Hit the road, Jack

In my five years at the call centre, I have never worked a Sunday. You can imagine my dismay when I found I needed to switch a shift and the only available day I had was Sunday. I went into work with that initial attitude that I didn’t want to be there and would do anything to be allowed to go home. This is never a good way to start your day, especially when working in customer service. People can definitely pick up on your “I’d rather have my teeth pulled than talk to you right now” attitude. To my surprise, it was one of the best days I’ve ever had at work. Apart from the fact that there was a good 20 minutes between calls, it gave me a chance to talk to some co-workers that I hadn’t spoken to in months. Given that we had so much free time on our hands, we had some of the best conversations. The topics included everything from the smartest cast member of Jersey Shore (we determined there wasn’t one), to favourite places in this city to drink, to ideal places to work. This quickly led to talk of past coworkers and the way people ended up quitting the call centre.

Call centres have the highest turnover rates, which can be costly on the company. According to Price Waterhouse Coopers, employee turnover can cost 1.5 times the salary of the employee being replaced. Call centres have a turnover rate of 26% annually for full time employees and 33% for part time employees. In the last 5 years, I have seen a lot of people come and go (both from being fired or leaving on their own accord) but these are some of my favourites:

The Prank Call

One co-worker had decided he wanted to quit, but wanted to go out with a bang. For his last call, he told a customer he would call them back when he got a specialist on the line for them. He hung up and took one more call. He pulled up the customer’s account and asked to put them on hold. He then called back the first customer on line two and told them he had a representative on the other line that would be able to help them with their issue. He then conferenced the two calls together, took off his headset and walked out of the building. He obviously never came back.

Employee of the Month

This one particular girl was a bit of a psycho and used to randomly freak out on co-workers. She was definitely one of those people that everyone avoided. To our surprise, she won employee of the month last April. Needless to say, we were all completely shocked, and were beginning to lose faith in the “Employee of the Month” contest. The best part about this story is that less than a month later she was fired for having multiple complaints because she was being rude to customers. It was at that point I lost all faith in the “Employee of the Month” program.

Mr. Bomb Threat

A few years back, the call centre used to get frequent bomb threats. Someone would email in threats that a bomb was in the building, in turn shutting the entire building down while it was searched. Everyone would then go bowling while the issue was being dealt with. These bombs threats became so frequent, that you could basically plan your schedule around them, and “Bomb threat Thursdays” became a popular term among the employees. Eventually this employee was caught and fired. My favourite part of this story is the fact that, as I was walking to my desk last summer, I look across the floor and see that Mr. Bomb Threat had in fact been re-hired and was working on another campaign. At least he wasn’t voted Employee of the Month.

Needless to say, there is never a dull moment at the call centre. As I’ve said before, my co-workers are the reason I go in every day. While these ways of leaving are not professional in any way, it does give us something to laugh about when there aren’t any calls to be taking.

Sometimes the customer isn't always right....

On an average day I’d say I take about 100-150 calls, depending on the time of year. I have been at my call centre for almost 5 years and handled almost 400,000 accounts. (Those are official numbers, I checked my stats this week. In reality, it feels as if I’ve taken about a million). The intellectual levels of some of these people leave much to be desired, and while it severely irritates many of my coworkers, I can’t help but laugh. There are some ridiculous comments I hear repeatedly, while others stand out from the crowd. One of the calls I took this week is a perfect example of this. This particular customer had made a payment to the account and it was showing as paid on his online banking website, but our systems showed we hadn’t taken a payment. We’ll call him Mr. Jones. This is how the call went:

Me: I apologize, Mr. Jones, our records show that we have not received a payment since November. If you did make a more recent payment, we’re going to have to ask that you fax us in proof that the funds have been taken out of your account.

Mr. Jones: Well it’s right here on my computer.

Me: That’s great sir, so I’ll give you the fax number where you can send the proof to

Mr. Jones: Yeah but I’m looking at the payment right now, it’s right there and I’m looking at it. Why can’t you just put down that I’ve paid it?

Me: Mr Jones, can you see my computer screen right now?

Mr. Jones: No, of course I can’t

Me: Well then how am I supposed to be able to see yours? I need you to fax me the information

Mr. Jones: Because it’s RIGHT THERE ON THE SCREEN!

This is probably the point where a lot of people would start to get angry, but I just laugh it off. I think it’s because I know I have to sit there and take the calls regardless, and getting angry over it will affect my ability to do my job.

Ventana Research did a study showing that 60% of call centres rely on the agent to assess the customer’s satisfaction. This means that regardless of the mood I’m in, I need to remember not to let anything affect the way I do my job. In the last 6 months, I’ve had 8 Customer Satisfaction surveys completed on me (which is about average for part time reps) with every single one being 100%. That says more to me than any other stat measurable.

At the end of the day, it depends on how you look at the situations. I could let these people bother me and go home crying at the end of every day like many of the people I see working (and quitting) my company, but I believe that job satisfaction comes from how you choose to deal with the difficult situations.

(Ok, and it makes for great blogging material too)

http://www.ventanaresearch.com/research/category_new.aspx?id=1045

The two-year-old's in charge today....

I want to talk today about a call I recently had from a man regarding his cable bill. On the bill were multiple charges for OnDemand movies that had been ordered that he wanted to dispute because he said his kids had ordered the movies, not him.

Before I saw the account I was dreading the call, because I assumed that the movies would be of the adult nature. My fear was rational, seeing as I take at least 2 calls per week of this nature. To my surprise, the movies were actually children’s movies. Ok, so there were a lot of them, and at $5 each they do add up, but I couldn’t help but wonder how and why his kids were allowed to order so many. Taking a look at the notes on the account I found that not only had his kids ordered movies before that we had given him credit for, (and HA! They were of the adult nature...) we also instructed him on how to use the parental controls for his cable box. Not wanting to give him full credit for these movies, I told him that he’s already been educated on what to do to prevent his kids from ordering the movie. He said he didn’t remember us telling him that, and it’s not his fault he can’t be watching his kids 100% of the time. At that point I told him he needed to tell his children not to order the movies anymore. His response? Quite shocking. “They’re only 2 years old” Ummm, excuse me? Your TWO YEAR OLDS are ordering these movies? My next question SHOULD have been “What kind of parent DOESN’T watch a 2 year old 100% of the time?” but I clearly value my job, and therefore did not ask the question.

This did, however, get me to thinking. This man called in because he’d seen the movies on his bill, not because he’d caught his kids watching them. Why were these babies left in front of a TV for 2 hours or more with no adult supervision? You’re either lying, or you’re an awful parent. Let’s go with awful parent, it gives me more to talk about.

So, let’s pretend this guy really did leave his kids unattended. He’s apparently not the only parent to do so. According to a study done by the University of Michigan, on average, children ages 2-5 spend 32 hours a week in front of a TV. That’s a full-time job. Kids ages 6-11 spend about 28 hours a week in front of the TV. The vast majority of this viewing (97%) is of live TV. In addition, 71% of 8- to 18-year-olds have a TV in their bedroom. Then there’s the fact that 54% have a DVD/VCR player, 37% have cable/satellite and 20% have premium channels (which, as a billing rep, I can tell you are very expensive in the US). Really, people? I vote that every kid in America be forced to read a book before being allowed to watch TV. These statistics are shocking and disappointing.

And yes, I did give him the credits, but only half. Watch your kids.

It's just hard not to listen to TV: it's spent so much more time raising us than you have.

Bart Simpson