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Hello again colleagues!
I have been away from this site for a while, but I am now back, with stories to relate.
A few years ago I was made redundant from the Civil Service. I was therefore forced to find employment elsewhere, and worked in both the private and voluntary sectors on a range of jobs all of which had their fair share of SCs.
For nine months I worked in a call centre, and it was in this job, not surprisingly, that I encountered the greatest volume of SCs. I have many stories, all of which I will relate on this site over the coming weeks and months, for your amusement and entertainment.
As call centres go, this was a good one. The company cared about its staff, and working conditions and pay were at the upper end of the scale. The company took on many campaigns on behalf of various clients, mainly charities and retailers, and the campaign I worked on was for a major UK newspaper. The job was customer service to subscribers of this paper, inbound calls and emails only. The way the subscription worked was you took out a subscription package and, instead of the paper being delivered to you, you would be sent vouchers which you could exchange for the paper at your local store. (Home delivery was possible, but only within the London area.) There were various packages all involving different combinations of products and benefits and online/tablet versions etc., and also various offers and incentives. As you can probably infer the potential for all this to go wrong was immense, i.e. customers receiving the wrong vouchers, not receiving vouchers at all, newsagents refusing to accept vouchers, and papers not being delivered to customers in the London area, drivers and delivery men not turning up, customers payments failing, customers being over- or wrongly charged, etc. etc.
The cancellation conditions were quite strict: customers had to give three months (yes, THREE MONTHS!) notice in writing to cancel. They were informed of this when they took out the subscription, and it was in the terms and conditions (albeit in very small print), but, as you can probably imagine, this didn’t stop SCs complaining about it and trying to get out of subscriptions early, etc. etc. The number of times I was threatened with legal action were without number. The first time it happened I spoke to my (excellent) team leader Liz (not her real name) about it:
‘Liz… this customer I just had says he’s going to sue me, my manager i.e. you, the company and the paper.’
Liz didn’t even say anything, just looked at me with a wide grin and a ‘nuh-uh!’ shake of her head and I simply went back to work. Threats of legal action didn’t bother me after that.
As I said I have many stories about the SCs I encountered in this job. I will split them up over several posts, as this one is long enough already!
After a week of pretty intensive and thorough training and two days listening in to calls with more experienced colleagues, I was ready to hit the phones and so one morning I went live. Call volumes weren’t high at that time and we each got between 6 to 12 calls per hour, which would take from one to ten (or sometimes more) minutes to deal with, plus time afterwards updating records on the screen. In between calls we were expected to deal with emails so overall we were kept busy but it wasn’t too onerous (except at times of crisis when we would be slammed).
So that morning I logged in and put my headset on and waited with some apprehension for my first call. And my first ever call turned out to be the angriest customer I ever dealt with! No other subsequent SC ever came close in terms of sheer titanic, apoplectic, out-of-proportion, shrieking, thundering RAGE. I thought for a time it was a wind-up, or a test; but, no, the customer was real - and was REALLY angry.
My headset beeps and I spout the usual welcome spiel: ‘Good morning welcome to [Name of paper] how can I help you? (To be honest I have completely forgotten the spiel, thank God, but it was something like that). I didn’t even get to the end of the spiel before the customer SCREAMED down the phone:
SC: WHERE ARE MY VOUCHERS? WHERE ARE MY VOUCHERS? I haven’t got my vouchers and I’ve been on hold for TWENTY MINUTES [rubbish, more like two] blargleargleaaaaaaarrghhaaaaaaaa!!!!!
ME: I’m sorry, madam, I’ll look into it for you, could you please tell me your Customer Priority Number? [This piece of bullshit, the CPN, was merely the reference number on the vouchers, but the paper was so asskissing to its middle class customer base that they gave it the fancy title of ‘Customer Priority Number.’ Ugh.]
SC: I DON’T KNOW NO CUSTOMER PRIORITY NUMBER just tell me where the hell my vouchers are! Oh my God! OH MY GOD! You people are SO incompetent! Aaargh! AAAAARGH! Aiiieeee! AAAAA!
ME: [By now in a state of shock] In… that case madam could I please have your postcode so I can look your records up on our system?
SC: Blaaa! RAAAA! Blaaaaargh! OH MY GOD! Why do you need that? Don’t you know who I am?! [Eventually she managed to blurt out her postcode through audibly grinding teeth].
ME: Thank you, madam. OK I can see from your records that your current set of vouchers runs until [date three weeks in the future], so you aren’t due to receive your next set of vouchers until [date two weeks in the future].
SC: BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! No! NO! YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! I haven’t got my vouchers! AND I NEEEED THEM NOOOOooooooooowwwwWWWW! SHRAAAAAIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
ME: Are – are you saying that you do not have your current set of vouchers?
SC: OH MY GOD! How did you get this job? I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW INCOMPETENT YOU ARE! DO YOU KNOW WHAT A CRETIN IS??!!
ME: [And yes, I was tempted to reply what you reading this are probably thinking right now] I’m sorry, madam, I am just trying to ascertain-
SC: [More screaming and gibbering, in the middle of which she hangs up, probably because she was having some sort of breakdown or her head had exploded Scanners-style.]
I had to take a five minute break, after that, my first EVER call!
Plenty more where that came from.
By the way, I am now, for the time being, back where I belong, in the Civil Service. It’s good to be home!
Your obedient servant,
Sir Humphrey
I have been away from this site for a while, but I am now back, with stories to relate.
A few years ago I was made redundant from the Civil Service. I was therefore forced to find employment elsewhere, and worked in both the private and voluntary sectors on a range of jobs all of which had their fair share of SCs.
For nine months I worked in a call centre, and it was in this job, not surprisingly, that I encountered the greatest volume of SCs. I have many stories, all of which I will relate on this site over the coming weeks and months, for your amusement and entertainment.
As call centres go, this was a good one. The company cared about its staff, and working conditions and pay were at the upper end of the scale. The company took on many campaigns on behalf of various clients, mainly charities and retailers, and the campaign I worked on was for a major UK newspaper. The job was customer service to subscribers of this paper, inbound calls and emails only. The way the subscription worked was you took out a subscription package and, instead of the paper being delivered to you, you would be sent vouchers which you could exchange for the paper at your local store. (Home delivery was possible, but only within the London area.) There were various packages all involving different combinations of products and benefits and online/tablet versions etc., and also various offers and incentives. As you can probably infer the potential for all this to go wrong was immense, i.e. customers receiving the wrong vouchers, not receiving vouchers at all, newsagents refusing to accept vouchers, and papers not being delivered to customers in the London area, drivers and delivery men not turning up, customers payments failing, customers being over- or wrongly charged, etc. etc.
The cancellation conditions were quite strict: customers had to give three months (yes, THREE MONTHS!) notice in writing to cancel. They were informed of this when they took out the subscription, and it was in the terms and conditions (albeit in very small print), but, as you can probably imagine, this didn’t stop SCs complaining about it and trying to get out of subscriptions early, etc. etc. The number of times I was threatened with legal action were without number. The first time it happened I spoke to my (excellent) team leader Liz (not her real name) about it:
‘Liz… this customer I just had says he’s going to sue me, my manager i.e. you, the company and the paper.’
Liz didn’t even say anything, just looked at me with a wide grin and a ‘nuh-uh!’ shake of her head and I simply went back to work. Threats of legal action didn’t bother me after that.
As I said I have many stories about the SCs I encountered in this job. I will split them up over several posts, as this one is long enough already!
After a week of pretty intensive and thorough training and two days listening in to calls with more experienced colleagues, I was ready to hit the phones and so one morning I went live. Call volumes weren’t high at that time and we each got between 6 to 12 calls per hour, which would take from one to ten (or sometimes more) minutes to deal with, plus time afterwards updating records on the screen. In between calls we were expected to deal with emails so overall we were kept busy but it wasn’t too onerous (except at times of crisis when we would be slammed).
So that morning I logged in and put my headset on and waited with some apprehension for my first call. And my first ever call turned out to be the angriest customer I ever dealt with! No other subsequent SC ever came close in terms of sheer titanic, apoplectic, out-of-proportion, shrieking, thundering RAGE. I thought for a time it was a wind-up, or a test; but, no, the customer was real - and was REALLY angry.
My headset beeps and I spout the usual welcome spiel: ‘Good morning welcome to [Name of paper] how can I help you? (To be honest I have completely forgotten the spiel, thank God, but it was something like that). I didn’t even get to the end of the spiel before the customer SCREAMED down the phone:
SC: WHERE ARE MY VOUCHERS? WHERE ARE MY VOUCHERS? I haven’t got my vouchers and I’ve been on hold for TWENTY MINUTES [rubbish, more like two] blargleargleaaaaaaarrghhaaaaaaaa!!!!!
ME: I’m sorry, madam, I’ll look into it for you, could you please tell me your Customer Priority Number? [This piece of bullshit, the CPN, was merely the reference number on the vouchers, but the paper was so asskissing to its middle class customer base that they gave it the fancy title of ‘Customer Priority Number.’ Ugh.]
SC: I DON’T KNOW NO CUSTOMER PRIORITY NUMBER just tell me where the hell my vouchers are! Oh my God! OH MY GOD! You people are SO incompetent! Aaargh! AAAAARGH! Aiiieeee! AAAAA!
ME: [By now in a state of shock] In… that case madam could I please have your postcode so I can look your records up on our system?
SC: Blaaa! RAAAA! Blaaaaargh! OH MY GOD! Why do you need that? Don’t you know who I am?! [Eventually she managed to blurt out her postcode through audibly grinding teeth].
ME: Thank you, madam. OK I can see from your records that your current set of vouchers runs until [date three weeks in the future], so you aren’t due to receive your next set of vouchers until [date two weeks in the future].
SC: BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! No! NO! YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! I haven’t got my vouchers! AND I NEEEED THEM NOOOOooooooooowwwwWWWW! SHRAAAAAIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
ME: Are – are you saying that you do not have your current set of vouchers?
SC: OH MY GOD! How did you get this job? I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW INCOMPETENT YOU ARE! DO YOU KNOW WHAT A CRETIN IS??!!
ME: [And yes, I was tempted to reply what you reading this are probably thinking right now] I’m sorry, madam, I am just trying to ascertain-
SC: [More screaming and gibbering, in the middle of which she hangs up, probably because she was having some sort of breakdown or her head had exploded Scanners-style.]
I had to take a five minute break, after that, my first EVER call!
Plenty more where that came from.
By the way, I am now, for the time being, back where I belong, in the Civil Service. It’s good to be home!
Your obedient servant,
Sir Humphrey
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