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| Wednesday, August 02, 2006 |
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Weird Scenes Inside the Call Center
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Hey, if you thought that last post was boring, wait until you get a load o' this one!
Yeah, so a couple of weeks ago I got to assist with training the new customer service recruits as they were coming out of training and taking their first calls. As I've said before, being hunkered down in my cubicle trying to keep my statistics in safe territory while also weathering every kind of customer personality and sorting out every shape and form of billing debacle usually encroaches on my ability to scope out what my fellow phone drones are doing. But surveying this last group was an eye opener on the deplorable state of the work force.
If a customer has a particularly complex issue that we have to call them back on, that's called a "commitment," which we enter into the computer. If we don't execute the commitment on time an alert e-mail goes out to all the managers at the call center. This one girl, who's name was something like Akira (I know because it was tattooed on her arm) had such a situation. I told her to make the commitment. She said, "We're not allowed to make those in training." That was horseshit, I was sure, and sure enough the next day she was working on the commitment. While working on it she asked me, "So what happens if I don't do my commitment?" Mind you she's not even out of training!
I said, "If you miss it an alert goes out to your manager, the area manager and the call center director and they'll all be at your desk wanting to know what happened. The next thing we know you're working at Verizon where the same scene starts all over again, so you may as well do this one."
She gave me a "you gotta be kiddin'" look and said, "If I miss just one commitment?"
I wasn't feeling impressed by this recruit's spunk.
Then another guy had a customer who had gotten a bunch of invalid charges for downloads. He had about a dozen of them on the screen and I said, "Yeah, you just go through there and click all of those 'cancel and refund' buttons and just paste in your explanation."
"You mean I gotta click all dem muthafuckas?!"
In the late `60's-early `70's there was a cartoon called The Jetsons. It posited the comical idea that one day we would make our livings sitting in padded chairs in air conditioned buildings just pressing buttons all day. It was thought a dream too good to be true in 1970. Now the dream is upon us, and someone has the temerity to say, "You mean I gotta click all dem muthafuckas?"
"Jetson?! George Jetson, get down here now!"
"What is it, Mr. Spacely?"
"We have some buttons that have gone un-pushed! Were those your buttons to push, Jetson?"
"Mr. Spacely...you mean I gotta click all dem muthafuckas?!"
Jetson, you're fired!
Laziness wasn't a problem for all of the recruits. Some were perfectly determined. Unfortunately their hand-eye skills were not on par with their aspirations. This one kind, 50-something woman wanted to discuss a customer's issue with me. Unfortunately it took her a full 10 minutes just to log into the billing system. I think there could be a space for me to teach remedial cut-paste-and-scroll mouse classes at the community college. There was a temptation, while watching a senior employee struggle to master highlighting a single line of text, to grab the mouse and say, "You know what? Here, give me this. Scoot over." And a few times in desperation I did, but this is not conducive to learning.
Our state's employers say the skill they most prize in new employee is the ability to read and speak well. My opinion diverges; I think we need more people with an ability to infer. For instance a woman said her customer had a problem with her RAZR phone. I said, "Go to the manufacturer's site and download a manual."
"Okay. What's the site?"
Let's see...the phone is a Motorola, so, hmm...maybe it's Motorola.com? I'm just pulling that out of my ass. Oh, that's it?! Lucky guess!
"Okay. Now where do I go?"
HOW THE FUCK DO I KNOW?! I DON'T WORK AT MOTOROLA! POKE AROUND THE SITE UNTIL YOU FIND IT! (United States->Products->Mobile phones->Model->Support->Manuals->Download.)
As I say, an ability to infer is key. Another young man had a customer having a problem with the microchip in the back of their phone. "Have them take it out, wipe it for fingerprints and dust and put it back in the phone," I instructed.
"What should she wipe it with?"
100-grit sandpaper, and use plenty of elbow grease. Something soft and lint-free, of course, ya dipshit!
I would make a great trainer. |
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Posted by Art | 9:58 PM EST |
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Classic.