Watch out
My job makes me want to fly into an apoplectic rage.
And then cry. And then quit. Or any combination of the three.
I wish I wasn't worried that I could get fired for talking shit about my job. So I'll just be vague and give you a couple little snapshots of what life is like listening to mental midgets pretend to be highly trained technical support personnel.
The other day I listened to a woman who has been working for my company for more than a year tell her customer the most ridiculous thing. My company has a product that is very popular worldwide. The "technical support" agent, who I happen to know is a fairly smart individual in normal circumstances, agreed to arrange repair for her customer's product, when the customer revealed that she was living abroad, in Germany. At which point the agent told the customer that service could only be arranged in the US and the customer would have to ship her product at her own expense to a friend in the US who could then ship the product to our company at which point we would repair it and send it back to the US address, who could then send it on to Germany at her own expense. Despite the fact that we sell our product in Germany. We sell it everywhere. And it totally makes sense for a worldwide company with a popular product sold world-wide to only provide warranty repairs in the US, right?
But this agent, like most of them, can't conceive of the idea of something being possible if they don't handle that situation at least than once a week. I imagine the thought process went something like this: "Hm, I never talk to customers in Germany. I've never set up a repair for a customer in Germany. Ergo, we do not repair products in Germany despite our products being popular worldwide." That is, if there was a thought process at all.
We don't have scripted technical support, but we may as well have for all the thinking our agents engage in.
Another painful call was the one I just listened to, where the customer's product was making weird noises when he turns it on, and this happens intermittently. The agent had the customer turn his product off and on and there were no noises. So the agent gave some preventative troubleshooting steps, advised to call back if it happens again, and got off the line with the customer. And then in his notes on the call he wrote nothing more than "general question about how to turn on device".
I love it.
My job has made me hate the word "general". As in, non-specific, not military. Everyone here loves the word "general" because it lets them get away with anything. In some circumstances, our technical support is fee-based. But agents always ask their customers if they have "general" questions. So if you can phrase your request using the word "general", you get technical support for free. "I have a general question about what troubleshooting steps I should take to fix your product when it is not turning on." And then they answer it, for free! And their case notes say, "general question".
Someone, please tell me, what is a general question? I have no idea. The phrase has no meaning to me. Maybe an example of a general question would be: "What?" or "Huh?" Those are pretty non-specific questions. However, I certainly wouldn't call tech support in order to as, "Huh?". Other than those, I don't believe a general question exists. There are specific questions about specific topics. That's it.
Or "general info"! What is that??? What is General Info??? Please, someone, tell me! ARGH!! See??? The RAGE is coming through!! I'm using multiple punctuation! Sentence fragments!! AAAAUUUUUGGGHHH.
I WANT TO THROTTLE ALL TECHNICAL SUPPORT AGENTS WHO ARE IDIOTS WHICH MEANS LIKE ALL OF THEM PERIOD.
Comments
I am going to talk about the Germany based customer case first.
2 questions first, before I commend.
What was the “who is calling you now” information advice ( in the call centers I work, we are told by the machine who or which loyalty level or which country’s customer is calling ) to your service staff when the Germany based customer call? Do your call center service worldwide or US only?
We don't get any info about who is calling us when a call comes in.
My particular call center is US only.
That explains why your staff is surprise by the customer when she advises she is based in Germany. I will make also make the mistake of not asking the customer as well. If you are getting more non US calls, alert all staff to check before they answer.
I don’t think it make sense for the Germany based customer to mail to her US friend and the long blah blah blah… Think - user friendly, think Google, Vox… My reply suggestion - I think by contacting our Germany customer service at “this number” will be a money, effort and time saving alternative. What do you think madam?
In this case, your staff has not handled well. Let the staff listen to the call. Ask her how she rates herself? Sometimes you don’t realize what you did when you face a "never answer before question", all you can think of is how to end the call.
However, I would like to point out that my job is a Call Quality Analyst for a call center, and although I realize you are trying to be helpful your comment amounts to telling me how to do my job. I know how to do my job, and I do it very well. My post was meant as a rant on an epidemic of laziness and thoughtlessness in tech support. Although I try very hard to help agents become more knowledgable and resourceful every day, the fact is that most people working in tech support have little education and qualifications, are poorly trained, and are underpaid. Although I wish I had the money and authority to fix that, I don't. So I do what I can. And that's not much.
Thanks for your feedback. I do not mean to tell you how to do your job. I apologies if you felt I sounded like I am telling you how to do your job. My views on discussion - agree to disagree and share what you feel is different. If our views are the same, there is no learning value in discussing. No learning can be harvest if we all have the same views.