Customer Service: Rants, Raves, Back Pats, and Appreciation

[Peelee]

It's meant to defeat automatic searches. So a lot of companies will have a bot out there that trawls the web for new mentions of their company. But they won't pick up if the actual name isn't used, so unless an actual human who cares happens to stumble on the site it won't be noticed.

Five bucks says target includes "bull's-eye" in their automated searches.

[Douglas]

Whole Foods is often referred to as "whole paycheck" and one time when we drove by my wife looked at their full parking lot and said: "Look at all those stupid ***** people".

I don't shop at Whole Foods much, but I do occasionally go there to get certain niche products that just plain aren't available anywhere else that I know of in my area. For example, my preferred flavors of non-dairy ice cream.

[Telonius]

Different kind of customer service here; technical help desk at a science journal. Any time somebody's files aren't loading correctly, I'm the guy that gets the message. So it's my job to make computer files do what authors want them to do, despite not being designed for that. Fixing the same wretched problem over and over can get mind-numbing, but at least I have some interesting papers to read while I'm doing it.

I think it's partially because of the industry, partially because it's a pretty prestigious journal, but real horror stories are kind of rare. A few really stick out though. Once in a very long time, we get a scientist whose ego is bigger than the page limit, and who just doesn't get that no, we aren't going to change our submission guidelines just for you. One case a few years back, we had a fairly well-known scientist (not a household name by any means, but known to people in the field) who called in so irate, and treated the staff so abusively, that we actually banned them from submitting for a few years. The Editor in Chief actually called this person personally and let them know that.

I think that's an important part of making customer service much less miserable; feeling like you have some agency and that the management will have your back if it's something really terrible.

[Leecros]

I think that's an important part of making customer service much less miserable; feeling like you have some agency and that the management will have your back if it's something really terrible.

Sadly, while I know management has my back. I also know that corporate does not. They very much treat us all like little thieves. They have cameras all throughout the store and have made it clear that it's not to catch customers doing something wrong, but to catch us doing something wrong. Whether it's shoplifting or not doing our jobs at the scheduled periods or whatever. While the cameras can be used to catch customers doing bad things, they've made it clear that they can access the camera feed at any time.

We also can't ring out family members and when we ring out other employees we have to sign the receipt. At the end of the night, if an employee has a lunch bag or something like that another employee has to check it in front of a camera. If we bring anything from the outside that we also sell in the store, it has to be clearly marked as from home and we have to show it to the cameras every time we enter the Sales Floor.

This attitude is cemented in our CBL(computer-based Learning) training where the company constantly emphasizes that most shrink is from employee theft. That might be true, but that's not a reason to treat all of your employees like criminals and that's exactly how I feel some days walking into the store with cameras everywhere and corporate threatening the possibility of watching my every move.

And they still owe me a paycheck from two weeks ago! I can't actually get ahold of anyone to actually sort it out!

[Peelee]

And they still owe me a paycheck from two weeks ago! I can't actually get ahold of anyone to actually sort it out!

I recommend going to your GM and saying, "look, if you can't get me this paycheck, I'm pretty sure the Department of Labor can."

[razorback]

I recommend going to your GM and saying, "look, if you can't get me this paycheck, I'm pretty sure the Department of Labor can."

Trying to keep away from the legal advise, so do a Google search regarding the penalties for not providing a check in a timely manner.

That ain't right.

[tomandtish]

The grocery store that I work at is part of a chain that runs up and down the east coast. The store I work at is called "Giant", but we also go by "Martins" because, obnoxiously, there is another grocery store chain in the same area called "Giant Eagle". No, we are not related. If there is a town with a Giant Eagle in it, our chain will almost invariably be known as Martins there. People still come into our store insisting that we honor Giant Eagle store cards and coupons and what not, and threaten to get us fired when we explain that no, this is not that store chain, there isn't even one of them in town, and we cannot accept a Giant Eagle store card at this store.

Bonus points because we are a college town, and therefore get a number of parents of college students from out of town who insist that they are smarter than we are and know better than we do what company we work for.

Relevant strips begin here. Note: These comics are OK, but some in the strip overall may be NSFW.

[Keltest]

Relevant strips begin here. Note: These comics are OK, but some in the strip overall may be NSFW.

Ive never had anything like that happen to me personally (rather inexplicably to be honest), but I have seen several people absolutely freak out about the requirements Western Union has. Its rather baffling how many people don't realize that no, you cannot collect money on behalf of another person, and a voice over a phone does not count as valid identification.

I cant decide if people leave me alone because I have a nice face that looks like I'm genuinely trying my best to help them, or because I look like I live in the mountains and wrestle bears to death for sustenance. Or both.

[inexorabletruth]

*slides some tall frosty mugs down the bar*

@Telonius
I'm glad you don't experience the darker side of service often. It's nice to hear that your boss has your back when things get weird, too. Although it isn't fair for me to do so, always expect more from the scientific or religious community (I suppose a leader in a community really), so it is a special kind of disappointment when they show their uglier sides.
*fills your frosty mug with a heady brew*

@Leecros
Wow, that's... invasive. It's pretty normal for security cameras to keep an eye on the staff, but your company takes it to the next level. And I know your pain on the paychecks. The last company I worked for, the junior executive of the company blatantly stated they weren't going to pay me my last two paychecks because I had submitted my resignation, and they didn't appreciate that. I quit because I was being harassed at work, and the company didn't want to do anything about it. I can't help you out with money, but I can do this...
*pours you something bold, golden, and richly flavored*

@Keltest
Working in college towns can be rough like that. And oddly, it doesn't always churn the brightest clientele. It sucks to be condescended to, especially when you are actually not the one acting foolishly. It's not always obvious to the customer, but some really bright minds work in service. I've had coworkers who had degrees (or were working on their degrees) in science, medicine, business, law, education, history, humanities, and a variety of other fields. I've had team members who were straight A students in high school, and dean's list students in college. One of my cashiers was technically a rocket scientist. It is an act of pure hubris to think that just because someone works in service that they aren't smart enough to do their job. Anyway, here's a nice local brew. I hope you like it.
*pours you something most people never heard of, then adjusts hipster glasses*

[Keltest]

@Keltest
Working in college towns can be rough like that. And oddly, it doesn't always churn the brightest clientele. It sucks to be condescended to, especially when you are actually not the one acting foolishly. It's not always obvious to the customer, but some really bright minds work in service. I've had coworkers who had degrees (or were working on their degrees) in science, medicine, business, law, education, history, humanities, and a variety of other fields. I've had team members who were straight A students in high school, and dean's list students in college. One of my cashiers was technically a rocket scientist. It is an act of pure hubris to think that just because someone works in service that they aren't smart enough to do their job. Anyway, here's a nice local brew. I hope you like it.
*pours you something most people never heard of, then adjusts hipster glasses*

One of our deli workers actually recently got his PHD. So now we can page Doctor Clark to the deli, and to answer the phone.

[Peelee]

One of our deli workers actually recently got his PHD. So now we can page Doctor Clark to the deli, and to answer the phone.

Man, job requirements have gotten ridiculous these days.

[Wraith]

Never heard of either.

Around here the big supermarkets/grocery stores are Safeway and Lucky (which used to be known as Alpha Beta, and briefly as Albertsons), but they're not many Lucky's around anymore.

Just to make matters especially confusing; Safeway used to have a franchise in Britain which was sold off in 1987, but kept the name "Safeway" until it was bought out by another supermarket in 2004.

So if you mentioned "Safeway" to us, you'll be told on no uncertain terms that they a) went completely out of business b) only exist in America and c) never heard of them, what are you talking about?

But I know many retail places will fire you for any "perceived" negative press on social media. It was something I always told people I hired for the store, " If you post something bad and corporate finds out they can fire you without me getting any say in the matter." If you have to post pictures from work make sure either no one is in uniform, or you can't tell its our company.

I can confirm that the 'negative press' doesn't even have to feature the company name or brand directly. There was a case in Britain a few years ago where someone made unpleasant remarks on their Facebook - not about work or the company, just generally unpleasant - and because they had "Tesco" (the supermarket where I used to work) listed as their employer, their contract was ended to prevent their attitude from being connected to the brand.

It was upheld too, since they weren't "fired" but just didn't have their contract renewed after their probation period was up. In hindsight it was probably bad netiquette for them to have a public Facebook profile while on probation, but it proved the lengths that people go to when looking for this sort of thing.

....But only when it suits them, of course. Tesco have ended contracts for "Social Media violations" more than once, but a couple of years ago one of the stores independently organised a Christmas music video, where after-hours the staff came in and danced around the building to Gangnam Style while a fat guy dressed as Santa was "chased" by the security team.
Despite the crotch-thrusting and the wiggled butts that Gangnam Style is known for - in uniform and with name tags, no less - the video went around the company and was praised by corporate as being a good example of "fun at work" (which was the title of a corporately mandated programme wherein stores had to complete a minimum number of allotted "fun activities" each year. Thank you indeed, Friend Computer.... )

Frankly I'm one of the least Christmassy people that you might ever meet and I thoroughly enjoyed the insane irreverence for the holiday encapsulated within the video, but it's very hard to imagine that such a thing wouldn't also receive a lot of complaints from staff and customers alike.

[Leecros]

Well, for those wondering, I did get my paycheck. The bank deposited it into the wrong account and we got it worked out.


I'm still not convinced that the company I work for is doing everything right when it comes to payroll. I was stonewalled three different times when I asked for any kind of information that would actually allow the bank to find the money easily, but at least it was found...

After they pretty much went through every transaction for that day...

[Ornithologist]

That's good they got you squared away.

1st Rule of Retail management - Don't screw up Payroll. We have such little benefits or perks, if that gets messed up people will just walk out.

The GM I worked under longest, he kept about a thousand dollars cash of his own money on hand in case of an emergency when someone didn't get paid by corporate.

I saw him use it once, but he knew the rule so it was rare.

That being said, not everyone is so lucky. (using a very specific definition of lucky, since this is retail).

[Keltest]

That's good they got you squared away.

1st Rule of Retail management - Don't screw up Payroll. We have such little benefits or perks, if that gets messed up people will just walk out.

The GM I worked under longest, he kept about a thousand dollars cash of his own money on hand in case of an emergency when someone didn't get paid by corporate.

I saw him use it once, but he knew the rule so it was rare.

That being said, not everyone is so lucky. (using a very specific definition of lucky, since this is retail).

Not sure if this is the second rule or an addendum to the first, but Don't Screw Up Scheduling either. Many people working retail are either living paycheck to paycheck, and therefore need to be able to predict how many hours (and therefore how much money) they get in a week/month/year, or have very specific availabilities where they again need to be able to predict their schedules reasonably well. You botch the schedule up, and people will leave on the spot, as our COM is starting to learn.

[Leecros]

The GM I worked under longest, he kept about a thousand dollars cash of his own money on hand in case of an emergency when someone didn't get paid by corporate.

Fortunately my manager was willing to pay me out of his own pocket, but that doesn't change the fact that he should have to and how unwilling the company was to actually help figure out what the problem was disappoints me greatly.

[darkrose50]

I am an insurance agent.

Me: I can look you up in our system with A or B.

Caller: I don’t have A, can you find me with C.

Me: No C is the name of a product.

Caller: I have D, can you look me up with D?

Me: I can look you up in our system with A or B.

Caller: Can’t you use C?

Me: No, that would be like calling Toyota, and telling them you have a Corolla. They would not be able to find you in their system with that information.

Caller: But I need to make my payment by the first.

Me: You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date.

Caller: I have not received any paper work yet.

Me: It will take 5-10 business days to get the paperwork done.

Caller: I want to make a payment.

Me: You cannot make your payment without the paperwork first getting done.

Caller: I don’t want to get canceled.

Me: You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date. This is how the process works for everyone.

. . . I am quite sure I left out 5-6 more “You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date” lines in there.

-------

I was working on a return to sales charge request where the guy wanted to remove his son from his insurance as he went off to college and was covered at school. The charge request would not go though because his son's SSN on the form did not match the one in the system. However it would go though just fine if he left the SSN fields blank . . ..

[darkrose50]

Well, for those wondering, I did get my paycheck. The bank deposited it into the wrong account and we got it worked out.


I'm still not convinced that the company I work for is doing everything right when it comes to payroll. I was stonewalled three different times when I asked for any kind of information that would actually allow the bank to find the money easily, but at least it was found...

After they pretty much went through every transaction for that day...

I once worked for Comcast doing tech support (internet for customers, and then the VOIP phones for field technicians). There were three people in the company with the same name as mine. One left the company and I stopped getting a pay-check. I thought it was funny, but HR had a heart attack.

[WarKitty]

I am an insurance agent.

Me: I can look you up in our system with A or B.

Caller: I don’t have A, can you find me with C.

Me: No C is the name of a product.

Caller: I have D, can you look me up with D?

Me: I can look you up in our system with A or B.

Caller: Can’t you use C?

Me: No, that would be like calling Toyota, and telling them you have a Corolla. They would not be able to find you in their system with that information.

Caller: But I need to make my payment by the first.

Me: You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date.

Caller: I have not received any paper work yet.

Me: It will take 5-10 business days to get the paperwork done.

Caller: I want to make a payment.

Me: You cannot make your payment without the paperwork first getting done.

Caller: I don’t want to get canceled.

Me: You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date. This is how the process works for everyone.

. . . I am quite sure I left out 5-6 more “You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date” lines in there.

-------

I was working on a return to sales charge request where the guy wanted to remove his son from his insurance as he went off to college and was covered at school. The charge request would not go though because his son's SSN on the form did not match the one in the system. However it would go though just fine if he left the SSN fields blank . . ..

Reminds me of an annoying part of my job. I need to talk to travel agents periodically and ask them questions about what they booked. They have particular information they use to look up trips. They don't give us any of this information, but then get frustrated when I don't provide it (and then things go wrong because we can't find the trip to fix it).

[Chen]

. . . I am quite sure I left out 5-6 more “You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date” lines in there.

Did the person understand what effective date even means? If I had this sentence repeated to me verbatim I’d be upset too.

[darkrose50]

Did the person understand what effective date even means? If I had this sentence repeated to me verbatim I’d be upset too.

The date the policy starts.

The government sends these poor people an email saying that they need to pay by their effective date or be cancelled. Unfortunately that is not the case. This is likely the legal case, as in an insurance company may do this. We don't do this because we want customers (I assume), and we want to have their account ready in all the systems before taking this kind of payment (Affordable Care Act Marketplace applications, where the applicant selected the option to pay later, and did not enter payment information at the time the application was submitted). The government works with quite a lot of different insurance producers.

I apologize to the applicant, explain how our system works, and ~8/10 people get it the first time I explain it. This lady took the prize. It can be a difficult idea to process that the company is in charge of when it terminates someone for nonpayment. I get about 2-4 such calls per day.

Someone could call on 03-30-2018, get an effective date of 04-01-2018, and be approved on 04-13-2018. The government sending them a letter saying that they must pay by the 1st or they will get cancelled panics people. I am not even in billing (I am in sales) and I get 2-4 of these calls a day (or similar).

With all other forms of applications it is the law to submit payment for the first month along with the application as it makes the contract legal. This is called consideration. Without payment, normally, an insurance application that is otherwise filled out is not an insurance contract.

[2D8HP]

Customer: "I want an air filter for motorcycle"

Me: "What kind of motorcycle do you have?"

Customer: "A red one".

[Peelee]

Customer: "I want an air filter for motorcycle"

Me: "What kind of motorcycle do you have?"

Customer: "A red one".

Customer: "I need a CPAP mask"
Me: "What kind do you like?"
Customer: "The nose one."

Funny thing is, I always say that's like if you wanted to get new tires for you car and saying "a sedan" when they ask what kind of car.

[darkrose50]

Customer: I want a healthcare policy like this one, but with a lower premium, and the same benefits.
Me: . . .

----

Customer: I know that it is less than 24-hours till the deadline, that I spent 30-minutes waiting to talk to you, but I want to ask a bunch of questions, and I am not ready to enroll.
Me: <thinking that I am not customer service> I can email you a brochure. <The crewel thing to do would be to transfer her to customer service, but I try to be nice.>
Customer: Why cant you answer my questions?
Me: There are 64-people in the queue who need to apply for insurance before the deadline.
Customer: But I am just as important.
Me: . . . <thinking, no you are not . . . you wait till the last day, want to take up my time, and this is not my job this time of the year . . . other times of the year I can help you till the cows come home, but not now>

[2D8HP]

Customer: I want a healthcare policy like this one, but with a lower premium, and the same benefits.
Me: . . .

....I also want a pony.

[Peelee]

Customer: I want a healthcare policy like this one, but with a lower premium, and the same benefits.
Me: . . .

Customer: Hey, I have two insurances.
Me: Oh, cool. Which one is your primary?
Customer: You tell me.
No, that's not how this works. You tell me. It's your insurance, you are the one who got it, and I'm not going to waste three hours trying to call potentially five different companies across three states just because you can't spend five minutes calling the patient advocate and asking if they are your primary.

[Traab]

Having worked in an outbound center before, typically it's on an auto dialer where there's no control over who gets called next. Especially when the person in question hangs up immediately before there's a chance to go through whatever the procedure is to remove the person called from the list (That said if it happens more than twice in a row the person in the call center is probably not doing something right, even if it's just not using ACW). Though I suspect this would vary a lot based on the company in question. Some outbound centers are little more than quasi-legal scams, while others are pretty strictly regulated.

I will admit to having fun with the scam ones. I won't shout at them or anything, but I've kept an alleged Microsoft Tech Support Agent on the line for a couple of hours playing the role of technical incompetent as he tried to walk me through how to download a load of spyware on my computer.


In either case, I am grateful to be in a role where I only answer phones 3 days a week now, and none of that is outbound. The worst role I had was tech support for AT&T, because people get very touchy when their phones don't work, and don't like it when you can't find a resolution in under 5 minutes. Or the most haunting calls were the ones coming in at 2am from worried parents wanting us to track their suicidal children's phones (for the record: If you are ever in this situation, do not call your phone company, call the police. The front line reps at the phone company can't track your phone for privacy and legal reasons. The police are able to put in requests through the correct channels when it is deemed necessary). Those sorts of experiences are why I never looked into working as a 911 operator.

I worked as a telemarketer once. This one poor woman I called with the autodialer was FROTHING with rage. Turns out somehow she had been called by us SIX TIMES THAT DAY! And yes, had stayed on the line long enough to be taken off the call list. Of course, I also found out this scummy company only pretended to do so. Just one reason among many I barely lasted 2 months there.

[darkrose50]

I worked as a telemarketer once. This one poor woman I called with the autodialer was FROTHING with rage. Turns out somehow she had been called by us SIX TIMES THAT DAY! And yes, had stayed on the line long enough to be taken off the call list. Of course, I also found out this scummy company only pretended to do so. Just one reason among many I barely lasted 2 months there.

We help billing sometimes. This, more or less, translates into calling people and saying "Hey, pay your dammed bill." By the time we get the list they have been called a mess of times. There are duplicates of this list, and people could literally get called 2-3 times by different people on the same day. It is annoying for everyone involved. I can certainly find better things to do. I could be looking for leads, studying, or preparing my list of contacts for our busy season (quite important), but I can be given a list of normally 100 people (rarely thousands) to call and annoy. We get a list like this or similar every week or so (we would get one every 2-days or so during the summer of hell), and they usually take about two hours (if you are super good at it), sometimes more, depending. Getting a hold of someone who has forgotten to pay one month is a lot easier than getting a hold of someone three months behind, for example.

-----

I wasted two weeks do the following:

[1] Cold calling individuals aged 65+ asking them for their SSN.
[2] Cold calling individuals aged 65+ asking them for their credit card information.
[3] Once I got someone to enroll I would email these individuals aged 65+ an application as our computer system would not let us enroll someone 65+ over the phone . . . and then not get credit as the client never told us the application was sent in (to the fax or email that is on the damned fool application no less).
[4] If I left a message, and they called back, then my co-workers would ~100% of the time consistently transfer them to me while unavailable (big red stoplight in the phone system) FOR WEEKS. My co-workers were supposed to send me an email, but did not, because no one followed the procedure.
[5] It was absolute TORTURE. I lost all of my sanity points on that project.

[darkrose50]

Customer: Can you read me the insurance product table over the phone. so that I can recreate it with pen and paper.
Me: . . .

HONEST TO GOD people want you to read them a TABLE! OVER THE PHONE! SO THAT THEY CAN REMAKE IT! We have eyes for that and we have tables to look at for that. This is crazy super common, and these people are not sight impaired.

[2D8HP]

We help billing sometimes. This, more or less, translates into calling people and saying "Hey, pay your dammed bill...

A former co-worker (Roy, so sometimes I imagine the OotS Roy as my former co-worker) would take these calls on his cell phone during lunch, and his responses would floor us laughing:

"Nah, I'm not going to pay you the money, y'all the ones stupid enough to give it to me, if you'd look at my record you'd know not to do that, so you out"

True words of wisdom!

I seldom get live people anymore, but when I still had a land line and was listed in the phone book (early mid 1990's) I got a lot of calls from "creditors" wanting to be paid money that I didn't owe.

Once a creditor called me a different middle name, and with a couple hours on the web (this was when we had dial up so it often took many minutes for a page to load) I found the guy who I suspect the creditors were looking for, he was a decade older thsn me, and lived one city over.

Before I permanently unplugged the land line, when "creditors" called demanding payment, I'd say "You say I owe you money, what's my middle name then?"