RennsportPhotography wrote:
That guy was a lot better at dealing with that A hole than 99.997% of people. Any body that excited and cursing that much would have been hung up on  pretty quickly.

We had one customer call about a return of a $160 item that was over a year past the return policy, out of warranty and discontinued. When told the only thing he could do was send it out for repair and he found that unacceptable and then proceeded to threaten our CSR. We called the police because we deemed the threat viable. I greeted the Police at the door and was briefing them on it when the guy drove up, obviously intoxicated and after being questioned was informed that he was being arrested for DWI. It was a beautiful thing.

That is why the company I work for doesn't list our street address on our site!   We've had some people who would have done just that!  knocking on our door and shit.  Good thing my window opens onto the top of the next buildings roof..

GK photo wrote:
they NEVER need to put you on hold. NEVER!

have you ever taken CS calls?  How would you know that?  I can think of 5 reasons of the top of my head to put someone on hold and why it is necessary.



PS.  No, we actually don't need to listen to a person cursing at us.  Not our job.

Damon Banner wrote:

That is why the company I work for doesn't list our street address on our site!   We've had some people who would have done just that!  knocking on our door and shit.  Good thing my window opens onto the top of the next buildings roof..

Punch them squawwwww Damon!

Sleepy Weasel wrote:
I was a phone CSR and supervisor, and I took pride in taking these kinds of calls and turning them into content customers. They just want someone to listen and empathize a little, but this CSR just dicked around with the guy, further pissing him off.

If someone would have helped the guy 3 hours earlier, maybe he wouldn't be so pissed. I've been on that end of it--getting jerked around for hours because no one will help you. And some people's response is to hang up on the guy? Nice.

If he's complaining about being transferred because no one answers the phone--here's an idea: DON'T TRANSFER HIM AGAIN. Immediately find someone who can help without putting him on hold. Lying that your computer system requires you to put him on hold? Uh, yeah, bullshit. Wave down a sup and handle it.

QFT.

I'd have hanged up on the guy if he made the death threat, but there were plenty of opportunities to calm the guy down and fix his problem before he got to that point.

Yes, that "the software forces me to put you on hold" line is bullshit. If need be, there's nothing to stop the rep from putting down the handset or headset (but don't put the caller on hold) in order to grab a supervisor or coworker for additional help.

de BUEN PHOTOGRAPHY wrote:
Who here hasn't lost it at least once on a CSR (that really did deserve it)?

I haven't. Not ever. Even on the ones who deserved it. Because going off on them gives them a built-in excuse to tune you out and leave the problem unresolved. Whether it's to get the problem fixed or to just mindfuck with the CSR who truly deserves a tirade, I do whatever I can to keep them on the phone.

It's easy enough to vent without precipitating a hangup or permahold:
1) It's okay to tell the CSR, "I don't believe in killing the messenger, but I'm pissed!"
2) It's okay to promise to take this all the way to their company's president if you must, but don't call CSRs names and NEVER make threats of violence.

C.C. Holdings  wrote:
What I do is usually give a passive aggressive threat "what does the Federal Trade Commission think about that practice these days"

gets favorable results for me

That's pretty good!

Orca Bay Images wrote:
I haven't. Not ever. Even on the ones who deserved it.

me neither.  I don't even get angry at telemarketers.  I don't typically cut them off either.  I wait for them to finish their sentence then tell them I'm not interested. 

Some people think they are entitled to yell and scream and CSRs.  They are the same people who claim that customer service is crap.  seems some customers are crap to me.

Orca Bay Images wrote:
I haven't. Not ever. Even on the ones who deserved it. Because going off on them gives them a built-in excuse to tune you out and leave the problem unresolved. Whether it's to get the problem fixed or to just mindfuck with the CSR who truly deserves a tirade, I do whatever I can to keep them on the phone.

It's easy enough to vent without precipitating a hangup or permahold:
1) It's okay to tell the CSR, "I don't believe in killing the messenger, but I'm pissed!"
2) It's okay to promise to take this all the way to their company's president if you must, but don't call CSRs names and NEVER make threats of violence.

With all due respect, you're in the U.S. and I doubt you've ever had a contract with Rogers, Bell or Telus aka Robelus, Shaw or the Canadian Hell (Dell). If you did, you'd understand.

With the U.S. companies I've dealt with there was NEVER a reason to even be upset because they honoured their warranty or commitment.

When I tried to get Dell in the U.S. to resolve a shipping delay caused by their error, Dell (U.S.) stepped up to the plate and went beyond what I was asking of just getting the shipment to me on the date originally promised. U.S. Dell to U.S. shipping address.

Same error occurred in Canada with Dell Canada and Dell Canada played the hold and hang up and voice-mail game and this was for three days while I was still being calm.

Same goes with UPS, in the U.S. they're golden but in Canada UPS is the Useless Parcel Service with the attitude of 'whatever'.

FedEx is the one exception, they are the shipping GODS anywhere I've used them!!!

But I digress...

GK photo wrote:
after spending 4.5 hours on the phone last weekend with both direct tv and time warner, i can appreciate his angst.

yes, this dude is melting down, but listen to his complaint. these cs departments at these companies are as inept as can be.

and his complaint being put on hold is valid. once they do, you're gone.

trust me...i feel his pain.

they NEVER need to put you on hold. NEVER! if they do, you get bounced. and even though this tech guy sounds calm, if you're lucky (and don't get hung up on) they end up sending you to the 'boiler room' guys, who just insult you and try to beat you down.

if you need tech support from these utility/cable companies, you're fucked.

Really?

I put callers on hold on a daily basis because I can't transfer them to someone working on a file without doing so. Also, sometimes, when I need to look up some information without a client yelling in my ear, I put them on hold.

People who have never worked as a CSR will never understand the bullshit we deal with on a daily basis. Almost every single day, I have people who refuse to verify our security information -- I can't help you don't.

Or they call in on a spouse's policy and get angry when we can't release any info to them because they don't have access to the file, etc.

Damon Banner wrote:
PS.  No, we actually don't need to listen to a person cursing at us.  Not our job.

This. At our centre, they get one warning. After that it's "Thank for you calling." *click*

No one deserves to deal with that crap, especially CSR where 99% of the time the issue is not the person on the other end's fault.

de BUEN PHOTOGRAPHY wrote:
With all due respect, you're in the U.S. and I doubt you've ever had a contract with Rogers, Bell or Telus aka Robelus, Shaw or the Canadian Hell (Dell). If you did, you'd understand.

With the U.S. companies I've dealt with there was NEVER a reason to even be upset because they honoured their warranty or commitment.

You haven't dealt with many American companies, then.

When I bought an IBM Thinkpad (their flagship model at the time), they totally weaseled out of the warranty. I bought it through an internet-based warehouse (something like Tiger Direct, but not them) and IBM claimed the warranty period began when the vendor stocked the item. By the time I claimed warranty service, IBM said the warranty had expired.

When I was part of an IT team setting up a branch office in Spokane, Washington, the phone company didn't finish the wiring job to the building. This was the Friday before a three-day holiday weekend. Without the hookup to the building, we wouldn't be able to set up the rest of the network and have it good to go Monday morning. Our lead had his head to the phone from 6am to 2pm, getting passed from one department to another about every 45 minutes. He went through the complete cycle every 2.5 to 3 hours. I'd have been threatening everything from lawsuits to bloody deaths, but he kept his cool. It took about eight hours of repeating our story ad absurdium to mindless bureaucrats and sitting on hold, but he eventually got some manager to break the cycle and get a lineman out to us after everyone else at the phone company had gone home.

SayCheeZ!  wrote:
I know exactly where the caller is coming from.  Been in similar situations myself.

Where customer service centers totally FAIL is that the whole thing could have easily been handled by telling the customer "there's no need for you to be on hold.  I'll try to find Michelle and have her call you back immediately after I contact her".  Don't make the customer wait or do the work of trying to contact her.

The people at customer call centers are simply human robots.  They're given a script to follow.  They are not taught how to deal with unpredicted situations, and they're not allowed to think for themselves.  When a situation like this comes up they must still follow the same script.  It's a broken record.  The same thing plays over and over again simply because the customer service agent isn't permitted to tap the proverbial phonograph needle a bit so that the song may finally play through to the end.

Not true. I don't follow a script except for the verification questions. If someone calls in asking for someone, I need to verify them first and then I go to transfer them. Upon transfer, the call is automatically put on hold.

With an irate customer like that, he would get put on hold whether he likes it or not. I would of course tell him I'm putting him on hold and then I would find out what's going on without someone screaming in my ear.

Until you actually work in customer service, you have no idea of the bullshit and idiocy we deal with on a daily basis. It's one of the most stressful jobs on the planet with one of lowest attendance rates, and one of the high stress leave rates.