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...and I'm back. Yes, my super triumphant return is NOWZ! It's good to be back, so first let me explain why I was gone. On late January of 2010, after nearly 3 years of service, Time Warner Cable fired me from my Tier 3 Advanced Technical Support Representative position, literally just a hair under the engineering department, for transferring 6 billing calls to the billing department in a week. 
After nearly all of 2010 searching for IT, programming, advanced technical support, computer repair, help desk, and various other related jobs, I got hired! For customer service! Over the phone! For one of their major competitors! Excitement!
In any case, I deliberated several times about posting here, but without any true Internet access at work, because I'm just some lowly peon that wouldn't know what an Internet was if it kicked me in the ass dontchaknow (despite me interviewing for and possibly getting an IT position there now) coupled with my bad memory and, well...what were we talking about? 
ANYWAY...here are our typical customers.
"I'm supposed to pay for that?"
I had a customer tonight that attempted this argument on me. It didn't work. She stated she had no idea her account was set up for automatic payment. For over a year. And thought maybe she was getting free TV.
Naturally, my sympathy meter reached a whopping zero as I explained to her that she should have at least gotten e-mails and could easily have checked her account online.
She ended up saying something stupid about her contract, which is a buzz word for me, and I immediately transferred her to an executive, who sounded like she was ready to laugh her ass off when I explained the situation, close to laughter myself.
"I'm old and have no idea what you're saying, also I'm probably an asshole, actually."
I feel for old people. I really do. HD, 1080p, HDMI, progressive scan...seriously, what the hell is this stuff? I mean, I have multiple IT certifications, a bachelors in programming...and there's a bunch of TV stuffs I just can't keep up with 100%. I certainly don't expect a senior citizen to keep up with it any better. But here's where they lose me: when they can't operate a remote. At all.
I understand if you don't know where the PIP, mute, mode, or "make me a goddamn coffee" buttons are (boy I wish there was a button for that), but the power button? The volume buttons? Channel up and down? Uh uh. You are more than likely a couch potato calling in because you're tired of your remote taking more than half a second to do something, so you aren't fooling me.
And if you really don't know how to operate a remote, then...well, then I REALLY feel for you.
"I'm young and don't care what you're saying, also I'm definitely an asshole, actually."
We all deal with these punks and (hopefully) attempt to not be them. The snot-nosed little punks that call up and try to ride the "I'm a customer so NYAH" ticket as long as possible without being verbally beaten across the ass over your knee. Most of these assholes sound like they're maybe all of 16, but somehow have an account.
They will get upset over anything, and I mean ANYTHING, just because they can. Bill is $5 off? PISSED. Partial signal loss in the middle of a hailstorm? PISSED. Technician is scheduled between 12 and 5 and the tech isn't there by 4? PISSED. I mean, really, most of the time these guys are PISSED about something relatively negligible or annoying on a fairly minor scale...and I just don't get it.
Once again, I have no sympathy for these guys. Often I treat them like the children they are and get them off my line as quickly as possible.
"I'm foreign and we have no idea what each other are saying, also I'm impatient, guaranteed, every time."
Does your name have 20 syllables? Then you probably have an accent! I'm attempting to say this without sounding horribly racist, so I apologize in advance for any possible offense. I don't have a problem with foreigners, people with accents, or what some refer to as "brown people." I don't, I really don't.
I had an Indian call tonight that had no accent whatsoever and if I didn't see his name, I honestly would never have known. No, what I'm referring to is the people that start the conversation with "please get me a Hindi agent," I respond with the fact that I'll put them on a callback list and it may take up to 24 hours, then somehow they know how to speak English...only they really don't...and they really don't understand it either.
Waiting sucks, but how am I supposed to help you if we can't understand each other?!
"I'm surprisingly normal, ONLY NOT."
My wife uses this tactic and I'm not a fan. The call starts normally. The customer is calm, patient, polite, and mild mannered. Suddenly, as soon as they hear anything they don't like or once they get to a certain point in the conversation, HOLY CRAP HULK SMASH. Then they become normal again, as if to intimidate me.
Sir and/or madam, I am not intimidated. Annoyed, but not scared in the least. You disgust me with this obvious manipulative tactic. Maybe it's because I worked security for 5 years, I don't know. People love to try this one with me and I just let them vent. When they're done, they're shocked when I completely RE-rail the topic back to my original sentence, which they thought they'd derailed several minutes back.
This doesn't just take the wind out of their sails, it completely exhausts them until I completely direct the conversation where I want it to go. So really, these calls are pretty easy.
"Get me a supervisor."
Here's how this works. You called me because of X. I am agent Y. I can offer many solutions, but you'd rather have supervisor Z. Supervisor Z doesn't like you, but he LOVES me. What do you think is going to happen if I, agent Y, tell him that reason X is buckets and you're a moron? Oh that's right, he'll take the call, make you feel like an idiot, and you'll eventually hang up.
So instead, I apologize for whatever X might be, verify your account, read the notes while you vent, attempt to calm you down with my soothing voice which doesn't sound at all like an adolescent redneck struggling with puberty, and one of two things happen. One, your issue is resolved, totally and completely, in a way you didn't expect, and you thank me.
Two, you get my supervisor and get buckets.
"The last agent, F Head, promised this. YOU must honor it!"
I am a highly trusted agent. Having been there just shy of a year, I have been trusted with delinquent billing, high tier customers, partnered accounts, brand new customers, and now, the ever dreaded repeat queue. Here's the thing. We hire a lot of idiots. I mean, a LOT of idiots. When I don't know something, I ask, and I'm always polite, unless the situation demands I shift gears and think outside the box.
So when an ever-delinquent customer tells me that the last agent said she was good to go for HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Starz, Encore, Epix, the platinum package, and so many other things for FREE...I tend to be both a bit leery and annoyed all at once. Being the bearer of bad news is never easy, but doing so because the previous agent or previous SEVERAL agents were idiots? Never fun.
In those situations I'm apologetic, serious, and honest. I offer them what I can, but explained the last agent was wrong and that information WILL be sent to his supervisor (it probably won't, but most customers are spiteful, so it shifts the blame a little more, so there is that). In these situations, I'm more angry at the agents than I am at the customers because sure, we've got some shady types, but come on!
Anyway, that's about it for now, but it's good to be back!
After nearly all of 2010 searching for IT, programming, advanced technical support, computer repair, help desk, and various other related jobs, I got hired! For customer service! Over the phone! For one of their major competitors! Excitement!
In any case, I deliberated several times about posting here, but without any true Internet access at work, because I'm just some lowly peon that wouldn't know what an Internet was if it kicked me in the ass dontchaknow (despite me interviewing for and possibly getting an IT position there now) coupled with my bad memory and, well...what were we talking about? ANYWAY...here are our typical customers.
"I'm supposed to pay for that?"
I had a customer tonight that attempted this argument on me. It didn't work. She stated she had no idea her account was set up for automatic payment. For over a year. And thought maybe she was getting free TV.
Naturally, my sympathy meter reached a whopping zero as I explained to her that she should have at least gotten e-mails and could easily have checked her account online.She ended up saying something stupid about her contract, which is a buzz word for me, and I immediately transferred her to an executive, who sounded like she was ready to laugh her ass off when I explained the situation, close to laughter myself.
"I'm old and have no idea what you're saying, also I'm probably an asshole, actually."
I feel for old people. I really do. HD, 1080p, HDMI, progressive scan...seriously, what the hell is this stuff? I mean, I have multiple IT certifications, a bachelors in programming...and there's a bunch of TV stuffs I just can't keep up with 100%. I certainly don't expect a senior citizen to keep up with it any better. But here's where they lose me: when they can't operate a remote. At all.
I understand if you don't know where the PIP, mute, mode, or "make me a goddamn coffee" buttons are (boy I wish there was a button for that), but the power button? The volume buttons? Channel up and down? Uh uh. You are more than likely a couch potato calling in because you're tired of your remote taking more than half a second to do something, so you aren't fooling me.
And if you really don't know how to operate a remote, then...well, then I REALLY feel for you.
"I'm young and don't care what you're saying, also I'm definitely an asshole, actually."
We all deal with these punks and (hopefully) attempt to not be them. The snot-nosed little punks that call up and try to ride the "I'm a customer so NYAH" ticket as long as possible without being verbally beaten across the ass over your knee. Most of these assholes sound like they're maybe all of 16, but somehow have an account.
They will get upset over anything, and I mean ANYTHING, just because they can. Bill is $5 off? PISSED. Partial signal loss in the middle of a hailstorm? PISSED. Technician is scheduled between 12 and 5 and the tech isn't there by 4? PISSED. I mean, really, most of the time these guys are PISSED about something relatively negligible or annoying on a fairly minor scale...and I just don't get it.
Once again, I have no sympathy for these guys. Often I treat them like the children they are and get them off my line as quickly as possible.
"I'm foreign and we have no idea what each other are saying, also I'm impatient, guaranteed, every time."
Does your name have 20 syllables? Then you probably have an accent! I'm attempting to say this without sounding horribly racist, so I apologize in advance for any possible offense. I don't have a problem with foreigners, people with accents, or what some refer to as "brown people." I don't, I really don't.
I had an Indian call tonight that had no accent whatsoever and if I didn't see his name, I honestly would never have known. No, what I'm referring to is the people that start the conversation with "please get me a Hindi agent," I respond with the fact that I'll put them on a callback list and it may take up to 24 hours, then somehow they know how to speak English...only they really don't...and they really don't understand it either.
Waiting sucks, but how am I supposed to help you if we can't understand each other?!
"I'm surprisingly normal, ONLY NOT."
My wife uses this tactic and I'm not a fan. The call starts normally. The customer is calm, patient, polite, and mild mannered. Suddenly, as soon as they hear anything they don't like or once they get to a certain point in the conversation, HOLY CRAP HULK SMASH. Then they become normal again, as if to intimidate me.
Sir and/or madam, I am not intimidated. Annoyed, but not scared in the least. You disgust me with this obvious manipulative tactic. Maybe it's because I worked security for 5 years, I don't know. People love to try this one with me and I just let them vent. When they're done, they're shocked when I completely RE-rail the topic back to my original sentence, which they thought they'd derailed several minutes back.
This doesn't just take the wind out of their sails, it completely exhausts them until I completely direct the conversation where I want it to go. So really, these calls are pretty easy.
"Get me a supervisor."
Here's how this works. You called me because of X. I am agent Y. I can offer many solutions, but you'd rather have supervisor Z. Supervisor Z doesn't like you, but he LOVES me. What do you think is going to happen if I, agent Y, tell him that reason X is buckets and you're a moron? Oh that's right, he'll take the call, make you feel like an idiot, and you'll eventually hang up.
So instead, I apologize for whatever X might be, verify your account, read the notes while you vent, attempt to calm you down with my soothing voice which doesn't sound at all like an adolescent redneck struggling with puberty, and one of two things happen. One, your issue is resolved, totally and completely, in a way you didn't expect, and you thank me.
Two, you get my supervisor and get buckets.
"The last agent, F Head, promised this. YOU must honor it!"
I am a highly trusted agent. Having been there just shy of a year, I have been trusted with delinquent billing, high tier customers, partnered accounts, brand new customers, and now, the ever dreaded repeat queue. Here's the thing. We hire a lot of idiots. I mean, a LOT of idiots. When I don't know something, I ask, and I'm always polite, unless the situation demands I shift gears and think outside the box.
So when an ever-delinquent customer tells me that the last agent said she was good to go for HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Starz, Encore, Epix, the platinum package, and so many other things for FREE...I tend to be both a bit leery and annoyed all at once. Being the bearer of bad news is never easy, but doing so because the previous agent or previous SEVERAL agents were idiots? Never fun.
In those situations I'm apologetic, serious, and honest. I offer them what I can, but explained the last agent was wrong and that information WILL be sent to his supervisor (it probably won't, but most customers are spiteful, so it shifts the blame a little more, so there is that). In these situations, I'm more angry at the agents than I am at the customers because sure, we've got some shady types, but come on!
Anyway, that's about it for now, but it's good to be back!
Even though I lurk mostly myself, I enjoy to read your stories.
Yeah, I'm really happy I'm not working there anymore. They fired me 2 weeks later and tried to claim gross incompetence to cockblock my unemployment, which didn't work as "the work required of stated employee was never part of original position, nor was it signed off on." 
"I'm here, sir."
"...sir, I haven't gone anywhere. What do you need help with?"
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