Call centre discussion

[Agent Jon]

Hi everyone

 

I've just joined the site and want to introduce myself. I work as a call centre agent and many of you will no doubt have called such a place in the course of your business. You may even have spoken to me personally at some time. Who knows..?

 

I've come to this site because of some of the comments I've had directed at me, either in relation to issues (which is fair enough) or in person (which isn't) intrigue me. It's quite obvious to me that a lot of people who phone call centres have misplaced beliefs in what we can achieve and are often frustrated in their attempts to gain satisfaction for a number of reasons. I hope I might be able to help you all understand a little better how the system works, and perhaps offer tips to get more out of it.

 

I'll be posting and commenting on issues from a professional point of view, although I may post my own opinions sometimes. I suppose I'm dipping my toe in the water, a bit. I may actually learn something that will help me to better deal with customers and in return may be able to offer those of you who read my posts to understand a little better how we interface with people, and what we can and cannot do.

 

I look forward to engaging in conversation on subjects of mutual interest.... if not necessarily from the same standpoint.

 

Best wishes.

[BankFodder]

Welcome.

 

It will be interesting to see what people have to say.

[jdes26]

What call centre?

Bank- dca-bt?????

[sillygirl1]

My main gripe with call centres is they don't actually achieve anything, other than making you even more frustrated than you are when phoning up.

 

Recent case was it took me 20 minutes to get somebody on O2 to get a manager, once they got the manager things got moving, and the previous person was a waste of time... manager admitted to me that some of the staff do not like passing calls on, particularly if they are still on probation or have had a previous warning.

 

Another call centre operative took down details which did not tally with the phone call, when the manager listened to the call they found the operative had done incorrect notes and were trying to cover another colleagues back.

 

I try and keep things to emails now as it seems more effective and there is a positive trail of what is happening over a given timeframe, something the call logs don't always reflect.

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

I think personally call center operators need to LISTEN CAREFULLY to

what a customer is saying BEFORE spouting the COMPANY SCRIPT

without further reference to the customers concerns, and should

remember the customer is NOT ALWAYS WRONG!!!!!

[LaughingGirl]

Further to what Brigadier said about scripts, I once had a call centre operative insist that I turn an NTL box "Off and on again" before he would authorise an engineer visit. Fair enough, but I'd already explained that the reason for my call was that the NTL box in question had just emitted a loud bang, blue flash and some particularly unpleasant black smoke, leaving a scorch mark up the wall behind it. In the end, I said "OK" and wandered round the living room a couple of times before coming back and telling him that nothing had happened when I'd tried switching it back on.

 

I know that your job can't always be fun, but it is SO frustrating to spend 45 minutes listening to some awful hold music only to find out that your particular query doesn't work with "The Script". There have been a few times when Sky Customer Services have left me on the verge of banging my head against a wall.

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

I had to phone a call centre yesterday re a missing/undelivered boquet

of lowers, I was staggard at the superb service and the way the matter

was dealt with the company (Serenata) immediately agreed to replace

the flowers and refund delivery charges, all done in less than 5 minutes.

We then had to phone a major high street bank regarding a supposedly

rejected cc transaction that was not actually rejected and was wrongly

charged, call duration 0700 to 0845 hrs. still not resolved:mad2: