What a job!
By lovesfreedom
@lovesfreedom (1245)
United States
March 10, 2007 12:24am CST
I work in my home as an answering service for a company that does refinancing of loans. Now, this company has an auto dialer that calls people, once they answer, they hear a recording and have a choice to hang up or press 1 to speak to someone, that someone is me or one of the other home-based operators.
I have been observing recently how different people respond to these interuptions in their day. Most of those who are not interested just ask me to have their number removed and I put them on a Do Not Call list....but some get very irate and then when I ask that they giove me their number so I can have it removed they refuse. Now, to be honest, I do understand how they feel, but I can't help them if I don't get the number, since that is not info that comes on my screen.
My observations have been this. There is one man that actually calls the 800 number himself, he does this often and whoever he gets on the phone, he calls a very dirty name. I think I have talked to him about 5 times and have taken to laughing, because it is so childish.
Most of the men who are upset seem to calm down quickly when I am friendly and promise to help get their numbers removed. Many of them have apologized for being so nasty and a few have asked if I am single lol
Most of the younger women are calmer too.
But, the nastiest ones are the elderly women and no amount of friendliness or trying to help on my part will calm them. They let some pretty foul language loose on me too lol
Have you ever been employed in customer service? Who do you find to be the hardest customer to please?
5 people like this
12 responses
@12051976 (231)
• Ghana
10 Mar 07
the hardest customer to please are those who come in and dictate to you what to do. you will tell them to sit and they will stand. Especially, those that have some acquaintance with the director they will not listen to what you will tell them and they are very hash. Sometimes they spoil your day. I hate them.
In fact such people are just boring.
3 people like this
@lovesfreedom (1245)
• United States
10 Mar 07
I never thought about this behavior that you speak of, but yes, I can see hoe that can be very annoying!
2 people like this
@triplep_01 (67)
• United States
10 Mar 07
I know the auto dialer well. LOL. I used to work in collections for a credit card company and we used an auto dialer to call delinquent accounts. I also would get the irrate people saying "If you really wanted to talk to me you would just call me not have a computer to call first." I am with you that I understand their frustration. especially if they hang up and get called back again and again, etc. Lots of times by the time they did answer they were REALLY mad because they had been called umpteen times and since I was the lucky one that they actually answered for I would get an earful and then some. So then were they not only mad but then you had to tell them you were calling because you wanted money from them. I have never been cursed at more times in my life.(and not allowed to curse back) I never really had one group or another that was more difficult to handle. I guess I got equal treatment from all. LOL
3 people like this
@lovesfreedom (1245)
• United States
10 Mar 07
I am glad that I don't have to ask for money! Most of the people I talk to do not understand that I did not dial their number. I write down every number given to me so I can cross reference and see if I am getting any repeats. It doesnt happen to often that i am the one they get everytime, but I had one lady that somehow, I managed to be the one each time she pressed 1, so I apologized and told her i would personally speak to my supervisor, which I did.
They also do not realize I am sitting in my own home ande can't transfer them to my supervisor, so when I tell them I have no way of tranferring them to her, it only serves to upset them more lol.
We have been instructed to hang up on those who become very abusive.
2 people like this
@kgwat70 (13388)
• United States
10 Mar 07
I have worked in customer service for more than 10 years, most of which was working in a call center for a bank as a credit analyst. I had decisioned credit card applications every day and had to discuss with customers that called in to find out why they were declined credit. I felt these customers were very difficult because they were upset about being declined at the store while purchasing things and they blamed us for their credit problems on their credit report. Most of them knew they did not have good credit so they should have known why they did not get approved. Others had legitimate complaints. We had try to explain they needed to get a copy of their report and get it straightened out with the credit bureau. This was a very difficult job to please the customer.
3 people like this
@vgolden (89)
• United States
10 Mar 07
Like your story as finally I could learn what is going on everyday with our phone ring. I am one of those receiving the strange phone calls everyday. And I am not the one who are rude and mad on the phone. :P
I understand why people got mad though. I have been receiving the phones without even a computer message but just hang up on me. If this happens once or twice, I may understand it is a wrong number. But if the phone keeps shouting every twenty minutes and all hang-ups, I may hardly be calm and easy. Hey this is not a joke but when I wrote down some calling numbers, I found people have already talked about them angrily on some newsgroups. And if at that time after tons weird calls, your company called in and the angry crowd finally find someone -- you -- they can talk to; without any doubt you will be the very innocent victim.
3 people like this
@ToniaBowen (92)
• United States
10 Mar 07
Customer Service of any sorts, is the hardest job ever in my opinion. It's very hard to try and please everyone. And there are those people, that no matter what you do or say, they just are angry people...
3 people like this
@lovesfreedom (1245)
• United States
11 Mar 07
It is in the USA and Canada right now. I am not sure if and when they will expand, but I will be happy to ask for you.
@alpalino (226)
•
11 Mar 07
I wasn't employed in a call center but i worked in a restaurant. And i know, how annoying those customers can be. The funny thing is they all ways claim to be right. But one think they are not aware is, i can also refuse to serve. So when they play customers always right card, I play mine.
2 people like this
@wolfie34 (26771)
• United Kingdom
10 Mar 07
Oooooooh yes, customer services! I remember that and yes I was actually GPO trained and worked with British Telecom as an operator and you think you've heard everything! The general public were stupid! Although we were told the public were always right! In actual fact 90% of the time they were wrong! As an operator we used to share the amazing, stupid and insane stories that we heard from day to day. You think you've heard the worst until someone shares a story with you and you think OMG! I found the worst were the posh people, those who were rich were so arrogant and I hated it when they said 'I pay your wages' in an arrogant pompish voice. I once said to someone which I shouldn't have done, no you don't it's my company that pay me, cheeky git! I've been called every name under the sun, sworn at, someone was even on the toilet when he was talking to me, because I heard the chain flush! Someone was eating crisps and someone even had the audacity to start cleaning his teeth! Memories, not all were happy but at least I can laugh at them! Never again my days of working on the phones are well over! Call it call centre burn out!
3 people like this
@coffeeshot (3783)
• Australia
10 Mar 07
I've never worked in a call centre situation, but i did work in a news agent/post office once. I found the people there who were really rude were just doing it because 'the customer's always right'. They and everyone around them who was listening knew that they were being rude and demanding and sounding like an idiot but that didn't stop them. For example one guy came in and bought a refidex and went to pay for it with his credit card. His card was rejected becasue the bank's lines were down. This had nothing to do with us, it was totally the bank's fault and could not be helped. But that didn't stop him from throwing a hissy fit saying that it was bad customer service. We were like "Look, we're sorry but it's not our problem, the bank's lines are down, you'll have to wait til they're working again. If you like, there's a Commonwealth bank down the road, you can go and ask them about it". He just went off and kept going on about how bad our shop was and how he'd never come back there again. It was so ridiculous the other cutomers in the store were laughing at him after he left. So don't be offended by people abusing you, jsut realise that some people thrive on telling other people off whenever they get the chance. This makes them happy because they're obviously unhappy within themselves.
@lovesfreedom (1245)
• United States
11 Mar 07
Yea, I am one that does not get offended as I know I just happen to be the one that got the call, plus, I really do feel for them having their days interrupted, especially those on the national DNC list, like I am, but a job is a job and I need money to eat and have a roof over my head.
@charms88 (7538)
• Philippines
11 Mar 07
I once worked in a remittance company. Our customers are mostly overseas workers who like to send money or packages to their love ones or families at home. I can't remember a single day that I don't need to deal with irate customers. You're still lucky, loves. I had to deal with this people face to face. I swear I really tried my best to be as calm as possible. But when they started getting nasty or began cursing, I had no choice but to retaliate. I am talking with them decently and the least these people should do is to be polite as well. But no...I had to deal with a lot of crazies everyday. LOL...its a good thing my boss is a good one. He just kept laughing at all the happenings going on around the office everyday. Why not, we're making him rich anyway.
@gramskaren (661)
• United States
11 Mar 07
I have never been employed in customer service but did own our own lawn service. I consider that the same thing cause i dealt with older people and they could really get a little irate at times when you said they didn't pay there bill or forgot a invoice. I got into a big fight with one older gentleman and lost my cool. He was really rude. It is very hard to be nice to some people at times. I feel older people are hard to please cause they are set in there ways.
2 people like this
