Blackwood Therapy Thread

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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:24 am

^^^ How's that? Better?

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:31 am

Yes, thank you.

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:13 am

Line crossed, thread split. Slightly, never join the Samaritans. Smile

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:45 am

^^^ Can't remember who said it, but he used to phone the Samaritans as a suicide case and blubber down the phone at them.
After 5 minutes of this, he would fire a shotgun in the air and throw a sherry trifle at the wall and then listen to the panic at the other end of the phone.

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 06 Feb 2008 Posts: 720

I heard tell you are the only one they hang up on Wink

Elite Baiter Joined: 17 Sep 2004 Posts: 1269

I work in a call center, and can't stand it when people argue with me. Sometimes I wish I could argue back. I also can't stand the people who can't follow directions.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:20 pm

^^That can be extremely aggravating. I supervised a team of call center agents and customers always knew better than the agent did, yet the customer was the one calling for help. As the boss, I had to take escalation calls from angry customers. Argumentative customers was the biggest stress that my agents had to deal with besides meeting metrics and SLA.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:40 pm

Speaking of call centers... I'm reminded of years ago when I wasted 45 cell phone minutes talking to my broadband provider's tech center. They kept telling me to do the same thing over and over again to get the modem working, varying the instructions by spelling the commands and such. I kept telling them it was not working. I hung up after 45 minutes of this crap and somehow fixed the problem shortly after on my own... needless to say, their advice never would have gotten the damn thing working.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:45 pm

Unfortunately tech agents in some call centers are not given sufficient training or have knowledge of the product that they support. A lot of centers (India comes to mind) have scripts where the tech support person is reading you directions from their computer screen. This happens all over through.

Elite Baiter Joined: 17 Sep 2004 Posts: 1269

sheboppe wrote:

customers always knew better than the agent did, yet the customer was the one calling for help

How could I forget those callers?

Me: No, ma'am, I can't help you do that. That's like forging a signature.
Caller: But my daughter doesn't know how to do it!
Me <thinking>: And you're calling the helpline because...?

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:38 am

I am quoting this from the website www.notalwaysright.com. It is a collection of [stupid] customer quotes posted by people working in the service industry.

This one is my favorite. It had me laughing for a good hour afterwords.

Quote:

Title: That’s Assuming If A Woodchuck Could Chuck Wood

(This was my last week at a very lousy sales job working for a major jewelry manufacturer that deals exclusively with jewelers on a screened account basis.)

Me: “Thank you for calling *****. How can I help you?”

Customer: “I need a price check on a diamond.”

(We go through a drawn out process of finding the stone he wants, a large carat, high grade diamond. I quote him the price in the system.)

Customer: “That can’t be right! That’s too expensive!”

Me: “It’s the price I have in the system, sir. If you like, we can look for a different piece?”

Customer: “NO! It has to be that one! Are you sure that’s the right price?”

Me: “Yes, sir.”

Customer: “Are you absolutely certain?”

Me: “Absolutely, sir.”

Customer: “And that’s in dollars, right?”

(At this point, I’m fed up and not really concerned with whether I get fired or not at this point. I answer in my most sincere deadpan.)

Me: “No, sir. That’s in woodchucks. We deal exclusively in fresh, live woodchucks.”

(I hear a bark of laughter from one of the call monitoring agents on the next row, which gets even louder when the customer asks if I’m serious.)

People are seriously stupid. And annoying. I have gotten a call from the same telemarketer at least 10 times in the last 3 months on my cell phone. It's about car insurance and says "Warning! Your car insurance is about to run out!" Yeah, well...I don't have a car. So I pressed one to speak to a live representative. After they said hello, in my calmest most deadpan voice, I said "Stop calling me you sh*t eating goatf*cker." And hung up.

I feel a bit bad about it now though I have asked them not to call. And afterwords I went online and got myself put on the Do-not-call Registry. But still....ten times is incredibly excessive. I should also mention, if you don't pink up they leave you an automated message in your voicemail that sounds so tense and high pressured. It's like they are calling to tell you that your grandmother just got ran over by a runaway lawnmower. It's really annoying. And really unnecessary.