Customer Service

[supraman]

http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113835-11752-3-things-customer-service-reps-wont-tell-you?ywaad=ad0035&nc

Fear of layoffs only adds anxiety to a high-pressure job, where performance often is assessed based on rigid metrics like average call time and meeting the requirement to say a customer's name three times.

...WTF those are Special person requirements. First off who cares how long it takes to fix the problem it is CUSTOMER SERVICE (you know to service the customer....shut up you know what I mean). Also I don't give a **** if you say my name or not, fix my issue.



Why can't customer service actually be about giving a damn and not answering a 100 calls a day. That's Special person. If you took 5 calls all day but those 5 customers were at least satisfied and not angry then that's a good day. Not 100 with 50 of them still pissed off.



As for Indian, customer support, I really don't care, my issue is typically their accent is so thick I cannot understand and saying "What was that" the third time makes me feel like a jackass. Also if I have to give all that info to the automated system, why the **** do I have to repeat it? What was the point? Besides to annoy the living piss out of me.



Good customer service that I can remember is EVGA technical support. I was having a problem with a game, the game company wasn't any help at all (had to argue with them and make them do their damn job) and it was a video issue but I really didn't think it was card related but I couldn't find anything on the net so I threw the hail mary and called EVGA. The guy tried to help me, he spent a good 15 minutes trying to find a solution and didn't come up with one. I wasn't angry that he couldn't answer me, but I was very appreciative that he tried instead of just saying "game issue can't help, thanks for calling"



Another is Rockstar games tech support. They are either aussie or british but they are super friendly and very efficient.

 

[MassHavoc]

Sometimes even when it is fixed it isn't. I order my DSL in July and have called at least once every month to have them fix the billing problem. Unfortunatly I have down on my todo list to call them again because they are over charging me yet again.

 

[supraman]

Sometimes even when it is fixed it isn't. I order my DSL in July and have called at least once every month to have them fix the billing problem. Unfortunatly I have down on my todo list to call them again because they are over charging me yet again.

threaten to drop the service? Is that in the cards. Sucks that you have to possibly use that threat.

 

[MassHavoc]

threaten to drop the service? Is that in the cards. Sucks that you have to possibly use that threat.

I got pissed on one call when the guy lied to me and he said ok if that's your choice. Needless to say I called back and got a more helpful person. Not really in the cards because there is no one else really available, or as cheap.

 

[BigPete]

Considering I am an IT services workflow manager, I could go on and on about this topic. Just think about this, the whole idea is relatively new to humanity, new as in the last three decades, so we are still perfecting the methods we use to provide that service to the public.

 

[supraman]

It seems (could be wrong) that we had it right before bean counters got involved. Hear my issue, try to resolve my problem as best you can, don't dick me around. If the problem was the company's fault, handle any expenses (i.e. shipping defective items back). And I will be a happy and loyal customer. I'm not trying to pull a fast one on you, I'm not trying to get something for nothing unless you really pissed me off. I don't like to use the "I'll drop the service" threat, its a dick move, you know it, I know it, why can't we just address the issue and continue doing business together.



All it takes for me to be a loyal customer is to make a good product and try to help me out if I have an issue. I don't even need you to succeed in fixing the problem, I just want you to try and make an effort

 

[bri]

Well everybody can't be a Peggy.

 

[MassHavoc]

First thing I do on almost any customer service call (repeat call) is ask for a supervisor right off the bat. Usually the person you get through to first is 5 people down from the rung you need anyway. You still usually have to repeat your story 9 times but at least you are not being passed around from department to department as much.

 

[sth]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q56aMEcyEQo



This is the phone line you guys really want to call.

 

[jaxhawksfan]

Supra you really wouldn't believe all the metrics. When I did sales for Comcast the motto was: I don't care if you only talk to one customer today, make sure they are happy when they hang up. When I did sales for OnStar the motto was: Talk like a regular human, chit chat and what not, but you can only stay on the phone for 7 minutes. OnStar was so ridiculous that my sales conversion percentage was 68% when I first hit the phones, but they wanted me to talk less and didn't care if my sales dropped as a result. They said, the goal is only 48%, so we don't care if you lose sales, you can't spend 11 minutes on the phone. Every company wants something different.

 

[supraman]

Supra you really wouldn't believe all the metrics. When I did sales for Comcast the motto was: I don't care if you only talk to one customer today, make sure they are happy when they hang up. When I did sales for OnStar the motto was: Talk like a regular human, chit chat and what not, but you can only stay on the phone for 7 minutes. OnStar was so ridiculous that my sales conversion percentage was 68% when I first hit the phones, but they wanted me to talk less and didn't care if my sales dropped as a result. They said, the goal is only 48%, so we don't care if you lose sales, you can't spend 11 minutes on the phone. Every company wants something different.

Just further proof companies today hate money.

 

[jaxhawksfan]

Nah, with this particular call center, they were paid per call, so they didn't care. More calls handled = more money for them. The secret magical formula has to be lots of calls with about fifty percent conversion rate so that everyone involved is happy. Call center work is really a bunch of shit when it doesn't have to be.

 

[supraman]

Nah, with this particular call center, they were paid per call, so they didn't care. More calls handled = more money for them. The secret magical formula has to be lots of calls with about fifty percent conversion rate so that everyone involved is happy. Call center work is really a bunch of shit when it doesn't have to be.

Yeah that just sounds Special person, who cares how many calls you field, what's the number of sales seems like that's the one that matters more.

 

[BigPete]

Yeah that just sounds Special person, who cares how many calls you field, what's the number of sales seems like that's the one that matters more.

If your business was selling a service, yes. But these are support personnel that are rendering help to existing account holders.

 

[MassHavoc]

The reason they keep the time limit on the calls is because they know their typical call volume and they know how many workers they have, and they calculate wait times and such in order to generate the proper staffing numbers. If they didn't regulate call times they'd probably have to have many more staff jobs which would be a lot more money. You gott think that each employee can cost them 50-60k per job after all the benefits and such, so if you have to hire 10 extra people you could be looking at half a million easy.



The thing that gets me most about customer service is that the technology is completely useless. My biggest problem with both Direct and Att has not been the people or the servie, it's been that their computer system is a total and utter fuckup. Everytime i've called they have ensured me that they have fixed all the errors updated everything then of course, first thing next month it's like nothing ever happen.

 

[BigPete]

The reason they keep the time limit on the calls is because they know their typical call volume and they know how many workers they have, and they calculate wait times and such in order to generate the proper staffing numbers. If they didn't regulate call times they'd probably have to have many more staff jobs which would be a lot more money. You gott think that each employee can cost them 50-60k per job after all the benefits and such, so if you have to hire 10 extra people you could be looking at half a million easy. The thing that gets me most about customer service is that the technology is completely useless. My biggest problem with both Direct and Att has not been the people or the servie, it's been that their computer system is a total and utter fuckup. Everytime i've called they have ensured me that they have fixed all the errors updated everything then of course, first thing next month it's like nothing ever happen.

That means they don't have a good known error database resulting from a strong problem management process. They also don't make sure that any known errors get back to the code writers before the next deployment of 'system updates' to end user terminals (ie 'cable boxes').

 

[MassHavoc]

Yes, I know what it means, I have told them several times what it means and what needs to be done, and yet...



At the end of the day its still cheaper for them to have customers call in and complain until they get tired of calling, then to pay to have it all fixed. I love when I'm talking to someone in India and they apologize to me for the wait because their computers are slow. Hilarious that the entire machine is basically built to do one task on one system, and yet they still fucking suck. 30 seconds to access a customer file... sweet jesus. Put the phone number in and boom.

 

[LordKOTL]

I think a lot of it goes into how much of a threat losing a customer is. The less of a chance you'll lose a customer the worse the service is.



When you really think about it, Around here there's pretty much a Diopoly on High Speed Internet: Comcast or Qwest DSL. Considering how ingrained High-speed internet is, both companies know that if someone bails on them, the other company will pick them up and vice-versa. Same thing with cell providers--you have maybe 3-4 big-name providers with the network infrastructure to have a "complete" package. You piss off one client, they may go mto a competitor, but seeing as how there's little competition, they know they'll pick up another client who is pissed at their service.



Plus, HR always likes to have easy, tangible metrics to rate their employees. Something as simple as "solved client's problem" is more complex. It could be as easy as telling them where the anykey is, or it could be as complex as having to rebuild a hub that was struck by lightning.

 

[jaxhawksfan]

Another example: My old roommate worked for ADT in collections. As soon as a customer says something along the lines of "I'm not paying" they are supposed to end the call. Well, she had a business owner on the line who owed the company $6200. He said "I'm not going to pay, until you show me where I owe that money." The company line was that she was written up for keeping the man on the phone for 45 minutes after he said he wasn't going to pay. She quit for being written up after she collected the largest sum in her office history ($6200). The guy simply wanted a detailed explanation of why he owed that much money and how it was calculated, and then he paid it.

 

[sth]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8JURPm8b_k&feature=related[/media]

Here is a more relevant Beavis and Butthead clip.