Who's more important to make happy.

Our client surveys customers that reach our center and judges us based on how satisfied they are. One key indicator, and I mean KEY is if we are able to handle every issue the customer has on one call. Mind you 50% of the calls we get have to be transfered, not because we don't know how to take care of the issue, but becuase we are not allowed and don't have the capabilities to finish the issue. Oh yeah, did I mention that at least 7 out of 10 callers that reach us are already mad.....go figure. We are a specialized department that was originally supposed to handle 1 issue. Now we have to handle as many as possible. Not to mention the blind transfers we get from other depts to our center for issues we can't handle. How 'bout this one. When we try to call other internal departments to finish an issue, "let me put you on hold so I can ask my superviser"........"Thank yo for calling, this is Joe Rep"....."Hello, Joe Rep, this is your supervisor, I was just speaking to department x and they transferd me back to us. You can go ahead and hang up." That's right, I was blind transfered back to my department...TO MY OWN REP. One of the managers say not to blame other departments for our score going down, but it's really hard not to.

Time Zones and old people

I had a customer I was speaking. You know the kind, that want something done NOW. The funny thing about this customer was 1st of all, she was old and had a cell. The second thing is that she didn't know what time it was where she lived. She wrote down everything I mean EVERYTHING. The call that would normaly take 5-10 minutes took about 20. It finally got to the point where she was asking for the time, so she could write it down. The particular procedure we were doing was time sensitive. Here's the dialoge to the best of my memory. Be sure to keep reading the punchline is in the dialoge.

Customer: What time is it currently

Me: It's currently 3:00pm central

Customer: So that's 2:00pm here

Me: Actually, it's 4:00pm your time. Tennessee is in the eastern time zone.

Customer: I know, but Tennessee is split into two time zones.

Me: Yes ma'am that's correct. You live in eastern portion however. Knoxville is considered EST.

Customer: Exactly, so that's 2:00pm here since we're an hour ahead.

Me: You're right, you are an hour ahead so that would be 4:00pm.

Customer: But 2 comes before 3

Me: Do you have a watch or a clock you can look at?

Customer: Yes, but my eyes are bad and I can't see the numbers

(at this time I hear her husband in the background)

Hustband (with a hick accent): Go on get off that phone, quit pesterin dem people over der. It's 4:00 you old blind bat.

*click*

The call ends.

"I'm Sick I can't make it to work today" pt. 2 (sorry had to vent)

Right now is not a good time to talk to me if you're an agent on my team. Not that I don't like them, I'm just pissed at some right now.

Last month I had 102% attendance which is awesome. As of today, I've got 3 agents that called in / left early because they didn't feel well, 1 because her baby was teething, and 2 that left so they can play WOW. Some are griping because of a schedule change we had. We used to work Fri, Sat, Sun, and Mon. Then went to Thur, Fri, Sat, and Sun, and back to the previouse because of call volumn.....Basically, someone made a boo boo, it happens. We work 4 ten hour shifts so we are basically working 50 hours straight and getting paid for 40 on this check. TOUGH We have people on the oil rigs that don't see their families for weeks even months at a time. We have Soldiers that are risking thier lives every day, some making less than my agents are. YET, some people can't STAND sitting in the AC everyday, talking to people, in a cushy job. "It's too hard." "I don't feel well." "I don't want to work." Well then GO home, GET a newspaper, and find a NEW job that lets you work from home. Quit acting like a baby. If you or your spouse can't take care of a baby that's teething, STOP HAVING THEM.......

~Drew

"I'm Sick, I can't make it into work today.

Let me reminince a little. Back about a year ago, I had an agent call in sick with the flu. I've flu once in my life and it's no joking matter. With my imune system, it knocked me out for 15 hrs, (that's how long I was asleep, and yes, I have a strong system). I listen to the message left on my machine, and it sounds more like larygitis. Being the nice / compasionate supervisor I am, I ask no questions and tell them, get better. I didn't realize it was Friday and that would give them 3 days off. I go out later that night with my wife to a night club and guess who I see shaking her little booty all over the stage. Heck, she even got up on the speakers and dance around the mirror pole.

Yeah the picture doesn't exactly go with the storry, but I've seen some creative agents before. I've go one person on my team right now that would use a line like this. ** DOINK**

Customers are dumb

Why do customers think yelling profanities into a phone will get them what they want? As a supervisor, I get to ones that are already livened up a bit. Lets see if I can remember the verbiage of one lively one....oh yeah! "Go F*** your self your Mother F***er!"

Is the customer always right? My anwer is "NO." How could one, JUST ONE, person expect to be the exception of over millions customers just becuase their phone is used for business. Yet they have an individual account to boot. So, what kind of business are you running? A pharmacy, maybe an automotive used parts store, or better yet, maybe you have a roster exhibition of strength arena in your back yard. Whatever the case, if it's a business phone, get a business account and stop trying to deduct your entire cell bill as business cause we all know you use it for personal reasons too.

Don't get me started on them knowing our plans better than us. Or that's not what she said.....WHO THE F*** IS "SHE." I've had one caller tell me "...Well Michelle said this" and later said in her company if they had a name and a time that the request would be honored. May I add, our company has millions of customers which means we need thousands of reps. My center alone has 4 Michelles. There were also NO interactions for the time she said she spoke to "Michelle," and the interactions before and after her claim were male.

Those are just 2 examples of the many customers I deal with a day. Feel free to post a comment about yours.

Chronicles of a Call Center pt.3 ( AHT)

AHT (Average handle time) - the time it takes to take care of a customer (how long your on the phone with them, in layman's terms.)

Here's a comic I though would be perfect for this topic. I've got an agent that I was working with on his AHT. Everything else was great with his call. He never forgot or missed anything QA wise. His talk time was about 2 minutes as opposed to 4.5 - 5.5 min. I had to say something when I monitored his call one day and heard bluh duh duh blah blah, which sounded more like a foreign language. Don't ask how his customer undterstood. His AHT is now, 3.5 min. After much work with him, I've learned that this is acceptable. He just talks that way. You should hear him when he does his different accents. Although it's not the tru him, the customers never know so of you won't tell, I won't.

Chronicles of a Call Center pt. 2 ( the rumor mil)

Ever wonder how people know your biz, all the time. How about the stories about you that never happened? This sort of thing seems to happen when you work in a place that has as many people as some call centers have.

I'm going to turn the clocks back a bit. It's been about 4 years since I was an entry level agent at a call center. At that time I was making roughly $7.50 per hour. I was and still am a well know guy in the center. I was friends with this girl who probably made twice as much as I. Key word, "friends." She had 3 kids and was a bit older than I. She was well off by then. At that time, I was single and I did like her a little, but she was older and had kids, so I knew it wouldn't ever be more than friends. All of a sudden one day, I hear that she's sleeping with this guy for his money. I have to admit, it was a little heart breaking. Not too much longer than that, I found out who she was sleeping with...IT WAS ME!! WTF, Where was I?!?! Was I good?!?! As far as I knew, we never even kissed, unless you count that time I kissed her toes in a hot tub, but that's a totally different story. *evil grin*

Fast forward 4 years. Up until recently I haven't had any rumors fly about me or mine. My wife (yes I got married and not to the one in the story) made a friend on the project she works. Oh I should also say she works where I work. This friend of her's is also a frind of mine. The funny thing is, she's all of a sudden sleeping with him. What's even funnier, she's slept with him when she was with me. They are friends at work, and out of work sometimes too. Everytime they're together, there's someone with them. Not that I've always got an eye out, (which I could if I wanted to), it just turns out that way.

In a recent class I was teaching at work, I mentioned to the new agents to watch out for the mil. One of them actually heard of My rumors, which I think is a gas.

Here's a challenge, if anyone reads this. Start a rumor about yourself and see how long it takes to get back to you and how much it's changed. Have fun with this.

Till next time

Chronicles of a Call Center pt. 1 (Why do things go wrong when I'm not there)

Since, no one will probably read this, I feel comfort in posting this. You know there is that whole 1st amendment thing too.

This is the first installment in my Chronicles of a Call Center. For those of you who don't know what a call center is, it's the place you call when you speak to a customer service department or your bank, etc. They also house the people that annoy you in the middle of dinner and "aren't allowed to hang up", so you can leave for thirty minutes and they'll be pathetically waiting for you on the line. I'm actually a supervisor in an inbound call center (the people YOU call). I've been at the same one for over five years. Oddly enough, in a center our size (500 employees) in a town our size (75,000), there is drama to spare. That's what this series is going to be about, as well as a complaint session.

So, to the good stuff.

Why do things go wrong when I'm not there. Let me start off by saying my pay rate is determined on my agent's attendance and attrition. Basically, they can cost me $4.00 per hour for a month if they really screw up. Actually, if HR were to really crack down, they could cost me $6.00 per hour for a month which is $960.00. Tell me that's not messed up. I'll get into that on another post, who knows, maybe this'll be a two post night.

For the past two weeks, I've assisted our training department. The trainer in charge of my project moved to another city. That's two weeks without being able to manage my team fully. My team is a weekend team and training takes place durring banker's hours. I had to enlist the assistance of my lead agent, keyword AGENT. Our attendance for the last week was 87%, by HR's calculations and 89% by mine. Our objective is 93%. Now now, I know 89% isn't much better than 87%, but whith a company that doesn't consider 92.9999999999% meeting objective, it makes a difference in money to me.

When the attendance report comes out today (my first day back from training), MY manager emails me. "Has John (so we'll call him) been given the tools to keep up with attendance and make up time." Well shit (pardon the french), I gave all the tools he needs, and can use as an agent. In my opinion, he did a stellar job while I was gone. He took over my role on the call floor. My role on the call floor is that of an unofficial SME (subject matter expert). Don't ask me how I took on that role. I'll get into more details in another post. Back to my point, attendance sucked for the past week. Then again so did the whole center. So oh well, I can get that back.

My second and most troubling issue while I was gone is attitude. Why do I never have a problem with it when I'm there. Every time I have either taken time off (unpaid of course), or worked another schedule from my team, there has been major attitude problems. This past week, an agent of mine was fired for attitude. The thing is, Most of the "supervisors" have been in leadership roles (not counting parenting) for less than 2 years. Even fewer have had any actuall leadership training. At 26 yrs old, I've been in leadership possitions for about 8 years. I've been working since I was 16 yrs old, you do the math. Some just don't know how to be a leader. Some just worry about making money and their status as a "Supervisor."

There was an incident between my agent and another supervisor, on my day off. This particualar agent has never been an issue to me. I always got the result from him I needed. Needless to say, the words "I'm a supervisor," and "I'm gonna get your ass", were witnessed by my agents coming from the supervisor. Shortly after, he was fired, with out me being there. That royaly PISSED ME OFF! I asked John, his feelings on why I never have those types of problems. His responce "You give respect while demanding it." I spoke to that other supervisor and just wasn't convinced by everything. You see, my agen, does have a short fuse, but some of the things he was accused of; I just can't see him doing/saying. He's real big into karma and Budism and has told me befor, he's scared it would come back to him. Will it change anything, no, he's already termed. Will his employment be reconsidered in the future, probably not. Could things have been different I'm sure, but the bottom line is, I'm still responsible even though I wasn't there. Go figure.

Myspace

Hello,
This is my first post. As you can tell by the Title of this blog, it's basically, reviews of stuff. I'd like to make a couple disclaimers.

1. I'm not a representative in any way to anything I review. I'm just excercising my Freedom of Speech.
2. I'm not an English major so my grammar / spelling won't always be perfect.

So to the good stuff. Exactly how many people are on Myspace? Who knows. At this time, the infamous "Tom" has 107,758,777 friends. And that's because quite a few people remove him when they sign up. In my current possition at work, I catch people, almost daily, on Myspace. I have two accounts myself :).

The actuall owner of MySpace is a genius. His name isn't even Tom, go figure. Last year, he raked in an astonishing $47 million. That's a long way from having to send faxes from Kinko's. I can't say I'm not jelouse. The sad part is, most of us won't even make half that in our whole lives.

Everyday new users, including celebrities, are "pimping" thier profiles. Infact, there are many sites out there making a pretty penny off of free premade templates.

I guess the reason it's so attractive to new members is the number of features it offers. You can create your own blog, to share videos and photos. Many musicans also become featured artists and have their songs played on countless profiles. The crazy thing about this, is IT'S ALL FREE. Did you catch that? Of course, there are terms and conditions but who cares, it's free. Perhaps my favorite and is the No Nudity policy. Don't get me wrong, I like my share of riske pictures and such, it's just that MySpace is so large, it would get flooded by the crap. There's already those people who "just moved into town" or "liked your profile" who have links to other sites, but that's it. Overall, I give it 2 thumbs up.

Check out my profiles.
www.myspace.com/bigmatus
And for those of you into the paranormal;
www.myspace.com/parasouthtx