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Well I finally left the big cable company and started a new job in another call center. However since I am dealing with employees as opposed to entitlement customers and old people with HD TVs it is as much less stressful environment. No more sales goals.
Moronic Policies
Sales Goals
You get in trouble if you do not have atleast 4 customers that connect in a month period. Connect as in customers that do not cancel their order. Even though by the average you would most likely get 4 but those of us not good at selling or are unlucky and get pissed off people or when theres 400 calls in the queue due to outages sales are going to suck. We now technically will get put on a performance plan IF customers decide they do not want it after placing the order with you.
30 minute return call
Before we could call the dispatch line to find out the ETA on a tech or to get a tech to return if services were not working completely after a installation or a trouble call. Now we are no longer allowed to do that we have to fill out a form that gets sent to the field to call the customer back in 30minutes for a eta or the tech to return. This policy was tried before and was dropped but they brought it back. We get tons and tons of complaints about it yet theres nothing we can do about it. There has been a customer that called in for an eta atleast 5 times and I finally get him around 8pm when its not even possible for the tech to be there and I get the lovely fun time of telling him that.
Punishing a Rep for trying to help a customer
I was written up on for trying to help a customer that had no services working. I was told I was not allowed to call the customer back to verify services were working. I called the Tier 3 to try and call the customer and verify services were working. The customers phone disconnected while waiting. I felt it would be horrible for me to just stop working on the issue. So I remained on the line to Tier 3 after the customer dropped. I got yelled at and suspended with pay for it. Apparently they called it call avoidance.
More work to do but not more time to do it in
We are now going to be placed on a performance plan if our average handle time is above 8minutes. We are expected to put in a ticket system, if we go by the steps from memory its bad so we have to take through every single step. Deal with customers that can't navigate a simple website. So in reality we are given more work to do and not given more time to do it in.
Provisioning Modems
Our internet service modems on occassion will lose their registration status and need to be provisioned, strange occurences but it happens. Tier 3 used to have the ability to resolve it and you could call them and get it done and the customer off the phone within about 5 minutes. Now you have to email or message a sup and wait for them to actually respond and then get it fixed all the while increasing your handletime which you get punished for.
Outsourcers are NOT the solution
We have outsourced call centers that provide backup for calls. I took a call from a outsourcer that told me a customer was having an issue with making or receiving collect calls. Usually its a problem with correction facilities. I thought I would ask a simple question that would allow the rep to tell the customer and it could end the call right then and there without a transfer. The outsourcers response to the question of what kind of collect calls? "We do not ask those kinds of questions". Even worse are the ones that say one moment as if going to find out the question you asked only to transfer the customer without you getting any warning till you hear Hello?? on the line. I decided at one point they are complete idiots and that do not bother to try to do anything.
Performance Plan - You do not fix the problem in 30 days or your fired.
Onto the calls...
CL: Crazy Lady
Me: Yours truly
Me: Greeting spiel
CL: My TV has no picture at all
Me: I am sorry to hear that let me check if there are any problems in your area.
*few moments later*
Me: I am sorry but there is an outage in your area. We are currently doing a Video On Demand upgrade in your area and that some customers are down due to this. Notices were sent out for the date of this scheduled downtime.
CL: Well I never received any notice at all.
Me: I am sorry to hear that but there is no eta on the time line of when services will be restored.
CL: ETA? What does that mean?
Me: Estimated Time of Arrival, I know its an analogy.
CL: So cable is no having to do with airlines.
Me: No I was just merely making an analogy.
CL: *ranting making fun of what I said etc and complaining about services out blah blah*
Me: I am sorry mam but there is nothing I can do for you at this time.
CL: Now your going to ask me if there is anythign else I can do for you?
Me: "Wtf? Since when are you telling me what to do now" Alright what can I do for you?
CL: Do not interrupt me...*insert 10 minute rant about services being out and its so inconvenient*
Me: Ending Spiel
I am going to leave about 4 hours later, and guess who calls back and gets another rep on my team as a last call. This lady, not only that she makes fun of the term ETA and wants to cancel her service. I will admit I did not check it cause she was in an outage but it turns out her box is off. I made the mistake of expecting this lady to be smarter than a bag of turnips but apparently I had too much faith.
The other guy was the guy that called about some unreleated issue. The funny thing I noticed was his account notes which I lost when my flash drive died. But in reality this guy had called in to cancel so many times that he was told by Retention that hes no longer getting discounts everytime he tries to cancel to get it.
Sorry about the long post but it was a long time coming.
Moronic Policies
Sales Goals
You get in trouble if you do not have atleast 4 customers that connect in a month period. Connect as in customers that do not cancel their order. Even though by the average you would most likely get 4 but those of us not good at selling or are unlucky and get pissed off people or when theres 400 calls in the queue due to outages sales are going to suck. We now technically will get put on a performance plan IF customers decide they do not want it after placing the order with you.
30 minute return call
Before we could call the dispatch line to find out the ETA on a tech or to get a tech to return if services were not working completely after a installation or a trouble call. Now we are no longer allowed to do that we have to fill out a form that gets sent to the field to call the customer back in 30minutes for a eta or the tech to return. This policy was tried before and was dropped but they brought it back. We get tons and tons of complaints about it yet theres nothing we can do about it. There has been a customer that called in for an eta atleast 5 times and I finally get him around 8pm when its not even possible for the tech to be there and I get the lovely fun time of telling him that.
Punishing a Rep for trying to help a customer
I was written up on for trying to help a customer that had no services working. I was told I was not allowed to call the customer back to verify services were working. I called the Tier 3 to try and call the customer and verify services were working. The customers phone disconnected while waiting. I felt it would be horrible for me to just stop working on the issue. So I remained on the line to Tier 3 after the customer dropped. I got yelled at and suspended with pay for it. Apparently they called it call avoidance.
More work to do but not more time to do it in
We are now going to be placed on a performance plan if our average handle time is above 8minutes. We are expected to put in a ticket system, if we go by the steps from memory its bad so we have to take through every single step. Deal with customers that can't navigate a simple website. So in reality we are given more work to do and not given more time to do it in.
Provisioning Modems
Our internet service modems on occassion will lose their registration status and need to be provisioned, strange occurences but it happens. Tier 3 used to have the ability to resolve it and you could call them and get it done and the customer off the phone within about 5 minutes. Now you have to email or message a sup and wait for them to actually respond and then get it fixed all the while increasing your handletime which you get punished for.
Outsourcers are NOT the solution
We have outsourced call centers that provide backup for calls. I took a call from a outsourcer that told me a customer was having an issue with making or receiving collect calls. Usually its a problem with correction facilities. I thought I would ask a simple question that would allow the rep to tell the customer and it could end the call right then and there without a transfer. The outsourcers response to the question of what kind of collect calls? "We do not ask those kinds of questions". Even worse are the ones that say one moment as if going to find out the question you asked only to transfer the customer without you getting any warning till you hear Hello?? on the line. I decided at one point they are complete idiots and that do not bother to try to do anything.
Performance Plan - You do not fix the problem in 30 days or your fired.
Onto the calls...
CL: Crazy Lady
Me: Yours truly
Me: Greeting spiel
CL: My TV has no picture at all
Me: I am sorry to hear that let me check if there are any problems in your area.
*few moments later*
Me: I am sorry but there is an outage in your area. We are currently doing a Video On Demand upgrade in your area and that some customers are down due to this. Notices were sent out for the date of this scheduled downtime.
CL: Well I never received any notice at all.
Me: I am sorry to hear that but there is no eta on the time line of when services will be restored.
CL: ETA? What does that mean?
Me: Estimated Time of Arrival, I know its an analogy.
CL: So cable is no having to do with airlines.
Me: No I was just merely making an analogy.
CL: *ranting making fun of what I said etc and complaining about services out blah blah*
Me: I am sorry mam but there is nothing I can do for you at this time.
CL: Now your going to ask me if there is anythign else I can do for you?
Me: "Wtf? Since when are you telling me what to do now" Alright what can I do for you?
CL: Do not interrupt me...*insert 10 minute rant about services being out and its so inconvenient*
Me: Ending Spiel
I am going to leave about 4 hours later, and guess who calls back and gets another rep on my team as a last call. This lady, not only that she makes fun of the term ETA and wants to cancel her service. I will admit I did not check it cause she was in an outage but it turns out her box is off. I made the mistake of expecting this lady to be smarter than a bag of turnips but apparently I had too much faith.
The other guy was the guy that called about some unreleated issue. The funny thing I noticed was his account notes which I lost when my flash drive died. But in reality this guy had called in to cancel so many times that he was told by Retention that hes no longer getting discounts everytime he tries to cancel to get it.
Sorry about the long post but it was a long time coming.
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