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Since this is my first post beyond introduction, I guess I should play safe and explain what a 411 call would be like in an ideal situation. As stated in my intro thread, English is my second language, my mother tongue and the official language of the province being French. So mostly everything will just be translated from French to the best of my ability.
Automated Directory Assistance System (ADAS): Directory assistance. For English say "English". *Pause* What city please? *pause, records customer's reply* Are you requesting a residential listing? *pause* What is the name you are looking for? *pause, records, tries to find the listing by (crappy) voice recognition* One moment please.
*plays customer's details into my headset*
*BEEP*
Operator (me!): Good evening, one moment please. *types request into system, selects appropriate listing* Please hold for the number *SEND*
ADAS: The number is (123) 555-1234. I repeat, the number is (123) 555-1234.
That's how it normally goes. Normally. And I have to keep an average of <26 seconds per call from the moment I have the customer online (*BEEP*) to when I hit SEND. Not a problem when the customer has all the right info, of course. But, you guessed it, things tend to go bad way too often. Random examples, and what I sometimes wish I could say without getting fired:
As I'm about to hit SEND: "Hold on lemme get a pen".
I can't even begin to explain properly how this one pisses me off. How do you think you're going to write the number down for future reference without a f*cking pen? Another part of this that infuriates me even further is that the time it takes you to find a pen is inversely proportional to the time it took for me to find the listing you asked for. So I just sit there waiting, and of course going way above the average time I have to keep.
Me: "I'm sorry, we don't have any listing for Monster Joe's Truck'n Tow in Montreal or surroundings."
SC: "Not even on St. Catherine street?
Are you even fricking listening to me? There's no listing AT ALL by that name on any street whatsoever in the whole city and its suburbs. Nothing at all. Being more specific would only return less results and there's already none to begin with.
Me: "Can you spell the last name please?"
SC: "You's the one who went to school, you should know how to write.
If YOU had been to school, you would know that the spelling of last names is not something we learn in school.
Me: "Actually, if you already know the number and simply need someone to dial it, you need to speak to the 'zero' operator.
SC: "Transfer me."
Me: "I'm sorry but I cannot transfer your call."
SC: "I said TRANSFER MEEEEE!!!"
Me: "It is not possible for me to transfer your call. You will have to hang up and dial 0."
SC: "F*CKING TRANSFER ME RIGHT F*CKING NOW!"
Me: "There is no way for me to do that. I'm sorry. Have a nice evening. *click*"
Do you seriously think that screaming at me will magically give me the ability to do something I can't do? Also, my dear little neanderthalian, since you appear to have grasped the basic principle of using a phone, how complicated is it to hang up, take the phone again and press one single key? (On a side note, I do agree that it's pretty retarded that I can't transfer a customer to the 'zero', but the fact is I can't do it outside of very specific circumstances, and when these circumstances happen I actually ask the customer if they would like me to transfer the call.)
SC, to ADAS: "English. English! EEEEEEEEEEEENGLIIIIIIIIIIISH!!!!!!!!!111oneoneone"
Yes, the voice recognition software is a completely outdated, mostly useless piece of crap. No, screaming at a machine (or an operator for that matter) will not help it understand you any better. In fact, because the typical phone is not intended to transmit sound at a volume that makes the walls shake, screaming only distorts sounds, making you even harder to understand.
Me: "This would be on what street?"
SC: "Hold on. [speaking away from the phone] Hey Jim, what street does your dad live on again?"
Jesus. Fecking. Christ. Why oh why can't you get the info from your friend before you call us or better yet, have your friend call us himself. Also, since the phone is a rather sensitive piece of equipment, you don't need to repeat what your buddy said. When you ask your friend the same question I just asked you, and then repeat his answer to me even though I could hear it perfectly well when he replied, it more than doubles the time the call would take, making it well over the dreaded average of 26 seconds I have to keep.
Sometimes ADAS stops working, so we have to ask the questions it would ask. In this situation:
Me: "And what name in Montreal?"
SC: "Mary."
Me: "Do you know the last name?"
SC: "No. Can't you just look up all the Mary's ?"
Me: "I can't, the last name is absolutely necessary in order to perform the search. Please call us back when you have the information, you will not be billed for the current call. *click* (ending the call this fast is not typical because it's probably less courteous than my supervisor would like, but when I know he's already listened in on a batch of calls for the day I drop some niceness in favor of speed.)
In big cities like Montreal, there will most likely be over nine thousand people with the same first name. Which means 450 screens' worth of listings. Besides, many people are listed by initial + last name for privacy reasons. And to top it off, even if I wanted to go through the trouble of looking up everyone with this particular first name (or initial) until I found the one specific listing you're looking for because of course you can't remember the street either (and me wanting that much trouble is about as likely to happen as my mom is likely to start smoking crack) the system we use will only return an error message if I leave the 'last name' field empty, so trying to search without a last name will give precisely zilch.
Damn. These took longer to type than I thought they would. To be continued.
Automated Directory Assistance System (ADAS): Directory assistance. For English say "English". *Pause* What city please? *pause, records customer's reply* Are you requesting a residential listing? *pause* What is the name you are looking for? *pause, records, tries to find the listing by (crappy) voice recognition* One moment please.
*plays customer's details into my headset*
*BEEP*
Operator (me!): Good evening, one moment please. *types request into system, selects appropriate listing* Please hold for the number *SEND*
ADAS: The number is (123) 555-1234. I repeat, the number is (123) 555-1234.
That's how it normally goes. Normally. And I have to keep an average of <26 seconds per call from the moment I have the customer online (*BEEP*) to when I hit SEND. Not a problem when the customer has all the right info, of course. But, you guessed it, things tend to go bad way too often. Random examples, and what I sometimes wish I could say without getting fired:
As I'm about to hit SEND: "Hold on lemme get a pen".
I can't even begin to explain properly how this one pisses me off. How do you think you're going to write the number down for future reference without a f*cking pen? Another part of this that infuriates me even further is that the time it takes you to find a pen is inversely proportional to the time it took for me to find the listing you asked for. So I just sit there waiting, and of course going way above the average time I have to keep.
Me: "I'm sorry, we don't have any listing for Monster Joe's Truck'n Tow in Montreal or surroundings."
SC: "Not even on St. Catherine street?
Are you even fricking listening to me? There's no listing AT ALL by that name on any street whatsoever in the whole city and its suburbs. Nothing at all. Being more specific would only return less results and there's already none to begin with.
Me: "Can you spell the last name please?"
SC: "You's the one who went to school, you should know how to write.
If YOU had been to school, you would know that the spelling of last names is not something we learn in school.
Me: "Actually, if you already know the number and simply need someone to dial it, you need to speak to the 'zero' operator.
SC: "Transfer me."
Me: "I'm sorry but I cannot transfer your call."
SC: "I said TRANSFER MEEEEE!!!"
Me: "It is not possible for me to transfer your call. You will have to hang up and dial 0."
SC: "F*CKING TRANSFER ME RIGHT F*CKING NOW!"
Me: "There is no way for me to do that. I'm sorry. Have a nice evening. *click*"
Do you seriously think that screaming at me will magically give me the ability to do something I can't do? Also, my dear little neanderthalian, since you appear to have grasped the basic principle of using a phone, how complicated is it to hang up, take the phone again and press one single key? (On a side note, I do agree that it's pretty retarded that I can't transfer a customer to the 'zero', but the fact is I can't do it outside of very specific circumstances, and when these circumstances happen I actually ask the customer if they would like me to transfer the call.)
SC, to ADAS: "English. English! EEEEEEEEEEEENGLIIIIIIIIIIISH!!!!!!!!!111oneoneone"
Yes, the voice recognition software is a completely outdated, mostly useless piece of crap. No, screaming at a machine (or an operator for that matter) will not help it understand you any better. In fact, because the typical phone is not intended to transmit sound at a volume that makes the walls shake, screaming only distorts sounds, making you even harder to understand.
Me: "This would be on what street?"
SC: "Hold on. [speaking away from the phone] Hey Jim, what street does your dad live on again?"
Jesus. Fecking. Christ. Why oh why can't you get the info from your friend before you call us or better yet, have your friend call us himself. Also, since the phone is a rather sensitive piece of equipment, you don't need to repeat what your buddy said. When you ask your friend the same question I just asked you, and then repeat his answer to me even though I could hear it perfectly well when he replied, it more than doubles the time the call would take, making it well over the dreaded average of 26 seconds I have to keep.
Sometimes ADAS stops working, so we have to ask the questions it would ask. In this situation:
Me: "And what name in Montreal?"
SC: "Mary."
Me: "Do you know the last name?"
SC: "No. Can't you just look up all the Mary's ?"
Me: "I can't, the last name is absolutely necessary in order to perform the search. Please call us back when you have the information, you will not be billed for the current call. *click* (ending the call this fast is not typical because it's probably less courteous than my supervisor would like, but when I know he's already listened in on a batch of calls for the day I drop some niceness in favor of speed.)
In big cities like Montreal, there will most likely be over nine thousand people with the same first name. Which means 450 screens' worth of listings. Besides, many people are listed by initial + last name for privacy reasons. And to top it off, even if I wanted to go through the trouble of looking up everyone with this particular first name (or initial) until I found the one specific listing you're looking for because of course you can't remember the street either (and me wanting that much trouble is about as likely to happen as my mom is likely to start smoking crack) the system we use will only return an error message if I leave the 'last name' field empty, so trying to search without a last name will give precisely zilch.
Damn. These took longer to type than I thought they would. To be continued.
Welcome to the board! I like how are jobs are getting more diverse here. I think you may be the first 411 operator I've seen here...
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