Poll of the Day > Honestly the most frustrating thing about dealing with customers is the arguing

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have absolutely no more patience left for people who argue with me about things that cant be changed.

When a customer calls in and says I need to speak to a manager about a recent installation and I say ok, Ill pass your information along to them and have them call you back thats literally all I can do. I didnt design the phone system we use here. I didnt make the decision to not have managers on the phone system we use or give them direct lines. It isnt something you can argue with me about.

/rant

I swear, 15+ years dealing with customers has been a contributing factor to why Im so fucked up and have no real confidence

Its amazing what marketing induced confidence can do to someone (The customer is always right).

When I worked call centers, I was just constantly shocked and confused by people who could confidently assert themselves despite being wrong, and I get that most of the time, theyre upset and dealing with several metaphorical fires at once usually. Ive had my fair share of being wrong and correcting that but I can count on one hand the number of people Ive talked to who actively acknowledged they were frustrated and I was just doing what I could within the bounds of my ability.

When you have a company (like my energy supplier) that reduces the number of ways customers can get in touch -- it no longer accepts emails, its live chat is offline, and it doesn't respond to online enquiry forms; it seems the only way you can contact it is via an Indian call centre that tells you there's a wait of 30 minutes, and calls are charged at standard rate -- and yet it spews surreal PR bullshit that all these changes are actually improvements to customer services (in the same way that up is really down and black is really white) -- customers are naturally going to be incredibly frustrated. They're as much victims of senior management stupidity as you are.

"I'm here for this thing you guys are advertising" "I don't know what that is" "But you're advertising it" *go to computer* "We don't sell that and we aren't advertising it"

Or the email from corporate "The warehouse is tired of getting emails about stuff the computer says is in inventory so we are making it so you can no longer see warehouse on hand" "Ok well instead of just sending requests in for stuff the computers says they have I'll send in requests for EVERYTHING SOMEONE ASKS ME FOR"

Don't even get me on the people trying to return stuff you don't sell and arguing with you for 30+ minutes because the person they are "returning" it on the behalf of says they got it here. So tired of crack heads trying to "return" stuff they stole.

I know it sucks, but I have also encountered the alternative, which is uncooperative/combative customer "service", and it makes me realize why it's important to have positive calm service representatives, regardless of how uncooperative the customer is.

(because if both the customer AND the service rep are combative... then you end up with a really really ugly conflict that will not resolve itself and will just escalate, and this will happen all the time. it has to defuse and that's not going to come from the customer (or if the customer realizes they have to be the professional one to get through this, that will not look good for your company.))

Working in customer service for many years can leave you feeling like Squidward

Or it can teach you about patience

Shananagainz posted...

(The customer is always right).

Just remind them that this isn't a Macy's and isn't Miracle on 34th Street

Another one of my favorite things is when someone screws something up (like putting in a note about when customers will actually be available within a time frame we give them), the customer will be like why did that person not put that note in?? or if they havent heard back from a manager: why havent they called me back yet??

I literally tell them I dont know, I cant speak for what other people do

I need a non-customer-y job .__.

As someone who has worked customer service it really doesn't help that companies encourage their reps to lie about what they can do to save money.

"Hey you can take off up to $500 but make sure you start at $10 and work your way up in 5-10 dollar intervals. Oh and document every offer so we know you are not just fixing the $50 problem right away instead of making lesser offers that might smooth things over instead of fixing it because some customers are OK with that and that will save us a little bit of money."

I pretty much refuse to do a job where I have to deal with customers directly anymore. Its been over 20 years and Im still traumatized over how stupid they were.

Youd love working at my company. My manager says if you get those calls you're suppose to tell the customer you are the manager and then handle the sitiation. If you cant you're fired.

teddy241 posted...

Youd love working at my company. My manager says if you get those calls you're suppose to tell the customer you are the manager and then handle the sitiation. If you cant you're fired.

Thats seems kind of shitty, tbh But I guess things would suck either way

LinkPizza posted...

Thats seems kind of shitty, tbh But I guess things would suck either way

Tbh i haven't dealt with a call yet in that fashion. If it did id trx it to my managers vm box and probably prepare my walking papers