It would seem that Fridays are the carnival of the weird around here.
"Good afternoon and welcome to PowerCorp can i take your account number please."
"Yeah, i got this letter saying i owe you some money?"
"I see, well if i can take your account number we'll get it checked out"
"But i don't think I owe anything."
"OK, that's fine, if I can take your account number we'll find out."
"Oh, sorry. LTRDC09..."
"No sir, your electricity or gas account number, it's eight digits long, probably begins with 027."
"Oh that! OK, it's 589746891547"
"No sir, the eight digit number"
"Oh, 220408"
"No sir, that's the date the letter was printed."
"Well you are no help at all! Obviously my account number isn't on here or I'd have found it by now."
Sigh "OK sir, can i take your postcode, we'll do a search for your house instead."
"Oh wait, 'Electricity account number' is that what you wanted before?"
Groan "Yes sir."
"Well you should have said so."
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Footballers and dopeheads.
Two strange ones today.
I spent a while listneing in again, didn't take any calls as we were strapped for time. However we had a minor server outage and ended up getting calls for our higher value debt department as well as our own. No difference in procedures, splitting them just makes it easier to gather statistics.
Let's begin.
"Good afternoon, can i take an account number please."
"Yup, it's 12345678"
"Excellent, and now can I take your name."
"Sure, it's Mr Jones calling on behalf of XXX Football Club"
"That's fine, how can I help?"
Hang on....back up there, which club was he calling from? I stare at the screen and sure enough, he's caling on the behalf of a 2nd division football club....a multi million pound team! Wow...
The call ends and we wait for another one to come in when I hear another trainee next to me exclaim. "Oh my god!"
I look over to ask what's up and see the debt on their account, over £9000, used in only 3 months.
"How in the world did they get that much?"
The advisr taking the call grinned and called up a note on the account.
"Customer has been arrested after meter reader called and found a marijuana farm in the property, customer had over 50 600 watt lamps, fans and timers running. Please contact letting agency XXX for further issues."
We laughed ourselves silly for a few minutes.
"What a dope, surely he'd realise we'd think something was wrong..."
My colleagues are laughing again.
"What?"
"What a dope?" one grins.
"Up yours."
I spent a while listneing in again, didn't take any calls as we were strapped for time. However we had a minor server outage and ended up getting calls for our higher value debt department as well as our own. No difference in procedures, splitting them just makes it easier to gather statistics.
Let's begin.
"Good afternoon, can i take an account number please."
"Yup, it's 12345678"
"Excellent, and now can I take your name."
"Sure, it's Mr Jones calling on behalf of XXX Football Club"
"That's fine, how can I help?"
Hang on....back up there, which club was he calling from? I stare at the screen and sure enough, he's caling on the behalf of a 2nd division football club....a multi million pound team! Wow...
The call ends and we wait for another one to come in when I hear another trainee next to me exclaim. "Oh my god!"
I look over to ask what's up and see the debt on their account, over £9000, used in only 3 months.
"How in the world did they get that much?"
The advisr taking the call grinned and called up a note on the account.
"Customer has been arrested after meter reader called and found a marijuana farm in the property, customer had over 50 600 watt lamps, fans and timers running. Please contact letting agency XXX for further issues."
We laughed ourselves silly for a few minutes.
"What a dope, surely he'd realise we'd think something was wrong..."
My colleagues are laughing again.
"What?"
"What a dope?" one grins.
"Up yours."
My first call. Aww.
Two days ago I took my first call in the new department.
I was rather nervous, for many reasons, you never really know what you're going to get, some customers are philosophical about it, some are only phoning to shout.
I squared my shoulders and switched my console over to "available".
The phone rang and I hit the button to pick it up, an automated voice told me which section of our collections cycle this customer was calling from, in this case, she'd received a reminder, one of the earliest stages.
"Good afternoon, welcome to Company, can i take your account number please?"
We go through the preliminaries.
"That's great, I'm showing an outstanding balance of £xxx on your account, how can I help you today?"
"Well I'm not very happy, I received a Very nasty letter from your company today telling me to pay my bill. I found it extremely offensive! If your company had bothered to come and read my meter then this would never have happened!"
Yeah and if you'd read the bit on your bill where it says in bold typeface that your account was estimated and to please call in with a reading then it would never have happened either.
"Very well, I can see that there is a payment pending on your account, it will take a few more days to clear though, so should you receive any more communications from us regarding the debt you can ignore it."
"I should bloody well hope so! And you need to change that letter, it was disgusting! In fact I'm thoroughly disgusted with your service and I'm moving to Company X!"
"Very we*click*ll....?"
She hung up on me.
I switch myself off available and glance over at the experienced advisor who is shadowing me and he grins. "Tough break, but you did well."
I grin.
I was rather nervous, for many reasons, you never really know what you're going to get, some customers are philosophical about it, some are only phoning to shout.
I squared my shoulders and switched my console over to "available".
The phone rang and I hit the button to pick it up, an automated voice told me which section of our collections cycle this customer was calling from, in this case, she'd received a reminder, one of the earliest stages.
"Good afternoon, welcome to Company, can i take your account number please?"
We go through the preliminaries.
"That's great, I'm showing an outstanding balance of £xxx on your account, how can I help you today?"
"Well I'm not very happy, I received a Very nasty letter from your company today telling me to pay my bill. I found it extremely offensive! If your company had bothered to come and read my meter then this would never have happened!"
Yeah and if you'd read the bit on your bill where it says in bold typeface that your account was estimated and to please call in with a reading then it would never have happened either.
"Very well, I can see that there is a payment pending on your account, it will take a few more days to clear though, so should you receive any more communications from us regarding the debt you can ignore it."
"I should bloody well hope so! And you need to change that letter, it was disgusting! In fact I'm thoroughly disgusted with your service and I'm moving to Company X!"
"Very we*click*ll....?"
She hung up on me.
I switch myself off available and glance over at the experienced advisor who is shadowing me and he grins. "Tough break, but you did well."
I grin.
Back into the breech.
Well Ladies and Gentlemen, my training is nearly over and i'm about to hit our debt collection floor, and already i have tales of wackyness to regale you with.
It's really not been too bad, despite a problem with a manager which i won't go into, you're not here to listen to my woes, you want the good stuff.
So, onwards, let's see what we've got...
It's really not been too bad, despite a problem with a manager which i won't go into, you're not here to listen to my woes, you want the good stuff.
So, onwards, let's see what we've got...
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Happy Chinese New Year!
A friend of mine who read this blog has just seen my latest post and commented: "Happy new year in February? You ought to have gone for Chinese New Year!"
So...
Happy Chinese New Year!!!! Yay!
UPDATE: I've spoken to my friend again and they informed me that they actually don't know when Chinese New Year is, after checking we have determined that it is in fact today!
Talk about serendipity!
So...
Happy Chinese New Year!!!! Yay!
UPDATE: I've spoken to my friend again and they informed me that they actually don't know when Chinese New Year is, after checking we have determined that it is in fact today!
Talk about serendipity!
Happy new year.
So, happy new year! It's a little late, but better late than never, or something like that.
Anyway, no updates recently because nothing of note has happened, they took us back off phones because it was "Inefficient" so i have no fun customer stories, however in a month i move from my current area off to Debt collection, so we'll see what happens then. I'm bound to get a few fun customers in there.
In the meantime, we ran a cross an account today that was returning reads of 0 all the time. Someone had booked for an agent to go check the meter and return a report to us.
The report came back saying "Property has been demolished."
That's a pretty good reason for not using the gas...
We tried to get it fixed by calling Customer support to get the account shut down, they put us through to property movements, who put us through to property support. Who told us to call back when they were open and cut us off. This took 36 minutes.
So, anyone who gets stuck in a queue for a customer service agent...don't despair. It happens to us too.
Anyway, no updates recently because nothing of note has happened, they took us back off phones because it was "Inefficient" so i have no fun customer stories, however in a month i move from my current area off to Debt collection, so we'll see what happens then. I'm bound to get a few fun customers in there.
In the meantime, we ran a cross an account today that was returning reads of 0 all the time. Someone had booked for an agent to go check the meter and return a report to us.
The report came back saying "Property has been demolished."
That's a pretty good reason for not using the gas...
We tried to get it fixed by calling Customer support to get the account shut down, they put us through to property movements, who put us through to property support. Who told us to call back when they were open and cut us off. This took 36 minutes.
So, anyone who gets stuck in a queue for a customer service agent...don't despair. It happens to us too.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Location: Staffordshire, Bangalore.
What is it with customers at the minute and demanding to know where I am?
I have a blatant Midlands accent. Definitely British and yet customers repeatedly and determinedly ask me whether or not I'm in England. For any American readers this is like being called by someone with an obvious thick Texan accent and demanding to know if they are in America or not.
I know large companies outsource a lot but sheesh....very few outsource workers talk with a British regional accent.
One more odd story, of a type we get a lot:
A colleague of mine called a customer to get a reading which resulted int eh following exchange:
(Usual preamble)
Colleague: Would it be possible to get a meter reading this evening?
Customer: Pardon?
Colleague: Can we get a meter reading?
Customer: A what?
Colleague: A reading....for the electricity.
Customer: Pardon?
Colleague: A meter reading (Thumps head on desk, entire department is laughing at him)
Customer: Oh, which one?
Colleague: Electricity.
Customer: Pardon?
Colleague: The electricity meter.
Customer: What about it?
Colleague: Could you get a reading for it?
Customer? A What?
Colleague: A reading....(Entire department is cracking up, other customers are now on hold so we can hear how this pans out)
Customer: Sorry, I'm hard of hearing.
Colleague: (Groan) Ok, I'll send you a letter instead, ok?
Customer: Ok.
Bear in mind, the customer heard all the usual preamble perfectly well, including asking for the first line of the address and the postcode. My colleague guessed that he simply couldn't be bothered to get the reading, however the discussion he wound up having with my colleague probably took longer then getting the reading would have.
Some people go to so much effort to be lazy it's incredible.
I have a blatant Midlands accent. Definitely British and yet customers repeatedly and determinedly ask me whether or not I'm in England. For any American readers this is like being called by someone with an obvious thick Texan accent and demanding to know if they are in America or not.
I know large companies outsource a lot but sheesh....very few outsource workers talk with a British regional accent.
One more odd story, of a type we get a lot:
A colleague of mine called a customer to get a reading which resulted int eh following exchange:
(Usual preamble)
Colleague: Would it be possible to get a meter reading this evening?
Customer: Pardon?
Colleague: Can we get a meter reading?
Customer: A what?
Colleague: A reading....for the electricity.
Customer: Pardon?
Colleague: A meter reading (Thumps head on desk, entire department is laughing at him)
Customer: Oh, which one?
Colleague: Electricity.
Customer: Pardon?
Colleague: The electricity meter.
Customer: What about it?
Colleague: Could you get a reading for it?
Customer? A What?
Colleague: A reading....(Entire department is cracking up, other customers are now on hold so we can hear how this pans out)
Customer: Sorry, I'm hard of hearing.
Colleague: (Groan) Ok, I'll send you a letter instead, ok?
Customer: Ok.
Bear in mind, the customer heard all the usual preamble perfectly well, including asking for the first line of the address and the postcode. My colleague guessed that he simply couldn't be bothered to get the reading, however the discussion he wound up having with my colleague probably took longer then getting the reading would have.
Some people go to so much effort to be lazy it's incredible.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)