You mean he stole my scooter?

For the last few weeks I’ve given you a little look into my call centre and the people that I work with. While they’re important and definitely the reason I go in every day, most of my time is really spent talking to customers. Some of the calls I receive are extremely interesting. A call I received a few months ago has stuck with me to this day. Here’s Mr. Green’s story.

“Mr. Green”

Mr. Green spent an hour on the phone with me telling me he needed to pay his bill and insisted he would pay it the following Friday if I would just give him an extension. I applied the extension to his account, and yet he still felt the need to give me his life story. Normally, I’m really good at keeping the calls on track and getting the callers off the phone in an appropriate amount of time. This man however, piqued my interest. He told me how he just got out of jail for something he didn’t do. He told me that his lawyer told him that it was in his best interest to plead guilty and do the time. What was he accused of? Killing a cat. I told him to find a new lawyer. He agreed with me and went on to say that he bought a new scooter recently and that it was now missing. I couldn’t resist, I had to ask why. He went into a long story about how a man asked Mr. Green to drive a car down the street for him, while he rode the scooter to the store. He gave the man the scooter, (took his phone number for security reasons, of course) and agreed to meet him at an arranged time and location to pick up the scooter. I couldn’t help but interrupt at this point.

Me: “Did you actually believe him?”

Mr. Green: “Of course! He gave me his phone number and said I could have my scooter back when I called the number. I’ve been calling for four months but he won’t answer and I still don’t have my scooter!

Me: “Mr Green, that car was probably a stolen vehicle and you’ll most likely never see that scooter again. You shouldn’t be so trusting in strangers”

Mr. Green “He stole my scooter? No way darlin’, I thought I was doing a good thing”

He was actually surprised that I questioned his ability to make decisions. He’s clearly been so successful making them in the past. He went on for a half hour more talking about how some crazy women came into his home and ordered a ton of adult pay-per-views. This call was so entertaining and lasted so long I was hoping that my manager would hear this call as well, just so someone else could hear this insanity.

When a manager listens to a call, they give you a score out of 100. This is a Quality Assessment. Many call centres use this as a way to monitor their employees. Each client outlines what they want their representatives to do during a call, and then the call centres monitor the calls. You can read more about Quality Assessment in call centres here.

Again, there’s never a dull moment in the call centre. Some of these callers I will never forget, others I can’t get off my phone soon enough. Even though the call only lasts an average of 3 minutes, some people definitely make lasting impressions. So much so that 4 months later I’m still wondering what happened to that Mr. Green’s scooter.

They might be weird, but they're my friends

The best part about my job is the range of personalities I get to work with on a daily basis. With so many different beliefs and values, it’s hard to imagine how we all manage to remain in one room together for 8-10 hours a day. My coworkers have managed to get me through the last five years and actually make it so I enjoy being there. In call centres, people come and go, but with my particular campaign we tend to have a lot of people stay for long periods of time (I call these people “lifers” – they hate me for it.) Last week I focused on the (lucky?) individuals who’d managed to break away from the call centre, but this week I’m going to talk about the characters I get to be around every day. These are the guys I sit with:

The Indian Guy

This guy is by far the funniest man at the call centre. His humour is sometimes strange, sometimes harsh, but always entertaining. He’s the guy that says what everyone’s thinking; it’s just ten times funnier because he has an accent to compliment it. When I told him I was doing this blog and would be talking about him, but that I wouldn’t mention his name, he said “No, no! Say my name, say my name! I’m a funny man”

The MMA fighter

This guy is the best, despite the fact that he bbms me regularly just to call me a slacker. I'll be honest, when I first met him I was a little intimidated. He's a strong looking guy and fights MMA on his spare time, so I was pretty much terrified of him. Once I got to know him, my perception completely changed. He is by far one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He also goes to see Twilight in the movie theatre with his girlfriend. (He'll kill me for mentioning that)

The Scapegoat

The butt of everyone's jokes, he's one of the most entertaining people to have around. This guy can NOT stop talking-ever. There have been many times we'll listen to him on his calls and he's trying to troubleshoot someone's internet connection (we take billing calls). We call him Patches because he can't grow a full beard, or manage to shave his face properly. He's a fellow Niagara College student and a genuinely nice guy. The Indian Guy insists that Patches call him "Father".

The Instigator

This guy is my best friend's brother and loves to cause trouble. He's the one that will poke the fire when something's about to erupt and then sit back and watch it all happen. His favourite pastime at work is setting up scenarios that will cause The Indian Guy to say or do something funny and then laugh at other people. What he doesn't know is just how aware of it we all are, and how everyone does it just to laugh at his genuine reaction. Out of all of us, he probably escalates his calls to supervisors the most, simply because he loves saying “no” to customers. Sometimes he’ll say things in the most patronising ways, but it’s hilarious to hear. He is a nice guy though, and always has level-headed advice for me when I need it.

The Hustler

This guy always has some business deal going on the side. He tries to sell pirated DVDs to people, he sells discounted roast chickens to The Indian Guy, and even told me he could get me a brand new BMW for five thousand dollars. His goal in life is to be rich, and evidently he’s willing to do anything it takes to get there. He has an awesome personality and is always dancing in the aisles when he’s not taking calls. Again, he’s a really nice guy.

As I've said before, these guys are the reason I love my job so much. In its own weird way, it's like a family. We might not always get along, but at the end of the day we know we'll be there for one another.

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

A look into our crazy world

For my first entry, I figure I should explain a little bit about my job and what it consists of. I am a Customer Service Representative in the billing department for a major American cable, internet and telephone company. I take inbound calls, mostly complaints from customers and requests to solve any issues they may have with their bills. I also have to explain their bills to them. This part of the job can be both entertaining and extremely frustrating.

Call centres in general have a high turnover rate. In a worldwide study on call centres done in 2006, it found the top three problems call centres face are:

a. Shortage of skilled staff
b. Uncompetitive salary
c. Location of contact center

Personally, the call centre I work at has all of these problems that we have to face on a daily basis. For example:

Shortage of skilled staff: In addition to the entertaining customers, I also work with the most diverse and entertaining group of people I have ever encountered. The types of people found in call centres ranges from students, to immigrants to the unmotivated individuals who have found comfort in their shift-working barely above minimum wage job. Some of these people I completely adore, but many make me question just how they are able to function in the real world. Call centres see all kinds.

Uncompetitive salary: Funnily enough, the issue at our place right now is that upper management feels a lot of us make too much money. Really? Really? Some of these people fall below the poverty line when you factor in all the Mandatory Down Time we're given, yet many people are being forced into new positions (out of positions they've held for 10 years or more) so the company can make more of a profit. Notice I said more profit and not *a* profit. Right now people are going crazy and threatening to quit. I go in with a smile on my face and do my job, because really, there's nothing else I can do.

Location of contact centre: Many people travel from places like Grimsby, Hamilton and Dunnville just to work at my call centre. Personally, I think they're crazy, but St. Catharines is definitely known for its abundance of call centres.

Despite this issue though, most days I love going into work and interacting with these people. They're the ones that have kept me coming back week after week for the last 5 years. Over the next few weeks I will share my stories and let you into our crazy little world.