People Who Bully Call Centre Employees

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phil Waters
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I if kept waiting after going through all the numbers and left listening to the music ...respond as such when they finally answer, for the person who rang you press 1.... for my bank manager press 2... etc etc it always gets a laugh the other end... before I can go any further.................... :P :lol:

I am ex directory but still get calls from various companies trying to sell something, it's pretty obvious they just go through a set of numbers hoping someone will bow to their pressure selling eventually?........ :rolleyes:
 
I love it when I get people trying to sell me mobile phones, from either T-Mobile & Orange. Both call my landline number, so sometimes I get that cheesed off that I start trying to sell them stuff. :lol:

Either that or, piss off I'm not interested.
 
Brian, the smoking is only allowed on the tables outside the store, totally in fresh air so I reckon i'm ok for the writs but cheers for the concern
 
Originally posted by Desert Orchid@Aug 17 2006, 08:04 AM
I often say, 'Can you hold on a minute, please?', put the receiver down and walk away for a few moments. The line is usually dead within about 30 seconds.
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That's the best riposte I've heard. Now let me get some piped music ready for the next time T mobile try me.

"All of my potential customers are busy at the moment, but your call is important to me, one of my call answering representatives will be with you shortly. Thank you for holding" -

and now listen to some music
 
Customer Services make me sick, most are rude and aint got a clue how to solve your problem, also i have a major gripe about all these big companies having call centres in India (BT), they dont understand you, you can't understand them and its so frustrating in the end i lose my rag and start shouting "get me some one who can talk and understand English" to whuch they hang up and the whole cycle starts again. :angy:
 
My dad had trouble with a call centre in India last week. My dad is Irish and he has the strangest Irish accent I have ever heard. Sometimes even my mother and myself have trouble knowing what on earth he is raving on about and we usually tell him to speak in English :lol: So you can imagine how well the conversation went when an Indian person was faced with him. Dad couldn't understand the Indian man and he certainly couldn't understand my dad :lol: Mother ended up phoning back later to sort the mess out.
 
The thing that always amuses me slightly is that they're clearly told to use western first names when introducing themselves. Whether its for our benefit, or whether its to try and disguise their country of origin in the belief that they're less likely to face hostility, I don't know?. Anybody?

Curiousity got the better of me, and did ask where 'Steve' was calling from? He said central London. Now where as I wouldn't wish to call him a liar, but I always thought the idea of out sourcing call centres was to capitalise on low overheads. At various times I've seen surveys that puts central London as the most expensive office space in the world :rolleyes:
 
Yes, I find it infuriating when some Indian introduces himself as " Steve" or "Richard" - if he starts off lying to me about who he is, I'm hardly likely to believe anything else he tells me.
 
I've had further discussions about how to handle unwanted sales calls. Here are a couple of ideas:

"Good afternoon, I am Jamie from Phones Galore, authorised agents for Vodafone and I'd like to talk to you about an upgrade...."

"What's the password?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"What's the password? I can't talk to anyone who doesn't give me the password."

or how about:

"Good afternoon......your mobile phone etc..."

(Joyfully) "I am so glad you have called. Have you heard the good news about Our Lord Jesus Christ?"
 
Today's was...

Him: Can I speeeak to the ownerrr of this phone?

Me: That's me.

Him: Ahh, a verry good aftrnooon, to you sirrr. I'm phoning to promote [X] mobile phone network.

Me: Thank you. I'm not interested.

Him: I'm not trying to sell you anything, sirrr. I'm just promoting [X} network.

Me: Can you hold on a minute. (I put the receiver down and went to watch TV)

About 30 secs later, I could hear the siren-type noise from the dead line.

B)
 
I had some girl, from a waterspring company on the phone last night asking if she could speak to my "Mummy or Daddy." It was a really lovely introduction "Hello, can I speak to your mummy or daddy?" I then told her "For your information I am 23, and no you can't as we are not interested." She got hung up on before she could even speak.

Usually I bear and listen to them speak, even the ones in India, as afterall they are doing a job and trying to get by in life.
I have had several pleasurable experiences with the surveys, and one of the radio stations here whom I did a survey with sent me a gift voucher for dinner valued at $100. All I had to do was listen to music for 10 mins, and say whether I liked it or not, and whether it would be my type of music to listen to on that particular station.
 
Just had 'Jack' on the phone speaking with a very strong Indian accent. Jack's trying to sell me a phone. "How much do you currently pay?" he asked "Nothing" I said. (Clearly there's nothing in his script for this). "How may free calls can you make a month?" slightly thrown, but sticking to his plan. "As many as I like" I replied. "But this is a very good offer" he implored "What better than not paying anything at all? If you gave me a free phone Jack, the very best you could hope to do is match my current situation". He persists to tell me that this is the very best offer and better than my current situation. "Jack. Are you listening to me?"
"Yes"
"Are you understanding what I'm telling you?"
"Yes"
"Would you like to tell me what I've just told you then?"

silence

"You're not listening nor understanding a word of what I'm saying are you Jack? You're just reading from a script aren't you? And you're name isn't Jack either is it? In fact you're in a call centre in India aren't you pretending to use a western name in order to make yourself more acceptable aren't you?"

"Yes" at least he admitted to that

"You see Jack. My employer provides me with a phone, and pays its bill. Had you sought to ask and discover what position your customer was in then you wouldn't have wasted your time would you? Rule number 1 of sales Jack, find out what the customer wants to buy first, before you decide what you're going to try and sell. You've got one mouth and two ears, try and use them in that ratio"

Jack hung up shortly after. Anyway, I wish to nominate myself for the most pompous, patronising git award. But to be honest what really annoys me, and its almost certainly testimony to my lack of understanding with IT, but my phone has primacy over the net. Suffice to say, every time it rings, the net goes down, and I have to go through the entire start up procedure again.
 
But to be honest what really annoys me, and its almost certainly testimony to my lack of understanding with IT, but my phone has primacy over the net. Suffice to say, every time it rings, the net goes down, and I have to go through the entire start up procedure again.
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Maybe Jack had the solution to that, Warbler. But you wouldn't listen to what he had to say to you, would you Warbler.
 
Brian :D

Maybe we could add, "Hey, it's terrific you just called! I'm just signing up folks to my 'Walk Around Chipping Sodbury Backwards for the Guides for Blind Dogs Appeal' - can I sign you up for £15 a mile?"

Panting, sounding agitated, off-phone: "Abdullah, Abdullah! Where's the timing cap? I can't blow the place up without a timing cap!" Calmly into phone: "Oh, hi, hallo, how can I help you?"

Panting, sounding tense: "I can't talk to you right now! I'm in the middle of cutting my Mother up! Can you call back in half an hour, when I've got the legs off?"

Slow, stoned voice: "Heyyyyy, hiiiiiii there. We gotta parteeee here. You wanna come over... hang out for a bit? We've got some reeeeeealll good shit, know what I mean? (Sound of yawning.) Hooo-yeah, realll... " zzzz .... zzzzzz (sound of snoring).....
 
I once heard that the average time anyone spent working in a call centre, at least on the front line, is around the 7 month mark, after which time they either get promoted or leave.

If that is the case, it is no wonder the level of service is so poor.
 
Originally posted by cricketfan@Aug 23 2006, 09:59 AM
I once heard that the average time anyone spent working in a call centre, at least on the front line, is around the 7 month mark, after which time they either get promoted or leave.
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As an average, that's probably not too far off the mark. Personally, I did 12 months before walking out onto the dole (which had become preferable).
 
Today, I was doing complaints. That is resolving complaints sent in by letter, reading the letter, coming up with a solution and calling the customer back to discuss the issue.

Beside me where "experienced" colleagues having a great laugh at, amongst other things, the handwriting of the complainer, the complaint itself, the name of the complainer (especially if the customer was non-British) and the suggested solutions.

I felt like kicking every one of my colleagues' heads in.

Anyway, a letter I received came from a 20 year old woman named Amy. She signed up for a 9 month student account last October and called to cancel her service in June, giving 1 month minimum notice, meaning she could cancel on July 2nd. She was told she could not cancel because she was in a 12 month contract by a manager. She protested that she was in a 9 month contract, to which the manager replied that she was in a 12 month contract and if she cancelled she would be liable for the rest of the contract period. The woman cancelled because she was no longer going to be at the student accomodation. Her account was slapped with a charge of £83 for the remaining term of her contract. After calling the call centre 16 times she complained in writing.

I checked her account and on every single bill it clearly said - 1 STUDENT ACCOUNT - which was conclusive that she was on a student account for 9 months. I called her back explaining that the cessation charges had been removed and her account closed officially. I felt awful for her, despite her joy at the positive conclusion.

Poor woman and there are lots more people not as lucky as her.
 
That's ok Phil . When I worked for NTL I too was able to make a difference before we all got made redundant . I ran the complaints desk for interactive tv for Scotland , Wales and N.Lreland . Now I work for a soulless bank and I despise the place . Not so much giving you extra , more explioting staff , overworking them and treating you like s**t
 
However , I spent 20 mins today trying to explain to an asian representative of the company that I was registered with the telephone preference service
 
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