Tool of the week. (new)

[Lilly]

"Right I've put my card in...." and I was like "WOOOOAH! Put your card in? Don't you mean card details?" "No, I've put my card in the card slot" I'm seriously confused at this point. Poor bloke was putting his credit card in the floppy drive thinking it would work.....

Now that is golden!

[MrPistachio]

Sounds like my mom and her constant spewing of mouthshit trying to prove she's better than everyone else in the world and deserves things due to her illness.

In fact, the same thing basically happened where I heard her on the phone with a pharmacist the other day. I was raging just listening to it, especially because she had speaker on.

[G l o w y r m]

I'm not saying she had a right, but in my experience, you both handled it wrong.

How exactly did he handle it wrong? Every bullshit excuse she said he just nicely countered. Didn't get a call? We send mail. It's your second house? You should have your forwarding address updated. Want your power on? You need to make a payment.

What's wrong with any of that? She's an adult and all of those things she should know. She was just grasping at straws to begin with. So he did nothing wrong, she couldn't take not getting free power and then flipped out cursing. TOOL.

[Sonofdeath]

People always want something for nothing. The lady could of been in a tight spot or not... the fact that she used faul language and yelled makes her the tool in my opinion. You may agree you may not... I'm just distrubed that this many people feel the need to derail thi thread when it was perfectly intended to be fun for everyone.

Look if I got the tone of your opening post wrong appologies, but the tone of your post was more at the humor of her position and lack of knowledge as to how power companies work rather then in her treatment of you. Call center staff are in a unique postion to makes some ones terrible day that bit better or worse through the choices they make.

Only 2 nights ago I rang Vodafone to complain about a bill I jsut got, on an account I had requested canceled a month before. Bbear in mind I am always polite at first as I work IT helpdesk and understand the frustrations of dealing with irrate clients. Now I requested the account closed once again and the clearing of monies owed for a service I had not used and requested canceled, she explained there where no notes on the account nothing she could do, I simplay had to pay that month and the next as the account was still open.

I once again explained the situation to no avail and then asked to speak with her supervisor to which she said no you may not and he will only tell you the same thing. Now this whole time she was rather polite but as helpful as a pocket full of farts. Finally she agreed to have the suprvisor call me back in 4 hrs that would make his return call midnight. He called back 2hrs later and after I explained the situtation he went no worries I will sort that out for you now 2 mins later done and sorted.

She was not rude to me and I was not rude to her but she was being unhelpful simply becuase she could and your OP reminded me of her some what.

[jobdone]

Is it 'fun' to make threads about peoples real life problems, then laugh about them?

[Cadi]

Having suffered from a 42 hour power outage 2 weekends ago I can understand her frustration. However she dealt with the situation wrong, just as the OP did. Having worked as Tech Support for a business ISP, hanging up on a customer is a major no no. Hanging up on a customer would have probably resulted in a dismissal or the very minimum disciplinary action (and I've dealt with some really abusive customers!).

If your company threatens you with being fired for not taking abuse from customers that's pretty crap. The store I used to work in had signs up saying that they don't allow people to abuse the staff (or something to that effect). I never saw that in action, thankfully, but it was nice knowing I was working for a company that "had my back" and wasn't letting its low-paid, customer facing staff be the public's verbal punch bags.

[Son of Lothar]

Look if I got the tone of your opening post wrong appologies, but the tone of your post was more at the humor of her position and lack of knowledge as to how power companies work rather then in her treatment of you. Call center staff are in a unique postion to makes some ones terrible day that bit better or worse through the choices they make.

Only 2 nights ago I rang Vodafone to complain about a bill I jsut got, on an account I had requested canceled a month before. Bbear in mind I am always polite at first as I work IT helpdesk and understand the frustrations of dealing with irrate clients. Now I requested the account closed once again and the clearing of monies owed for a service I had not used and requested canceled, she explained there where no notes on the account nothing she could do, I simplay had to pay that month and the next as the account was still open.

I once again explained the situation to no avail and then asked to speak with her supervisor to which she said no you may not and he will only tell you the same thing. Now this whole time she was rather polite but as helpful as a pocket full of farts. Finally she agreed to have the suprvisor call me back in 4 hrs that would make his return call midnight. He called back 2hrs later and after I explained the situtation he went no worries I will sort that out for you now 2 mins later done and sorted.

She was not rude to me and I was not rude to her but she was being unhelpful simply becuase she could and your OP reminded me of her some what.

Appreciate your apology. Every situation is different.... I understand that. I have done this job for over 2 years now and I can confidently say that I am well trained CSR and I know the policies and my attitude towards customers. Customers have no right to use profanity and cut down CSR's because they have problem with their account. That was my reason for calling her a "tool". If she had been polite and respectful, I would of done everything in my power to assist her without going outside my guidlines.

[Sandraudiga]

My tool of the week? Every wanker in this thread who is going off at the OP.

His story wasn't exactly the best Tool story i've ever read, but he did his job. He did his job exactly as he is supposed to do his job.

I mean honestly, if she says its her second home you automatically assume she is lying, that she is in a position of extreme financial difficulty? I guess blizzard is screwing up in cata because they are all being held hostage by alien beings from mars who have a 3 doughnut bet on their ability to ruin a gaming company and this is just the very start? Making crap up to side with a perfect stranger who is being an ass is the height of stupidity. Oh wait, I bet she didn't pay her bill because she went though a time vortex 2 months into the future? Shit yeah, waive the bills, hell pay her mortgage. She deserves it the poor thing.

Its her responsibility to pay her bills, its her responsibility to have her address correct, not the OPs. Even if she didn't have her bloody address right, she couldn't possibly have thought she was getting her electricity for free, that she was special and the reason she wasn't getting her bills was because Zeus himself came down to earth and paid them for her? She made a mistake, and she compounded it by abusing and threatening a customer service representative.

The responses to this topic really make me quite ill. Yes, the story sucked, yes it wasn't even very funny, but the OP didn't do anything wrong. The lady however, did and she deserved exactly what happened.

[Eldrea]

if it was a funny story then good..But

Poor woman, she couldn't pay her bill, she might of had kids, etc.. I can understand why she was unhappy ,you don't know her situation
then mocking her misery?

I think this needs /closing

If you think this, never EVER EVER work in call center.

You will quickly learn that people are tools to you no matter how professional you act.

The bottom line is the company he works for provides a service for a fee. If that person does not pay that fee, there is no service. Period. In fact, feeling "sorry" for every person that calls, telling you their life story on why they did not in fact pay their bill, leads to issues. Very rarely does the company you work for as a call center allow you to make exceptions for people that call, and often those exceptions simply lead you to transferring your particular call to the supervisor. If the person is out of line, most companies DO allow you to hang up on them, where that call will be transferred to the supervisor ANYWAY.

[Son of Lothar]

My tool of the week? Every wanker in this thread who is going off at the OP.

His story wasn't exactly the best Tool story i've ever read, but he did his job. He did his job exactly as he is supposed to do his job.

I mean honestly, if she says its her second home you automatically assume she is lying, that she is in a position of extreme financial difficulty? I guess blizzard is screwing up in cata because they are all being held hostage by alien beings from mars who have a 3 doughnut bet on their ability to ruin a gaming company and this is just the very start? Making crap up to side with a perfect stranger who is being an ass is the height of stupidity. Oh wait, I bet she didn't pay her bill because she went though a time vortex 2 months into the future? Shit yeah, waive the bills, hell pay her mortgage. She deserves it the poor thing.

Its her responsibility to pay her bills, its her responsibility to have her address correct, not the OPs. Even if she didn't have her bloody address right, she couldn't possibly have thought she was getting her electricity for free, that she was special and the reason she wasn't getting her bills was because Zeus himself came down to earth and paid them for her? She made a mistake, and she compounded it by abusing and threatening a customer service representative.

The responses to this topic really make me quite ill. Yes, the story sucked, yes it wasn't even very funny, but the OP didn't do anything wrong. The lady however, did and she deserved exactly what happened.

Ok I get it... it was not funny. Post your own tool of the week and we will see who wins. I was hoping to have this an ongoing fun game every week but it looks very bleak atm. Please just move on and post your own tools and we can all claim who has the best tool of the week in polls next tuesday.

[Eldrea]

Having worked as Tech Support for a business ISP, hanging up on a customer is a major no no. Hanging up on a customer would have probably resulted in a dismissal or the very minimum disciplinary action (and I've dealt with some really abusive customers!).

Most tech support companies allow their workers to provide a "three strike" system against costumers who call and are acting out of line. If they swear constantly and are out of line, that worker has the right to hang up on them.

Most of these replies are from people who feel sorry for the woman who called, things you quickly learn to not do when you work at a call center.

[MannDuo]

I only read the OPs post. How the heck do you still have a job. Clearly working in a call centre and dealing with actual people isn't for you.

[Son of Lothar]

guys... please for the love of god move on. The thread was meant for everyone to post their own tool of the week. Its a competition... I know I lost this week already. I just don't want this thread closed because people want to analyze and break down my tool of the week.

[Sonofdeath]

My tool of the week? Every wanker in this thread who is going off at the OP.

His story wasn't exactly the best Tool story i've ever read, but he did his job. He did his job exactly as he is supposed to do his job.

I mean honestly, if she says its her second home you automatically assume she is lying, that she is in a position of extreme financial difficulty? I guess blizzard is screwing up in cata because they are all being held hostage by alien beings from mars who have a 3 doughnut bet on their ability to ruin a gaming company and this is just the very start? Making crap up to side with a perfect stranger who is being an ass is the height of stupidity. Oh wait, I bet she didn't pay her bill because she went though a time vortex 2 months into the future? Shit yeah, waive the bills, hell pay her mortgage. She deserves it the poor thing.

Its her responsibility to pay her bills, its her responsibility to have her address correct, not the OPs. Even if she didn't have her bloody address right, she couldn't possibly have thought she was getting her electricity for free, that she was special and the reason she wasn't getting her bills was because Zeus himself came down to earth and paid them for her? She made a mistake, and she compounded it by abusing and threatening a customer service representative.

The responses to this topic really make me quite ill. Yes, the story sucked, yes it wasn't even very funny, but the OP didn't do anything wrong. The lady however, did and she deserved exactly what happened.

Sometimes people screw up it happens, doesnt mean we can't help then rectify it. While I don't agree with alot of what you said your post certainly made me laugh.

[Zoots]

Wow.... unbelievable. Totally way off base here. The customer has a second home.... and she doesn't have enough money to pay her bill? She couldn't take 5 min out of her day to call us to request help or more time? Seriously... I do this for a living you can't win this arguement, sorry.

---------- Post added 2011-02-01 at 10:24 PM ----------



You all say Im the tool yet with no explanation as to why.... I was professional and courteous as I am with all my customers. I don't deserve to be talked down to because I work in customer service. I am allowed to disconnect the call if customers are using profanity and using threats. I did nothing out of protocol.

Allright, I'll give you this. I work in a computer support role with one of the biggest lawfirms out there. We've won awards about our support so I suppose I might be putting you on a pedestal that would be expected at my workplace. But I can go over why people are jumping down your gizzard, and how I would have handled this.

I work at a call center for my local power company and I deal with tools all day long

Negative sounding right here. While you don't say it straight up, this sentence could easily lead a person reading it to interpret that you already approach most users as tools to begin with, rather than honestly just wanting to help people.

She is already upset because her power got turned off and so she starts yelling at me to turn her power back on right now.

Many people that call a call center about something are upset, otherwise they wouldn't be calling you. I know this sounds harsh but it's part of call center CS work. Better get used to it. Remember it's NOT PERSONAL.

First of all... I don't turn people's power on from a flip of a switch. We actually have to send a serviceman out in the field to turn power on/off from their meter. So already this lady sounds ridiculous. Second of all, this lady had not made a payment on her account for over 2 months.

You sound as if you just expect the user to know and understand your internal procedures already. Why would they?

"Oh, I totally understand how frustrating that must be to have your power turned off. I also really do want to get your power back up and going. However to turn power off/on, we have to send somebody to do so. In order to do that, I need to get your payments up to date so that I can have them send somebody out."

This tone is important. By telling her you want to get her up and going, but that you need to get the payments all up to snuff, you are in effect making it sound like your taking her side, but it's "The Man" keeping her down. This usually calms the person because they know they are talking to a person that actually cares rather than some faceless script reader.

She said that no one called her to let her know her power was about to be shut off. I almost laughed... Not once has this company ever called a customer to let them know their power is about to be shut off and even if we did, who knows if she answered her phone.

Obviously expecting a personalized phone call from the company is a stretch, but if you "almost laughed" then already your attitude is negative enough with this person that I would expect a reasonable request might get shot down at this point.

She said she needs special treatment because its a second home and she doesn't live there. I told her then that she needs to update her mailing address so you can receive your bills and late notices.

So obviously she is confused about how you all handle multiple addresses. Instead of telling her SHE needs to do the work and update, do the Customer Service thing and offer to help her get updated while also taking payment.

She then resorted to name calling and profanity. Then insulting me telling me I don't know what i am doing. I ended up disconnecting the call at that point and the customer called back to report me to my superior... my superior didn't even take the time to listen to the recorded call because the lady was so out of control there was no reason for it.

I agree that somebody going ballistic isn't something you can really handle and hanging up is probably about all you can do. However from your tone of the post, it feels like a lot more could have been done to offer good customer service and could have prevented this.

As for her payments and 2nd homes and all that, who are YOU to make assumptions? That's not your job. The housing market is under a lot of stress, foreclosures happening, etc etc. She could easily be in a position that she does indeed need help through no fault of her own. It isn't up to you to make assumptions about a person and their financial sitution. Helping her get current and straightening out any issues she may have is. As I said before, she sounds like she was toolish, but your tone comes off as toolish as well.

[Son of Lothar]

Allright, I'll give you this. I work in a computer support role with one of the biggest lawfirms out there. We've won awards about our support so I suppose I might be putting you on a pedestal that would be expected at my workplace. But I can go over why people are jumping down your gizzard, and how I would have handled this.




Negative sounding right here. While you don't say it straight up, this sentence could easily lead a person reading it to interpret that you already approach most users as tools to begin with, rather than honestly just wanting to help people.



Many people that call a call center about something are upset, otherwise they wouldn't be calling you. I know this sounds harsh but it's part of call center CS work. Better get used to it. Remember it's NOT PERSONAL.



You sound as if you just expect the user to know and understand your internal procedures already. Why would they?

"Oh, I totally understand how frustrating that must be to have your power turned off. I also really do want to get your power back up and going. However to turn power off/on, we have to send somebody to do so. In order to do that, I need to get your payments up to date so that I can have them send somebody out."

This tone is important. By telling her you want to get her up and going, but that you need to get the payments all up to snuff, you are in effect making it sound like your taking her side, but it's "The Man" keeping her down. This usually calms the person because they know they are talking to a person that actually cares rather than some faceless script reader.



Obviously expecting a personalized phone call from the company is a stretch, but if you "almost laughed" then already your attitude is negative enough with this person that I would expect a reasonable request might get shot down at this point.



So obviously she is confused about how you all handle multiple addresses. Instead of telling her SHE needs to do the work and update, do the Customer Service thing and offer to help her get updated while also taking payment.



I agree that somebody going ballistic isn't something you can really handle and hanging up is probably about all you can do. However from your tone of the post, it feels like a lot more could have been done to offer good customer service and could have prevented this.

As for her payments and 2nd homes and all that, who are YOU to make assumptions? That's not your job. The housing market is under a lot of stress, foreclosures happening, etc etc. She could easily be in a position that she does indeed need help through no fault of her own. It isn't up to you to make assumptions about a person and their financial sitution. Helping her get current and straightening out any issues she may have is. As I said before, she sounds like she was toolish, but your tone comes off as toolish as well.

This discussion clearly went over your head. I know how to treat customers and I don't need you tell me how. If I felt like adding word for word on how the call went, I would have.... However, I clearly didnt expect a narcissist revolt against my post. The clear intention wa for everyone to post their own tools and pick the winner by the end of the week.

[Sandraudiga]

I only read the OPs post. How the heck do you still have a job. Clearly working in a call centre and dealing with actual people isn't for you.

You read the Ops post, and still make this reply? I take your "How the heck do you still have a job", and raise you a "How the heck can you be breathing?"

He did nothing wrong. Zero, Nada, Zip, Zilch. He acted exactly like a CSR is supposed to act.

OT:

My Tool of the week is from quite awhile ago, and involves a casual job I was in at the time as a night filler at a grocery store in Australia.

I assume most people are aware of what a pallet is, a wooden frame to stack things on for easier movement with a forklift. Now we had a new person running the warehouse, but he had very good references and years worth of exp using a forklift.

Christmas time is always a hectic time to find room for the stock as it comes months in advance. This guy to make room was mass stacking things higher than regulations say is allowed, but that was normal. What wasn't normal was putting 2 full pallets of 24 packs of coke on top of a half pallet of pringles chips. Top layer had 4 boxes, one in each corner. Each box contains 14 tubes of chips and he expected this to withstand 336 packs of 24 coke cans(7 lays of 24 each pallet).

Of course it didn't, it tipped to the side taking out 2 pallets of doritos, a pallet of misc smith thins, and 3 pallets of misc christmas decorations, which was mostly those really cheap bulb deco's.

Needless to say he was fired.

[Son of Lothar]

You read the Ops post, and still make this reply? I take your "How the heck do you still have a job", and raise you a "How the heck can you be breathing?"

He did nothing wrong. Zero, Nada, Zip, Zilch. He acted exactly like a CSR is supposed to act.

OT:

My Tool of the week is from quite awhile ago, and involves a casual job I was in at the time as a night filler at a grocery store in Australia.

I assume most people are aware of what a pallet is, a wooden frame to stack things on for easier movement with a forklift. Now we had a new person running the warehouse, but he had very good references and years worth of exp using a forklift.

Christmas time is always a hectic time to find room for the stock as it comes months in advance. This guy to make room was mass stacking things higher than regulations say is allowed, but that was normal. What wasn't normal was putting 2 full pallets of 24 packs of coke on top of a half pallet of pringles chips. Top layer had 4 boxes, one in each corner. Each box contains 14 tubes of chips and he expected this to withstand 336 packs of 24 coke cans(7 lays of 24 each pallet).

Of course it didn't, it tipped to the side taking out 2 pallets of doritos, a pallet of misc smith thins, and 3 pallets of misc christmas decorations, which was mostly those really cheap bulb deco's.

Needless to say he was fired.

Hahaha.... Very good tool. I have a good one I just thought of. I will wait till next week to list it though. This one I can honestly say is tasteful and classy. Hopefully by then the people who like to destroy threads will have moved on.

[MannDuo]

You read the Ops post, and still make this reply? I take your "How the heck do you still have a job", and raise you a "How the heck can you be breathing?"

He did nothing wrong. Zero, Nada, Zip, Zilch. He acted exactly like a CSR is supposed to act.

Ha ha... What?

From what the OP said, he did EVERYTHING wrong. We don't have the full story no, but from what he typed out. He really shouldn't be working in a call centre.

And as of you, you actually think he did nothing wrong. Oh my, you never worked in a job that requires you to talk to other people? Or have you never had a problem and had to call someone like him.

No offence, but your an idiot. And your statement definitely directs back to yourself.

[Chimpzilla]

Customers have no right to use profanity and cut down CSR's because they have problem with their account.

If you can't handle profanity should you really be working customer service? I'm usually cursing before I even make a call to customer support.