Current Events > Those of you that work in customer service, what percent of your customers

(+) Yeah! (+)

...would you say are bad customers? or straight up unreasonable in other words?

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Like around 5% maybe?

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KogaSteelfang posted...

Like around 5% maybe?

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KogaSteelfang posted...

Like around 5% maybe?

really? you think it's that low?

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JebronLames posted...

really? you think it's that low?

The ones that are outright unreasonable, sure. Judging in rudeness or being unpleasant, it'd be more like 30%.

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koga you work in retail?

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JebronLames posted...

koga you work in retail?

Not retail. I got my old job as a front desk employee at a hotel.

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It's been a few years, but that 5% estimate sounds right.

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I think it's hard to say what is or isn't a "bad" customer vs one who just takes everything very literally even if the result is immaterial/inconsequential.

I worked in a consulting firm where we bill based on agreed rates, and expenses as incurred. One expense is printing where we have a rate per page printed (it's not marked up, it's a sensible price like 20 cents or something per page IIRC).

I once had someone call me up and challenge us on our printing charges because they noted some of the pages in their document were blank and on the back of another page, hence in double sided printing, it shouldn't have cost them anything and they wanted a refund.

They also challenged me on international call charges (yes back when international calls weren't free/unlimited) when they said we could've used Skype or something, and the effort it would take to go to our IT team, to work out who was called exactly and when, and from whose phone, etc... it just wasn't worth the hassle.

The cost of my time to figure it out and then debate with them over this wasn't worth my hassle so I just gave them an arbitrary credit note of $500 (this was on a $900k invoice).

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Roughly 10%.

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face to face retain I would say about 5-10%

call center work it was way higher, probably more like 40%

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My last position was a Lead position in the returns department at a store that didn't have a very flexible return policy...So a good amount because not only did i have to deal with the people i'd get directly, as the lead i would also have to step in and help other with unreasonable "BUT THAT'S NOT FAAAAAIIR" customers....it was like a preschool at times -_-

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TheVipaGTS posted...

My last position was a Lead position in the returns department at a store that didn't have a very flexible return policy...So a good amount because not only did i have to deal with the people i'd get directly, as the lead i would also have to step in and help other with unreasonable "BUT THAT'S NOT FAAAAAIIR" customers....it was like a preschool at times -_-

Did you have any special powers which allowed you more discretion or the ability to reach a different outcome?

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KogaSteelfang posted...

Like around 5% maybe?

But I bet that 5% really sticks out
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Like 5% Bad customers, like assholes
15-20% Dumbasses

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bimpi

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I mean, nearly half are probably people I strictly want to spend as little time with as possible, but as long as the interactions are short they're fine. Probably... 5% are legitimately intolerable. I usually take about 70 customer service calls on average daily and about 3 of them per day are mind-numbingly mean or stupid.

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KogaSteelfang posted...

The ones that are outright unreasonable, sure. Judging in rudeness or being unpleasant, it'd be more like 30%.

I'd side with this. People are generally on average indifferent. Some over the top cheery people (which sometimes can be just as annoying) and a small handful of the people who just bitch and are 100% incapable of being reasoned with or helped.

For example I had a lady once answer me asking if I can put her on a short hold to test a phone number for her with "I will hold until the fires of hell swallow you and your company."

So.

That's fun stuff, but rare.

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gloBal enemy posted...

Did you have any special powers which allowed you more discretion or the ability to reach a different outcome?

yea. i mean at the end of the day we needed to follow policy and i would always back up what the other sales associate said as long as what they said was correct to our policy, but on the rare occasion i had a little more control or power with regard to our system to make "exceptions" if i saw fit.

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bumpio

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