Call Centre Strategy + Experiences

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So what's the best way to get your own way with faceless corporate monoliths?

Apart from the usual stuff about keeping notes of people's names (and every other possible detail) and asking to speak to the supervisor etc, the only real tip I can offer (from my call centre brother) is pressing the # key, which bypasses the menus and gets you straight through to a real human being (well straight into the queue, but at least it avoids the ambiguous overlapping options).

Have any other tips? And feel free to relate tales of hell/success against adversity. What's the longest you've waited in a queue? Oddest hold music choices? Oddest "Your call is valued" message?

― Graham, Wednesday, 5 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Random thought: I've been calling them a fair amount recently, and also watching lots of Big Brother. Anyone else notice the similarity between the Diary Room voice and the sub-minimum wage droid? The way they have less than zero passion for what they're doing? The way they're only able to discuss certain things? The way they bow down to "company policy"/the rules of Big Brother (worst thing about "company policy": most CCs are subcontracted out, so even when they know you're right, there's nothing they can do, hence resorting to silly circular arguments instead of admitting it).

[At least I'm not as blatant as DG]

― Graham, Wednesday, 5 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hey, what's wrong with being blatant?

― DG, Wednesday, 5 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

no stories of success only hell. i was frequently put on hold for periods of sixty minutes at a time when trying to get a student allowance and once for a hundred minutes. It seems they didn't believe i was self-supporting because i could live on $80 per week after earning $160 the week before and everyone knows that young people are stupid and spend all their money straight away. So to get revenge on me for not being stupid they made me ring up every day while they made up new rules and lied about old rules. To make it worse they always playing entire muttonbirds and split enz albums as hold music. Now i'm scared to get off my student allowance 'cos i'll have to deal with them agian. what degree should i do next?

― hamish n00nan, Wednesday, 5 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

earthlink "support" was hellish. hours of waiting onyl to talk to a subhuman asswipe who could not help at all

― Mike Hanle y, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Once spoke to someone who worked in one. They are actively discouraged from giving any assistance, as they are evaluated ONLY on the number of calls they 'complete', and are basically told to fob off every caller after 60 seconds no matter what. There are supervisors listening in to make sure this happens as well. The number of calls 'completed' per person is also up on a large screen sometimes, increasing the headless-chicken atmosphere. Don't blame the poor saps on the other end of the line (easier said than done, I know - I've erupted in Tourette's blasts on many occasions), firebomb the HQs of the privatised utilities instead.

― dave q, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That's bollox, oe at least thats a shite call centre. I worked in the one here for a while and they make it way overstaffed so that nobody has to go on hold. That way I get to do nothing all day and answer a few calls about someone who put their loyalty card into the machine upside down or something.

― Ronan, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There was a big scandal a while back when it emerged that UK call centres have some pretty Draconian staff policies, ie. having to ask supervisor's permission to use the toilet - and count it off as unpaid break time.

BT call centres are the worst - this downbeat fusion jazz is on the hold button (my bet: proven by science to be calming/stultifying) and waiting for 30 minutes to find out why your phone doesn't work just sucks. It's horrible to be lulled into low-level sleep patterns while waiting for someone to answer. However I found a BT line testing device some workers had left outside my flat once, and was like, 'fix my phone, or the device GETS IT.' Phone fixed within seconds.

― suzy, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I heard about those really strict call centres and thought "ah Statoil", those Norwegians know how to run a company what with the free lunches and the emails saying 'hello how are you' from guys called Tylgang and Finang in Norway.

― Ronan, Thursday, 6 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...

A telemarketer called me the other night asking if I wanted a Mastercard. I asked him if he wanted a pony. He hung up on me. I have no tips for anything else other than crying or shouting.

― Ally, Friday, 26 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

my favorite is talking about the phone with "Verizon", having them misunderstand everything and waste my fucking time, getting irritable to the point of shouting, finally resolving the issue after the 30,000th explanation and lots of hectoring and then hearing "thank you for your call, are you satisfied with the level of customer service you've received?" KERRRRRRRR SNAP goes the muscle in my neck

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 26 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i work in one and it involves signing out for washroom breaks and mandatory christmas parties and mofoing team leaders . its only two days a week but i should quit and live on david

― anthony, Friday, 26 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

earthlink "support" was hellish.

Earthlink, a/k/a Earthstink. Giving AOL competition in becoming the Clear Channel of ISPs.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Friday, 26 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

twenty-one years pass...

I've just put up a new podcast / blog post about working at a credit card call centre in Brighton in 2004/2005, in case anyone is curious as to what happens there.

https://centuriesofsound.com/2023/03/13/1-3-port-out/

Spoiler: it was bad and I hated it

I know people don't always like listening to podcasts but would recommend the audio over the text in this case as I've put together a sound collage / atmospherics / sound effects / even some radio drama.

― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Monday, 13 March 2023 10:01 (two years ago)

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