I work for a very large corporation. We have many, many divisions, including some that deal with cellular products, and some that deal with radio/infrastructure equipment. Some of them overlap. We have many many call centers, as a result, and each call center only handles certain things.
As of late, phone calls for one of our newest and most popular phone/PDA devices have been getting routed (thanks to a call center in Latin America, we've discovered) to our call center. The call center I am in deals only with radios and infrastructure equipment, and only with dispatch and tech support. We absolutely cannot do anything to help someone with a cellular issue, and we cannot get them any information without transferring the call.
I'm always terribly apologetic with these people, offer them the phone number with extension that gets them directly to the support for the specific phone, and they're still angry. I know it sucks to get transferred around, and when you finally get an agent who speaks good English, to find out they can't help you, but still, it isn't my fault, and I'm doing the best I can!
I've noticed a few trends lately, that I wanted to share:
1) People call in, and after I spit out my greeting, launch into a 5 minute tirade about the problems they're having with their phones. When they finally stop ranting, I explain that I can't help them and will have to transfer them, and they are angry that I "allowed" them to tell me the whole story and wasted their time.
2) Because of 1, I've started politely cutting people off once the name of the phone comes out of their mouth to inform them I can't help them, and they either get mad that I interrupted them, or seem to believe, even though I just told them I have *nothing* to do with cellular, that somehow once I hear their story, I'll be able to help.
3) I always offer these callers the correct phone number, but most of them won't take it, stating that they already have the number. Well, that number you have got you to me, which is not the right place.
4) When I put the customer on hold, then work my way through the phone tree to get them an agent on the line, they usually get impatient and hang up right around the time I get someone on the line. They usually call back, get me again, and do the same thing, again refusing to take the number so they can call on their own.
Apparently they've got the issue mostly resolved, and the calls have died down from 10-20 a day to 1-2 a day, which is better, but still frustrating. I just hate that I can't help them beyond transferring them, and I feel bad that our phone trees suck so badly that things like this happen.
/rant. Just needed to vent!
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