The Warranty

So a customer calls in (or CCI if you're typing notes into the system) with a device that won't power on.

 

I attempted to walk him through getting the device to power on by hitting numerous keys. It blinked on for a second and then shut down.

 

Suffice to say that even at the beginning of the call, the customer was in a huge snit! This device was his lifeline to his business, which would surely crumple and fall to the ground without said device.

 

I understand, I truly do! I have a very similar device that I use just for personal, and I would be in a total MOOD if it stopped working. For this reason, I back it up twenty different ways. I create backups of backups. I backup backups of backups. Yes, I am slightly OCD.

 

So I was trying to keep the call calm. I asked the customer if he had backed up his device, which promptly escalated his mood to a higher form of atomic melt down. But I finally got him to the boot drive screen where we could master reset or wipe the device.

 

And then the device froze.

 

No amount of cajoling, begging, or screaming at said device would bring it back to life.

 

So said company that I work for has warranty centers all over the USA. I checked, and there were none available in the customer's area. So I offered him a warranty exchange.

 

As most consumers have learned by now, when they request a warranty exchange, they get a refurbished device. Unfortunately for me, this customer knew this and exploded again.

 

He SCREAMED into my ear that he had a brand new device and wanted a brand new device in exchange. I pulled up his information and found that his device was 6 months old... Yeah, not so new. If it was 30 days old, or less, I could replace it with a new device.

 

He ranted and raved in my ear that he had used this manufacturer's devices for 8 years and had NEVER had this problem until he came to the company I was pretending to work for.

 

I calmly advised him that the company I pretend to work for (not worded like that) didn't manufacture the device. I also wanted to add that this was not a conspiracy to ruin his business and destroy the very bonds that hold his family together.

 

I didn't mention that he really should have backed up his phone. Because that is what smart people do.

 

And he continued to demand a new phone as a replacement.

 

It took everything in my entire body, including pacing back and forth beside my desk and doing deep knee bends to not say: Well, if you want me to send you a new phone, I require that you send me back one in exchange.

 

Then he requested a supervisor.

 

This is when my scripting from my previous post kicked into action: Would you mind holding for 4-5 minutes while I find a supervisor?

 

At which point, he exploded again and said he was going to cancel.

 

I had a really hard time not smirking at his two-line account, because it would cost him almost $600.00, to cancel.

 

Would you like me to send you any self-help options, today sir?

 

CLICK!

 

Have I addressed all your concerns?

Outsource Scripting

I work in an outsourcing call center. Yes, I am the person that you talk with (sometimes at) on the phone when you call *#@! Corporation.

If people ask, I will tell them that I am part of that Corporation, but unfortunately, I don't have a union card, and have to do my job with about 75% less of the resources that a Union Employee uses to fulfill the job. There is no pathway to the top, and I will never have a corner office with a view.

Said corporation has one of the lowest rankings of customer service of all its competitors. They are constantly trying to UP their numbers by providing script that all of the call centers have to use to improve quality:

1) We have to be "happy to assist" the customer in our opening script. Most of the time when we say "I would be happy to assist", we don't really mean it. The company wants us to mean it, and we have to say it while smiling, but after saying it 40 times a day, it just means that we have become part of the machine.

2) At the end of the call, I have to ask if there are "any more questions that I can resolve", or "have I successfully resolved all of your concerns"? The problem with this is that when I can't resolve the customer's concerns then it's a pretty stupid question to ask. And then there is the person that will answer "no" to my question and then turn around and ask another question. I have asked the resolve question up to nine times on some calls!

3) Then we need to refer the customer to our self-help options. The only problem is that the self-help options aren't very helpful. They load slowly, and they don't give enough information. In fact, if I could actually FIND the information in the self-help options, I would use them as well for figuring things out!

4) Then we have to thank the customer for their business, even if they have announced that they are canceling their service. This opens up a BIG can of worms.

In between all of the scripting and the pseudo-smart tech knowledge that we have to provide for the customer, we have to verify the account. Some of the customers are real pros and have their account information memorized. Then there is the 90 year-old man that wouldn't know the start button if it jumped off the device in question and bit him on the nose. Getting him to the verification information has both of us weeping by the time I ask "how may I assist you today"? About this time, the man is snarling in the phone and demanding to talk with my supervisor.

The sad part is that the supervisor doesn't have the time to take the call, or flat out doesn't want to take the call. In fact, the supervisor that I approach has been trained on scripts as well. They tell me that they would be "happy to assist me" and then they tell me to go away and solve the snarling, old man's issue.

I am a pro at de-escalating a customer. I usually put the customer on hold for five minutes while I am supposedly looking for a supervisor. And then I come back to the customer and tell them that a supervisor is unavailable but I can arrange a call back in 24-48 hours. At this point, the customer can either work with me, or wait until I get the urge to setup the callback with a supervisor.

Then there is the walk-through. Me explaining to this old man that he has to get all techie with me on the phone, or take it to someone to get it fixed. Yes, I have brought customer's to tears trying to get them to fix their problems on the phone with me (not something that I am proud of).

Search engines are my best friends! There isn't a problem that I can't find with search engines. When I do a search, all of these wonderful articles come up that tell me how to fix this really hard problem. Then I click on the link and find that the company has blocked all access to that site. So I go back to the search engine and see if I can get the general idea from the summary and solve the issue without the link.

I do have some knowledge base articles. I go to those articles and they refer us to the self-help options. As mentioned earlier, six minutes waiting for them to load, and then another six minutes trying to find the information, and I am back to a search engine.

Sometimes, I get really desperate and call the manufacturer. I would go to the manufacturer's website, but it's blocked. And then someone from the Philippines, who only gets $10s a day from another outsourcing company, answers the phone. They tell me to go to their company website for the solution... Or they tell me to erase the device and start fresh.

Yes, I am the person at the other end of the phone. I lie to you, I put you on excessive holds, I put you on mute to yell obscenities, I middle-finger the phone, and sometimes I middle-finger my computer. I am a representative of *#@! Corporation.

Have I addressed all your concerns today?