At what point do you hang up?

[vloglady]

After reading so many posts regarding profanity, cussing, gay-bashing/name calling, it occurs to me a question. At what point do you just plain hang up?

I just read the posting regarding someone calling a cell phone service and wanting to cancel an account that was not theirs. The caller used every profanity in the book. Called the service person gay, etc. I personally would not have tolerated that for one second. The second a profanity came out of a person's mouth, I would thank them for calling and terminated the call.

Are we allowed to do that? I work in a nice public library, never had anything like that happen to me here. I would not stand for one word of profanity.

[Hanzoku]

It depends on the company, from everything I've read. In some you can inform them to cut out the profanity or the call will be terminated. In others, you have to take it and say 'thank you, may I please have more?'

[Dytchdoctir]

Ask your immediate supervisor. If they don't know, ask the next level up of supervision.

If that fails, call your equivalent of Human Resources and ask them.

[Dave1982]

It really depends on your company's policy. You'd have to check with your boss, but from what I gather a lot of places allow you to terminate a call once the caller escalates things to threats/insults/profanity.

[Librarian]

Working in a quiet library myself: when they use profanity, we can hang up. Don't often have it and if we do it's an occasional swearword tucked in. Us hanging up hasn't happened over the past years as far as i know though since we haven't had a real reason to.

[thehuckster]

Some companies might not have an "official" hang-up policy, but sympathetic supervisors or CSMs might allow them if a customer is especially abusive. It also depends on the circumstances.

In a place I worked at very briefly a long time ago, if a customer was swearing, yelling, or just plain unpleasant, that alone wasn't enough to disconnect a call. If, throughout that exchange you were still making progress (the customer was being cooperative, just in a rude way), then it was still your obligation to continue the call.

On the other hand, if the customer was simply abusive and counter-productive, refusing to answer questions, not listening to instructions that would satisfy their needs, making threats, and not taking a definitive 'no' for an answer, then you were perfectly entitled to either disconnect the call or escalate him to a supervisor.

SCs have the mistaken idea that there's some law or constitutional right to be abusive, and if an employee had the gall to disconnect the call, their rights were violated. Those SCs got a good reality-check where I worked.

[emax4]

Like everyone so far, I agree that it is company policy. HOWEVER, there may be some loopholes to this.

When I worked at Dish Network, our system was set up so that if the caller was calling from an phone number that was tied to an account, it would take a few seconds for that specific account to come up automatically on our screens. So if Joe Blow called in from his house, Joe Blow's account would come up on our screen and we would verify and validate their name, number, address, etc to make sure the person calling was the person on the account. It wasn't foolproof, but it saved us a lot of time on the call and was a great tool in general.

Here's the reason I'm explaining this: Let's say someone calls in and IMMEDIATELY starts cursing, name calling, etc. Your initial reaction may be to hang up.

A. If your company has software where the accounts are linked to caller ID, you may just want to wait until that account comes up in front of you. If you hang up too quickly, the called ID data may not get passed and you won't know what person called in.

B. If your company doesn't use that technology, your best bet may be to simply put the phone or headset down until the caller stops to take a breath. There may be no point in attempting to verify the caller's name, account number or the like, especially when they're cursing you out for no reason. This way you're not really listening to their abuse, they get to rant as long as they want to, and you're not getting stressed out because you can't hear them, so everybody wins.

Now take it a step further. If you get any ID automatically, write it down and start keeping a list of the abusive callers. If these calls are repetitive, you'll be prepared a head of time because you'll start to memorize their names and/or numbers. Check with your company and see if they allow notes on the account regarding customer behavior. You may be able to put "Nasty customer, please be warned, or "Very impatient and abusive. Please xfer to supe immediately when calling in", or things like that. If you don't get the caller id right away, simply wait until they stop and ask if you're there. Check with management and ask if you can reply with something along the lines that you're not there to take abuse and that you can't help them if they're yelling, cursing and are generally abusive towards your staff. Then see if you can get their phone number, account number, name, etc. And like the steps above, write it down for future use so you can keep track of abusive customers and you'll be better prepared if they call in again. Pass the info on to other reps as well so that they're not caught off guard.

I recall one incident where a Dish customer called in and wasn't yelling, but very threatening from the get go, and I had a hard time reaching out to him to resolve his issue. He actually said, "I'M GONNA GET A BULLDOZER AND DRIVE RIGHT THROUGH YOUR CALL CENTER!!!". I didn't take it personally as he was in Arizona and I was in Pennsylvania, but I knew I didn't have to take that. Our phones had a red button that, when pressed, would alert all the higher-ups in the call center and they could hear the conversation until one manager took the call. Knowing this, I coerced him by pressing the red button, then asking him, "I'm sorry. I think the phone cut out and I didn't hear that last part. What was it you said again?" to which he repeated his threat louder and clearer so that I heard it again (I heard it the first time but made up the phone cutting out part to give a few seconds for the manager to hear), but also allowed the manager to clearly hear the customer's threat as well. The FBI got called on him for terroristic threats and we never heard from that customer again. If I had hung up at the first threat, the guy would have just gotten angrier, called back, and taken his frustration on some unsuspecting CSR. But by simply delaying it a bit, I got the jerk taken out the first time.

When customers are yelling and refuse to listen to anyone but themselves, it's very difficult and trying on CSRs. Sometimes they just want a piece of good news to diffuse them and their situation, but I know it's hard to do that when they're talking and yelling over you.

[ViolaPlayer]

Most places I've worked had no official policy. So...
1) "Have I done something to personally offend you?"
This usually makes the reasonable realize they are being jerks.
2) If you continue to yell/scream/swear/abuse my cat...I will terminate this call/throw you out of the store.
3) Proceed with said hang up/removal.

I've had my moments where I wasn't so nice about it. When you chuck stuff at me, all bets are off. But for the most part, I give you an opportunity to realize you're dumb.

[barainga]

At my center we were not allowed to hang up for ANY REASON unless the caller was away for to long.

So when a customer became to abusive I simply told the agent they needed to get me or another sup to handle it. Sadly only about a third of us sups would take a call knowing we were just going to get bitched at. The general rule was a sup only takes a call if the customer asks for one.

My agents were to important to me to allow them to have to deal with that. Where they could get in trouble if they hung up, I didnt care. If my OM wanted to write me up, oh well. The only reason I didnt hang up on that call I posted about is because I knew I was making him angrier by not giving in to his crap and was kinda enjoying myself.

I had sent many agents to break in an Aux code for 'coaching' so they could compose themselves. Of course putting my agents before idiotic polices is one of the things that helped with my 'resignation' from that job. But at least I could look at myself in the mirror every morning and not be ashamed of who I saw looking back at me.

[crazylegs]

Oddly enough in my last job we didn't have too many issues with that - but reminding them who they're talking to and that calls are recorded normally sorted them out nicely

[emax4]

Maybe the company should re-evaluate their policy, maybe even increase the amount of medical coverage and benefits that they offer. It sounds like a high-stress job, so wouldn't it make sense to take more sick days to recover and go get counseling from a psychotherapist? If they won't allow you to hang up on customers that abuse you, it's only fair that they compensate for this with extra paid days off / sick days to allow for recovery.

[Seshat]

Something to bear in mind:

Many people don't know constructive ways to handle anger or frustration. Instead of being sensible or constructive, they're taking it out on you (unfair, of course).

Simply leaning back, making the occasional 'mmhmm' noise, and playing sudoku while you wait for them to settle down, might turn a bad call into a good one. They get their anger out, and you can then say 'Okay. So you're having a problem with X. We can do Y or Z about it - which do you want?'

Of course, that only works if your calls aren't timed.

[Chazzie]

At my old call center job (Which I'm pretty sure was the same job the post you had in mind was), we weren't allowed to hang up on the customer under any circumstances except for dead air calls (When there's no one on the line, pocket dial etc).

Yes, this meant I couldn't hang up on the man who said he wanted to [expletive] me.

[thatcrazyredhead]

I think at the call center I worked at the policy was that we could hang up if the customer started swearing at us. If they were just too angry and belligerant to deal with, though, I would say something like, "I'm very sorry that you've been inconvenienced. I am not the person responsible, but if you will please calm down, I will do everything I can to make it right." Nine times out of ten, the person would realize that I was not personally the cause of their misery and that they'd been out of line in yelling at me, calm down, and apologize. You had to watch out for that tenth time, though, when they would go even more berserk. Then I would just say, "I'm sorry, but if you don't calm down I can't help you at all and I'll have to end this phone call." If they persisted, I hung up.

[Gaki]

I've never worked in a call center but at my gas station they never tell you anything about the phone except the spiel that you use to answer it.

So I hang up on anyone I deem fit for it. I can pretty much say whatever I want to prank calls, scams, etc. as well. It gets entertaining when kids ask you if you sell firearms.

"Firearms? Sell them? No. Keep them under the counter to take pot shots at prank calling brats? Sure."