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It's been a long time since I posted an SC story.
It's because I now work for a major data service provider that in our department only deals with corporate and business clients. I haven't really had many SCs because to be honest, if they complain about something it's usually a legit gripe.
This happened last week. Previous CW to me sent a tech out to customer's premises because of an issue with his internet. The particular customer had our same-day service contract.
He called back after 5PM and got me wondering why the tech hasn't shown up yet. I see that it was put in for the day after. I explain to him that I'm going to call the department that handles the onsite techs and then call him back when I get an answer (As the wait times for that unit tend to be long). He says OK he'll await my call back.
When I call the department, the very helpful rep does some sleuthing and discovers that there was a database glitch and put the service call in as a next day by mistake instead of a same day. Uh oh.
The rep escalated the call to see if any techs were still available but advised me that because it's past 5 PM there are NO guarantees.
I call the guy back and get a busy signal. Every time I tried. Side note, shouldn't a business have some sort of call waiting / answering service?
I leave notes for the next person to tell the customer exactly what happened and we'll try our best to get someone out, but as it's after 5PM there is no guarantee that we can actually do it.
Now mind you, up to this point he wasn't an SC....
....Until he got one of my fellow CW's, who told me all about it as it became a supervisor escalation.
Basically, we didn't lie to him, we told him the truth about why no tech came out today. He was upset (understandable), and my CW had a bit of a malfunctioning brain-to-mouth filter when she said:
"I understand sir, but if you would have called sooner instead of well past 5PM the dispatching crew might have better luck in getting someone out today."
Well, that's actually true. The customer's response was something like, "It's not my job to make sure that you are doing yours" (Also true).
That's when the BIG gimme grab happened. I can totally understand if he wanted a service credit or whatever but he wanted us to reimburse him for lost revenue to the tune of 5,000 dollars!
My CW told him we are not responsible for loss of income and says so right in the contract he signed, he yelled and demanded a supervisor. Supervisor basically told him to pound sand on the 5 grand, and also said to pound sand when the customer wanted the agent written up for "blaming him for an error we caused."
I can totally get this guy's gripe, but instead of demanding 5 grand.... how about getting a backup service that you can fall back on?
It's because I now work for a major data service provider that in our department only deals with corporate and business clients. I haven't really had many SCs because to be honest, if they complain about something it's usually a legit gripe.
This happened last week. Previous CW to me sent a tech out to customer's premises because of an issue with his internet. The particular customer had our same-day service contract.
He called back after 5PM and got me wondering why the tech hasn't shown up yet. I see that it was put in for the day after. I explain to him that I'm going to call the department that handles the onsite techs and then call him back when I get an answer (As the wait times for that unit tend to be long). He says OK he'll await my call back.
When I call the department, the very helpful rep does some sleuthing and discovers that there was a database glitch and put the service call in as a next day by mistake instead of a same day. Uh oh.
The rep escalated the call to see if any techs were still available but advised me that because it's past 5 PM there are NO guarantees. I call the guy back and get a busy signal. Every time I tried. Side note, shouldn't a business have some sort of call waiting / answering service?
I leave notes for the next person to tell the customer exactly what happened and we'll try our best to get someone out, but as it's after 5PM there is no guarantee that we can actually do it.
Now mind you, up to this point he wasn't an SC....
....Until he got one of my fellow CW's, who told me all about it as it became a supervisor escalation.
Basically, we didn't lie to him, we told him the truth about why no tech came out today. He was upset (understandable), and my CW had a bit of a malfunctioning brain-to-mouth filter when she said:
"I understand sir, but if you would have called sooner instead of well past 5PM the dispatching crew might have better luck in getting someone out today."
Well, that's actually true. The customer's response was something like, "It's not my job to make sure that you are doing yours" (Also true).
That's when the BIG gimme grab happened. I can totally understand if he wanted a service credit or whatever but he wanted us to reimburse him for lost revenue to the tune of 5,000 dollars!
My CW told him we are not responsible for loss of income and says so right in the contract he signed, he yelled and demanded a supervisor. Supervisor basically told him to pound sand on the 5 grand, and also said to pound sand when the customer wanted the agent written up for "blaming him for an error we caused."
I can totally get this guy's gripe, but instead of demanding 5 grand.... how about getting a backup service that you can fall back on?
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