the actual free trial, their silent changes to my billing details, adding penalty fees when it was clearly their mistake, daring to deny me access during a month I'd already paid for, completely indifferent call centre agents, and lack of any response from their management when I pointed out the original problem to them (multiple times). And this was a small company who supposedly pride themselves on service - I suspect they've grown in size sufficiently to be flooded with support calls now.