Odd call centre moments…
We get different types of customers obviously at work, some are good, some are not so good. The good ones are the ones who laugh with you, or interact so that you feel good about yourself when you hang up. The ones who aren’t so good, are the ones that leave you feeling a bit crushed after a call.
We have the cheater customers. The ones who ring up and ask questions like
“can you send my phone bill to my work address? I don’t want my family (read wife) getting the bill” or
“please remove itemised calls from my account…” or the ones who ask
“will my wife be able to find out what websites I have viewed from my phone?” my reply to that question was “no sir, but she will see you have downloaded several screen savers like ‘tits and ass’ ”
Most of us who have worked at the call centre for any length of time have been accused of breaking up marriages/relationships because a partner has cheated on the other.
Other customers have rung up, told us they are on their deathbeds and causing them to die quicker of whatever cancer/disease they have at the time due to their phonebills. I’ve had this happen to me recently, and it just took my breath away in shock as this angry angry human vented their bitterness and anger at me.
One woman once said to another supervisor who is a co-worker of mine, after she purchased a dialup CD.. “no one told ME you needed a modem to connect to the internet” After we picked up ourselves up off the floor from laughing so hard we just gave her the money back and closed her account.
I remember when I was doing time in the complaints department so to speak, I rang back a woman who had lodged a complaint through the TIO. As I completed introducing myself, she started screaming at me at the top of her lungs. I sent her a letter instead.
A funny customer once rang up..totally off his face drunk and said “I think, *hic* that this is a mistake for the both of us” I paused, and replied “so does this mean you’re breaking up with me?” no idea who he was, but apparently he was!
My favourite customer of all time, was a little old man who rang up to pay a massive phone bill racked up by his grandson. He was asking about his payment options, and explained the circumstances, and I asked him, “Can’t you get his parents to help pay?” and the little old man sighed. “No, I can’t” he replied, “see they have a surprise waiting for him for his birthday, and I don’t want to spoil it for him”.. seriously, I just wanted to whip out my credit card and pay the bill for him instead. My heart just melted.
Working in a call centre can be funny and shocking at times. I know I wrote a post a few days ago about how I felt when I took those nasty calls, but we do get some enjoyment out of the other calls too.
August 17th, 2007 at 5:51 am
To paraphrase:
We get different types of posts on blogs, some are good, some are not so good. The good ones make you smile (Like this one).
August 17th, 2007 at 11:07 am
I’ve done time in a taxi call center and I laughed on a nightly basis at all the drunks who would get angry at ME for not knowing where they were wanting to be picked up from.
August 17th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Lori,
Probably the worst I have ever seen was a bloke who hated the government department I worked for. And for three years, we kept trying to send him money he’d overpaid us, but he kept ringing and abusing us whenever he got an envelope from us. If he’d bother to open and read the letter, he’d find we were refunding him several thousand dollars.
- Aurelius
August 17th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
noice..
like my night with a customer tonight…
“mrs X, your credit card company rejected our payment request”
“no your company made the mistake”
“mrs X, your credit card company rejected our payment request”
“no your company made the mistake”
“mrs X, your credit card company rejected our payment request”
“no i cancel my services ”
“No worries Mrs X, consider it done!!”