scripted call center conversations are getting worse :(

[Sixpackpert]

turbolucy said:

Miguel Alvarez said:

Agreed. My missus has a phone through 3 and they have the worlds worst customer service ever!! I had a 10 minute row with one bird in there call centre.

I actually dread hearing off shore customer service departments as I know I'm going to be given spiel straight from a script, there will never be a manager there and when there is a manager there they are garunteed to have a phone system so old they can't possibly transfer me to anyone.

That surprises me. I'm on my third contract with 3 now and have found them to be fantastic in EVERY way.

!STOP PRESS!

3's satisfied customer found!





I had a 3 contract once, I should imagine passing a shipping mine would be a more pleasurable experience.

[andyjo1982]

turbolucy said:

Miguel Alvarez said:

Agreed. My missus has a phone through 3 and they have the worlds worst customer service ever!! I had a 10 minute row with one bird in there call centre.

I actually dread hearing off shore customer service departments as I know I'm going to be given spiel straight from a script, there will never be a manager there and when there is a manager there they are garunteed to have a phone system so old they can't possibly transfer me to anyone.

That surprises me. I'm on my third contract with 3 now and have found them to be fantastic in EVERY way.

I also added a comment about the good servie i received on their broadbandings. Had a problem with the dongle, and the sent me a new one within 2 days with a prepaid envelope for the damaged one. No probs since, the tech guys knew there stuff when i called them about it. It was long winded but he called me back and we tried some stuff to sort problems.

[Engineer1]

Hedders said:

fk me!
I just got off the phone with Pipex

Bint "Could you please help me with giving me your first name"
Me "[gives first name]"
Bint "ok, thank you for giving me that information can you please help me by giving my your last name"
Me: [gives last name]
Bint: ok, thank you for giving me that information can you please help me by giving my your house number.........

Me: You are welcome for the information yes i will assist you in establishing my house number..it is 87"

This goes on until she has my address and DOB..

They have just confirmed you are authorised to deal with the account. You would be pissed if they let any monkey change stuff on your account.

Hedders said:

"Ok thank you for your call Hedders, today you called us about your caller ID not working and i looked into that for you, and then we talked abot reactivating the caller ID service and then i explained to you that it would cost £1.95 a month, and then i explained to you that..

"Me: WTF?? thank you for the recap, bye.

Ten minutes for one operator to put in a request to activate caller ID, that's progress.

The repeat confirms for their records that you authorised the change, knew the details and costs. If more businesses use call centres and online stuff to conduct business then this will happen more often, compare this to the mobile phone contract sold to an old man thread on here.

[clonmult]

Pesty said:

clonmult said:

I've had mixed experiences of such calls.

Setting up a Sky subscription. .

must not rant about the 8 months it took for me to get them off my back when I cancelled the subscription.

Not surprising. They don't always have the best of staff/systems.

Try changing the account thats used for a subscription. Somehow they've actually made it impossible.

You have to cancel the contract and take out a new one.

[TuxRacer]

I've never heard anything quite like this until last week, when I was on a conference call with maybe 500 people on it. Because there were so many people there was an operator on the line and you had to press some key combination to alert the operator you wanted to speak.

Manager: Are there any questions?
Operator: There is a question on the telephone line. This question is from <name> at <location>. <name> please state your question now.

He was more camp than that Louis guy from Pineapple something. This goes round and round and gradually the questions dry up.

Manager: Any more questions?
Operator: There are no more questions on the telephone line
at this time.
...
Manager: Any more questions?
Operator: There are no more questions on the telephone line at this time. There is now one question on the telephone line at this time. This question is from <name> at <location>. <name> please state your question now.

Painfully slow, x500 people.

[clonmult]

Sixpackpert said:

turbolucy said:

Miguel Alvarez said:

Agreed. My missus has a phone through 3 and they have the worlds worst customer service ever!! I had a 10 minute row with one bird in there call centre.

I actually dread hearing off shore customer service departments as I know I'm going to be given spiel straight from a script, there will never be a manager there and when there is a manager there they are garunteed to have a phone system so old they can't possibly transfer me to anyone.

That surprises me. I'm on my third contract with 3 now and have found them to be fantastic in EVERY way.

!STOP PRESS!

3's satisfied customer found!

I had a 3 contract once, I should imagine passing a shipping mine would be a more pleasurable experience.

Definitely headline news. And the only satisfied customer.

I had a 3 USB dongle thing. Utter mess. Never got it sorted. Customer service was by far and away the worst of the scripted ste I'd ever experienced.

Well, until I contacted TalkTalk support on behalf of the mother in law.

Several calls, all quite entertaining for none of the right reasons, and one involved my asking "Could I please speak to a manager regarding this issue?". The answer was basically "You'll just be talking to someone who will quote off the same crappy crib sheet, you fish and chip eating englishman".

[Vixpy1]

I had a call from a woman at a Financial planning company dealing with Exit stratagies yesterday.

I told them I was'nt planning on doing a runner to the Caymens yet but if I changed my mine they would be the first people i called.

[TuxRacer]

clonmult said:

"Could I please speak to a manager regarding this issue?". The answer was basically "You'll just be talking to someone who will quote off the same crappy crib sheet, you fish and chip eating englishman".

[Nardies]

TuxRacer said:

I've never heard anything quite like this until last week, when I was on a conference call with maybe 500 people on it. Because there were so many people there was an operator on the line and you had to press some key combination to alert the operator you wanted to speak.

Manager: Are there any questions?
Operator: There is a question on the telephone line. This question is from <name> at <location>. <name> please state your question now.

He was more camp than that Louis guy from Pineapple something. This goes round and round and gradually the questions dry up.

Manager: Any more questions?
Operator: There are no more questions on the telephone line
at this time.
...
Manager: Any more questions?
Operator: There are no more questions on the telephone line at this time. There is now one question on the telephone line at this time. This question is from <name> at <location>. <name> please state your question now.

Painfully slow, x500 people.

Was this BT conferencing by any chance?

[clonmult]

Nardies said:

TuxRacer said:

I've never heard anything quite like this until last week, when I was on a conference call with maybe 500 people on it. Because there were so many people there was an operator on the line and you had to press some key combination to alert the operator you wanted to speak.

Manager: Are there any questions?
Operator: There is a question on the telephone line. This question is from <name> at <location>. <name> please state your question now.

He was more camp than that Louis guy from Pineapple something. This goes round and round and gradually the questions dry up.

Manager: Any more questions?
Operator: There are no more questions on the telephone line
at this time.
...
Manager: Any more questions?
Operator: There are no more questions on the telephone line at this time. There is now one question on the telephone line at this time. This question is from <name> at <location>. <name> please state your question now.

Painfully slow, x500 people.

Was this BT conferencing by any chance?

There's a few companies offering those sort of services.

We've used them here (at another large telco) in the past. Same routine of someone somehow piping up to ask a question just when everyone was hoping to be able to put the phone down. And they were invariably inane questions.

Not a big surprise that they've been dropped in favour of a live presentation in the middle of the largest office, with a live feed of the video/audio to anyone who can be bothered to login.

[TuxRacer]

Yeah, there were some pretty daft questions.

I'm not sure who provided the operator, but the intranet here suggests it would probably have been a company called InterCall.

[Hedders]

Engineer1 said:

Hedders said:

fk me!
I just got off the phone with Pipex

Bint "Could you please help me with giving me your first name"
Me "[gives first name]"
Bint "ok, thank you for giving me that information can you please help me by giving my your last name"
Me: [gives last name]
Bint: ok, thank you for giving me that information can you please help me by giving my your house number.........

Me: You are welcome for the information yes i will assist you in establishing my house number..it is 87"

This goes on until she has my address and DOB..

They have just confirmed you are authorised to deal with the account. You would be pissed if they let any monkey change stuff on your account.

Hedders said:

"Ok thank you for your call Hedders, today you called us about your caller ID not working and i looked into that for you, and then we talked abot reactivating the caller ID service and then i explained to you that it would cost £1.95 a month, and then i explained to you that..

"Me: WTF?? thank you for the recap, bye.

Ten minutes for one operator to put in a request to activate caller ID, that's progress.

The repeat confirms for their records that you authorised the change, knew the details and costs. If more businesses use call centres and online stuff to conduct business then this will happen more often, compare this to the mobile phone contract sold to an old man thread on here.

As far as i am concerned, my telephone company should recognise my telephone number and take it for granted that a request such as reactivating caller ID from a normal sounding adult does not really need any security verification!

If the actual owner of the phone then reports that they were burgled and the burglar was the person that phoned up and ordered caller ID then it can be cancelled again, if that sort of thing is the reason for the security :P

[SeeFive]

I had a chat with Vodafone the other day over an overbilled phone account. The guy asked for my password (no idea) and then first line of address, date of birth, and then as a laugh asked "Shoe Size". Anyway, he dealt with my problem, refunded the dosh and was very happy and helpful in all ways. One satisfied customer here - and no, I do not work for Vodafone.

Had a similar experience with Sky's broadband team the other week - both the UK call centre and Indian were good folks who did their absolute best to sort out the issue. Escalated quickly, hours of tests and calling me back bang on the minute that they said they would to check how it was going.

Just a security script initially and the only other call centre sign was that the Indian guy kept using my first name unnecessarily in conversation... and invited me to visit Bangalore

[Mr Trophy]

As soon as the say, "Hello it's James from ...." I put the phone straight down.

[Ian974]

I don't know what's worse, I've had an automated service from secure mail services calling me the last few days telling me they've been trying to deliver the gig tickets that have been sitting in my kitchen for the past week, and that I need to re-arrange delivery.
I'm almost tempted to take the day off to find out what the fk they are trying to deliver.

[Pothole]

Vixpy1 said:

I had a call from a woman at a Financial planning company dealing with Exit stratagies yesterday.

I told them I was'nt planning on doing a runner to the Caymens yet but if I changed my mine they would be the first people i called.

is it a shipping mine?^^^^^^

[offshorematt2]

I always remember the caller that offered to better my rate on my credit card. When I asked how they would better 0% APR, they still insisted they could. I asked if they were going to pay me interest? Absolutely bamboozled them that did...

I maybe should have stayed on the line and held out for it!!

[MiniMan64]

Got to play a tiny little bit of devils advocate here, I've been on the other side of the line before and you are paid per call and every single little thing you do is recorded and monitored you end up just doing exactly what you're are told. On top of that, once you've been doing it a while and you're making 100+ phone calls a day your brain kind of goes to mush and you switch over to autopilot. Its much like when you do a long motorway journey and whole parts of it are a blank to you as you just don't notice miles pass by. I've had whole days pass me by and sometimes it's the only way to stop yourself going mad.

[spaximus]

The thing that gets me is "Is there anything else I can help you with today" when you have just torn them an new one for being dumb. "How could you possibly help me with anything when you have failed at what you are supposed to do"? This usually results in two response one is DURRRRRR as the phone is dropped down, the other is shuffling of paper looking for a response followed by silence.

[MigX]

another one from 3. phoned them to cancel a contract. she kept asking me if i wanted a new contract.
i kept telling i wanted to cancel it. and she kept asking me and offering a better deal. how hard is it to understand that i just wanted to cancel it?