Can I speak to your supervisor?

I've been in customer service since forever. I started in banking, went to mortgage, then investment banking. I used to be hired for my attitude and personality. No one likes to call customer service to rectify a problem only to be asked if they would like such-in-such for the low low price............ Corporate giants don't agree. So you are to just fix their problem and make sure to sell them something. Your review depends on it! You don't have to make them feel important! You don't have to make them feel vital to your company and to your job! You just have to give the right greeting. You have to hit all the points the corporate giant want you to hit! Toward the end of my career I had a customer say, "You mean you don't have a boss?" Oh boy. Yes, I left and one of the reasons is the one you bring up. They want it to be taken over by, "If you want to compare your product with product 15 press 15. Sheesh! Have a great day. You are appreciated, really! ;)

Your bosses are giving the wrong information. The customer is dissatisfied for a reason and unless you have been there for a period of time (like you are) and can help him,you should transfer your call. It looks like they do not want to improve customer or cold call relations. So that means that the service has not improved. Those in the industry who are pressuring the person to buy something, who are calling him at all hours of the morning, who are phoning back when he hangs up, who are not giving him a number back in case he is busy, who are not identifying themselves so they can get the credit, etc. are still there.

Yeah I know call center staff does never have people speak with the supervisor. Call centers are one big mess in Holland. They call you for a subscription, record it without consent and ask questions you can only answer with yes so you get in a 'yes' mood. Then they take your personal information and you're tied to an expensive contract. I know those kind of tricks and I am not even a call center staff member. :) Fortunately a well known Dutchman is now campaigning against atrocious call centers and I am sure big companies will improve their call centers. Especially companies in niches with a boatload of competition. Costumer service is key, because the costumer is king. :)

well, we also try to handle all calls with discrete, we also ask questions what's the concern of the customer/client why she/he needs to speak to sups., if it's beyond our scope then we xfer to our sups...but as much as possible we try to handle it first and try all worn out all solution..

It is indeed very frustrating for customer service agents to tell lies just to get rid of customers asking for supervisors. What else can you do but to really follow orders. The thing is we can't do anything but to accept the shouts, fouls words and irritating customers complains as to why they can't talk to a supervisor :( I hated the job for these kind of customers. But what can you do..it's just basically part of your job.

I do not get it, why on earth tell the customer to tell a lie by saying that there are no available supervisor to get their call? That is LYING, and the business is CUSTOMER'S SERVICE! that is customer's DISSERVICE! The customer wont ask for a supervisor if the agent is nice to speak with, they give out the right answer to the customer's question.I do not think the customer will ask for a supervisor if the customer is not fed up already.Or, the customer does not believe the agent as they need clarifications. I was once a dissatisfied customer since the agent that I spoke to does not know what to say. So I need someone to speak with since the agent clearly does not know the right thing to say to satisfy me. The next big thing to ask is for a supervisor to ask her of things the agent cant answer me properly without me calling again in their hotline.

Yes, most of the time, customers want to speak with Supervisor. The management will just escalate the call to another level of support(may be Tier 2)but not the Supervisor. This is a common practice in the call centers.

I could totally relate to this issue, being a call center agent and all. Sometimes, the customers can be really pig headed that no matter how much patience you have in your soul, it will really run out! Customers can also be overbearing and discriminating, just because they belong in a certain race. It's like, duh, who the hell do you think you are? I know I got a job because of you, but does that grant you right to getting personal aka hitting below the belt? And yes, they do ask for supervisor after you have already explained everything to them as simply as possible. And then, they would still demand. And after getting the supervisor that they wished to talk to, they would accept THE SAME information without a fuss. I sometimes think it's idiocy. But whatever. There are just some customers who are so sweet, it's difficult to tell them negative things.

I am really shocked to learn this. That explains why most of the call center staff do not put me through. I normally am polite and reasonable to the call center staff, be it my bank, or cold calling about some product. I try to be nice to them as I know how much sh*t they go through. Sometimes it just is not possible to be polite all the time. One day I called my bank regarding some problem I have with transfer. The guy who picked up the call could not understand what I need and what my question really is. Exasperated, I ask to speak to his supervisor, and he was very reluctant. Now I understand why. Sometimes one needs to speak to someone else if the person on the other end cannot understand or does not have the information. No customer would outright ask to speak to a higher up if the lower down can answer all the questions and solve the problem. The person in the higher position should take all those calls, in my opinion.