Call Centre Hell #2

In the callcentre I worked, we had floorwalkers.  If you’re lucky enough to have never worked in a call centre but yet are stupid enough to not be able to guess what they are, floorwalkers are people who walk the floor of the call centre.  But that’s not all because such a job would be a ridiculously pointless waste of resources.  No, the reason a floorwalker walked the floor was to answer the questions of his colleagues and more often than not, take over their calls when customer’s demanded to speak to their supervisor.

Now, I can’t swear that all call centres are like this, but I imagine most of them are.  When you ask to speak to a supervisor on the phone, perhaps wanting to speak to an agent’s supervisor to commend them on their excellent service (don’t laugh, this actually happened once, the recipient of which was actually my future fiance, and she likes to remind me of that from time to time)  chances are the person you are speaking to is not actually a supervisor in the conventional sense – ie someone with any kind of actual authority or even at a higher paygrade than the previous person you spoke to.  He or she is most likely simply another agent, plucked from the ranks of frontline through the distinction of a) wanting to do it,  b) excellent product knowledge and customer service skills and c) experience.  Well ideally.  In reality, none of those things actually had to apply either.

I did my time.  And then some.

One call I took over was especially memorable.  While customer’s could complain about almost anything, this was the first person to complain about nothing.  Literally nothing.  He told the frontline agent pointblank that the slight issue he had was resolved to his satisfaction but… he felt like complaining.

“About what?” I asked the agent.

“Er… nothing,” he said.

“What do you mean nothing?  You want me to take a customer complaint where the customer is complaining about nothing?”

“He won’t get off the phone.  He just says he feels he needs to complain.  He called up to find out where his modem was, I told him it was due to be delivered tomorrow.”

I took over the call.  “Hi Mr Jones, my name is pretentious writer.  I understand you wanted to speak to a supervisor.”

“That’s right,” he said.  “As I was explaining to the agent, my issue has been resolved, but I am extremely dissappointed that I had to make the call.  I just feel that I  need to complain.”

“Okay.  I’m sorry you had to call.  I understand that your modem is due out for delivery tomorrow.”

“That’s right.  But I shouldn’t have had to call up.”

“Well, you didn’t have to call up sir.  You won’t be activated until the day after that anyway so it’s not like you’re missing any use of the service.”

“Listen I know there is nothing wrong, but I want to complain.”

The rest of the conversation was basically waiting for him to end the call.  What do you say to someone who just wants to complain but doesn’t offer any kind of idea about what he is actually complaining about?  Fuck off would be nice, but we weren’t allowed to say that.

After dealing with so many customers who might have been dicks but you could at least see where they were coming from in most cases, this call was simply just a guy being a dick.  For no discernible reason.

I don’t miss that place.

But I still need to vent.

One day I will let go.  But not today.

Call Centre Hell

Well the writing didn’t go as hoped last night.  It was just one of those days when no matter how hard you try, everything you write is shit.  Reading this blog you’re probably thinking that must happen a lot to me.  Yeah.  Oh well, today is another day.  I had hoped to get out into town today but it’s pissing down outside and doesn’t seem to be stopping no matter how many times I stare out the window.

So instead I thought I would share some of my experiences working in a call centre.  I’m not going to say who I worked for because, while I’m not a particularly paranoid person, I do very much live in fear that they will track me down and kill me if I dare to go against their evil regime.  And it is evil.  All I will say is that my job was a support based position for an ISP.  An ISP that probably supplied DSL on the Death Star.

I might as well stay on the subject of paranoia since I got quite a few phone calls from people who were insanely paranoid.  Of everything.  One of those was from a man, let’s call him Mr Jones.  His name wasn’t Mr Jones.  I don’t need to change any names to protect people’s privacy, I need to change them because I can’t remember what they actually were.  Anyway, Mr Jones:

Mr Jones:  I want to cancel my broadband.

Me: Okay Mr Jones… ah, I’m afraid you are still in your 12 month contract.  If I were to arrange cancellation at this point you would still be charged for the rest of the term.

Mr Jones:  No way.  I want this cancelled now.

Me:  Can I ask why Mr Jones?

Mr Jones: My friend is hacking into my machine and taking it over.

Me:  Er… what?

Mr Jones:  My friend.  He’s hacking into my machine and using it to do illegal stuff.  I’m not getting arrested for him, so I want my broadband cancelled.

Me: If your friend is hacking into your machine, that’s really more of a security issue from your computer’s end.  You should be able to prevent him from getting access by keeping your security software and operating system up to date.  There’s quite a number of useful resources available on the internet that I could point you in the direction of.

Mr Jones: I don’t use the internet.  I don’t even switch the machine on.  I’m going to smash it up to stop him getting into it.

Me: You probably don’t need to smash it up if you don’t use the internet, let alone switch it on.

Mr Jones: He can still get into though.

Me: What?

Mr Jones:  He can still get into the computer and do illegal stuff when it’s off.  He knows how to do that.

Me: I don’t think he does.

Mr Jones: He does.  He’s done it.

Me: I highly doubt he’s managed to take over your computer when it’s switched off, Mr Jones.

Mr Jones: But he has.  What am I going to do?

Me: If you honestly believe he has gained access without your consent to your machine then you need to contact the police Mr Jones.  There’s nothing we can do here, all we provide is an internet connection.  But I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that there is no way on earth that your friend can access your machine remotely when your machine is not even plugged in.  I think he’s winding you up.

Mr Jones: I’ve seen him do it.  Listen, I’m just going to smash the machine up.  I need my broadband cancelled.

Me: No.

Sometimes the calls I got felt like elaborate wind ups to begin with, which would have at least came with the relief afterwards that people really weren’t that crazy.  Unfortunately as they went on you quickly realise that it’s not a windup and people really are that crazy.  If you have any call-centre related stories yourself, post a comment.  I hated working in a call centre but I love hearing stories about the nutters who call them.