Fess up...who called out this SC?

[SugarBeef]

Gotta love the attitude of "How dare you treat me like a human being instead of just another number with a dollar amount attached!" If I got a rep like that, I'd make sure to have her transfer me to the supervisor after I finished so I could praise her (and probably throw the sup for a loop since they're probably not used to anything besides complaints) for trying to make me feel more comfortable talking to her. But that's just me, I share the crazy opinion that people here have that employees are people too and not just drones meant to give me free stuff and should be fired if they're not bowing and scraping to my satisfaction.

[Brightglaive]

This makes me laugh. I hate to say it and no doubt this would inflame her more but she needs to be a responsible adult, not a reactive teenager. People just don't THINK!! For example, if you buy a cell phone (which incidentally is truly worth between $120-$600) and get it "FREE" with a 2-year activation, the phone company makes up what they lost on the phone through charging you for the service for 2-years. If you cancel early they recoup the cost by charging you between $150 to $400 early termination fee.

In the same vein.... when you sign up for phone service that charges for minute-by-minute overages (over the wholesale dial plan you get) and SMS text messaging on a per text message basis then.....(you probably see where I'm going here)... a responsible adult would monitor his/her own usage to make sure they were not incurring additional charges. If they were, then the one monitoring could call said phone company and change their wholesale dial plan to include more minutes or more messaging (or free messaging for that matter) BEFORE the billing cycle closes. They still pay more but they don't get charged the exorbitant fees for overages

If you use the service, then get charged and sent a bill for what you used and then call up and say, "It's 'not MY fault'!!! You didn't tell me I was over my minutes (or messaging limits)." That is NOT an excuse. Since when does any company have to monitor your usage and tell you if you go over? That is your responsibility. If you brought that argument before a judge "I didn't know!!! Nobody told me about that law!!!" He'd tell you that "Ignorance is not a defense. You did the crime, you'll do the time " (or pay the fine or both.)

Could there have been extenuating circumstances? mmmmmm.....maybe. It still doesn't absolve her of the responsibility of monitoring her own usage (or the usage of those on her plan) or the responsibility of taking care of overages in a timely manner before they become set in stone (i.e. after the bill has been printed).

I think the CSRs reaction was completely honest and tinged with humor. No suck there and no harm. Yes, the CSR could have upsold. But so what!! The customer was an EW. (she also changed her story halfway through) She ends up wanting half off her bill due to her own ignorance and the honesty from one phone agent. Right there is the real suck in this story!!!

[freeatlast]

A couple of years ago, I flew from Indiana to Tucson, AZ to spend a week with my parents who winter there. Thinking that my cellphone plan included no roaming charges, I used my phone some while out there. When I received my next bill, it was double the normal amount due to roaming charges. As a CSR, I knew how to handle the call to Cingular. I explained that I thought that my plan did not charge me for roaming. The CSR explained that my plan did not include that perk, and immediately offered to upgrade my plan. However, since I don't travel much I told her that I would wait and make that decision when my current plan ran out. She was not pushy and accepted that. She then, without my asking, told me that her job was to keep me happy so she was crediting my account for ALL of the roaming charges I had incurred. Now, I had planned to ask if they could credit half, but would not have turned all SC if she told me no. I knew after speaking to her that I was wrong. But, it never hurts to ask nicely, as most CSRs are empowered to make that type of adjustment to keep a happy customer. After we were finished, I did ask to be transferred to her supervisor so that I could give her a commendation for the way she handled the situation.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

The CSR's joke was a tad sucky, but a joke such as that one is about the least heinous crime a CSR could commit. Still, as a general rule, it's best not to joke unless you know the recipient will take it well.

That being said, the punchline fits: The OP WAS being a teenager. A snotty, spoiled one at that.

As for the person claiming to be a CSR who thinks the OP's CSR should be fired--either they really are not a CSR, or they're the CSR everybody around the call center hates.

[wolfie]

In the same vein.... when you sign up for phone service that charges for minute-by-minute overages (over the wholesale dial plan you get) and SMS text messaging on a per text message basis then.....(you probably see where I'm going here)... a responsible adult would monitor his/her own usage to make sure they were not incurring additional charges. If they were, then the one monitoring could call said phone company and change their wholesale dial plan to include more minutes or more messaging (or free messaging for that matter) BEFORE the billing cycle closes. They still pay more but they don't get charged the exorbitant fees for overages

That's not always possible. When I got my current cellphone (subscription, to replace a prepaid that couldn't be used in the U.S.), I didn't know how much I'd be calling from the U.S., and the sales rep said that I could switch between their plans at any time.

One week into the first month of service, I called to get my statistics in order to see if I should switch to the more expensive plan where U.S. roaming was included. The customer service person said they couldn't access that information for the current billing period, only for prior months.

When I got my first bill, roughly 2/3 the cost was for U.S. roaming, and when I called to change to the "North America one rate" (any call from North America to North America is the same rate) plan from the "Canada one rate" (any call to North America from Canada is the same rate), I was told that any change would take effect at the start of the next billing period.

After escalating it to a supervisor, explaining that I had tried to be pro-active but that they couldn't (or wouldn't) give me the information I needed, and that the plan I was on was clearly not the best one for me, they back-dated the change to the start of the (then-current) billing period. If they hadn't, I would have gone SC on them, and told them that when I went in to work Monday morning, my cellphone would be on a "one minute is one minute, roaming included" plan - their choice as to whether it was their service or a competitor's (with me walking away from the contract) - after all, I had picked the plan I was on based on the salesperson's assurance that I could change plans within the company at any time, and had explained that due to a change in the type of work I was doing, I didn't know what my usage pattern would be, and they clearly were intending to keep me in a plan that was useless to me.