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In the not so mystical land of Callcentra there comes a time that all its denizens dread. The Dark Days are upon us. January. The time when insurance policies change and call volume skyrockets and all tempers are short. 
Instead of trying to break it into individual tales I am going to address the most common forms of SC I run into. Polite providers who call and happen to have these complaints excluded of course.
It takes too long to get a person!!!
Here we have too many tales to mention. I am but an order entry representative. I can take a call, place an order for glasses, look up an existing order, or cancel an order. I can not:
Look up benefits
Explain benefits
Speak with members (I talk to the doctor's offices)
Issue/void/extend/locate authorizations
Look up a patient by their id number or name.
For the things above people do need to speak with the other department. The wait to get to a rep in January is roughly 20 - 25 minutes. Why? Because Every. Single. Rep. Is. On. A. Call. And there are 60 people waiting to get to a representative. Please stop calling my line just to bitch that you don't want to use the IVR or internet for something and it takes too long to get to a person. This accomplishes nothing but tie up my line for someone else that actually needs me.
Why is it taking so long to get my order!!!!eleventy!!!
Because let us do a bit of math here my snowflake darling. I am but one representative. I am handling (all on my lonesome) upwards of 90 calls a day. This is the yearly average per day per rep. Right now it is higher. If I only take one order per call (most of the time it is multiple orders, but we'll keep the math easy) that's 90 individual custom orders I'm placing to the lab every day.
Now. Let's multiply that by the roughly 150 representatives we have that do my job. That brings us up to 13500 individual custom orders going to our two labs every day. This is not counting orders placed via fax, mail, and internet. And this is assuming every rep only takes one order per call. Every. Day. For over a month now.
So long story short, no I can not 'hurry the job up' no I do not care that you've been waiting for a week. And no I will not flag you to go to the head of the line. Put on your big girl panties and deal.
But that isn't fair!
The one I had that sticks out in my mind from today was a lady who wanted the uber ultra special anti-reflective coating on her patient's lenses. The conversation went thusly:
Me: Ok ma'am I do see the patient is not eligible for ultra anti-reflective coating. The group she has our insurance through will not allow it. The best she can have this slightly less awesome but still good AR.
SC: NOT GOOD ENOUGH! Dr. said she neeeeeeeds uberspecial AR! She had the other stuff last time and hated it!
Me: I am sorry ma'am but her group Will Not allow it. I Can Not order it, the system will not allow me too.
Rinse lather repeat for 10 minutes or so. Before SC determines if she can't have the bestest AR ever then she doesn't want it at all and I am a big mean doo doo head.
you all suck.
Believe me. I know.
I need a supervisor
So my "favorite" call from today. I am not a supervisor. I am in no way shape or form close to being a supervisor. But somehow I got looped to answering the phone as a supervisor. I got to deal with a doctor jumping down my throat because there were no supervisors available for me to give the call too.
Done now, recounting is just enraging.
Instead of trying to break it into individual tales I am going to address the most common forms of SC I run into. Polite providers who call and happen to have these complaints excluded of course.
It takes too long to get a person!!!
Here we have too many tales to mention. I am but an order entry representative. I can take a call, place an order for glasses, look up an existing order, or cancel an order. I can not:
Look up benefits
Explain benefits
Speak with members (I talk to the doctor's offices)
Issue/void/extend/locate authorizations
Look up a patient by their id number or name.
For the things above people do need to speak with the other department. The wait to get to a rep in January is roughly 20 - 25 minutes. Why? Because Every. Single. Rep. Is. On. A. Call. And there are 60 people waiting to get to a representative. Please stop calling my line just to bitch that you don't want to use the IVR or internet for something and it takes too long to get to a person. This accomplishes nothing but tie up my line for someone else that actually needs me.
Why is it taking so long to get my order!!!!eleventy!!!
Because let us do a bit of math here my snowflake darling. I am but one representative. I am handling (all on my lonesome) upwards of 90 calls a day. This is the yearly average per day per rep. Right now it is higher. If I only take one order per call (most of the time it is multiple orders, but we'll keep the math easy) that's 90 individual custom orders I'm placing to the lab every day.
Now. Let's multiply that by the roughly 150 representatives we have that do my job. That brings us up to 13500 individual custom orders going to our two labs every day. This is not counting orders placed via fax, mail, and internet. And this is assuming every rep only takes one order per call. Every. Day. For over a month now.
So long story short, no I can not 'hurry the job up' no I do not care that you've been waiting for a week. And no I will not flag you to go to the head of the line. Put on your big girl panties and deal.
But that isn't fair!
The one I had that sticks out in my mind from today was a lady who wanted the uber ultra special anti-reflective coating on her patient's lenses. The conversation went thusly:
Me: Ok ma'am I do see the patient is not eligible for ultra anti-reflective coating. The group she has our insurance through will not allow it. The best she can have this slightly less awesome but still good AR.
SC: NOT GOOD ENOUGH! Dr. said she neeeeeeeds uberspecial AR! She had the other stuff last time and hated it!
Me: I am sorry ma'am but her group Will Not allow it. I Can Not order it, the system will not allow me too.
Rinse lather repeat for 10 minutes or so. Before SC determines if she can't have the bestest AR ever then she doesn't want it at all and I am a big mean doo doo head.
you all suck.
Believe me. I know.
I need a supervisor
So my "favorite" call from today. I am not a supervisor. I am in no way shape or form close to being a supervisor. But somehow I got looped to answering the phone as a supervisor. I got to deal with a doctor jumping down my throat because there were no supervisors available for me to give the call too.
Done now, recounting is just enraging.
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