To think when people call a call centre theres no need to scream and shout!

lists - emotional and pregnant or not there was NO excuse for multiple bills with different amounts being sent out. The big system change over and fuck up wouldn't have affected the billing system at that point. Even if it had - it would be their fault NOT yours - so rather than fucking you around and stressing you out an apology and actually sorting it out was in order.

Also at that time from mid dec 11 to early feb 2012 there was a huge intake of newbies coming in too. So it's possible you had a panicking, fresh new person who'd had no real experience in this kind of call centre work and had been thrown on the floor to deal with upset customers, while trying to manage on a system that they'd not yet been trained on - I've seen grown men almost in tears. It was quite a crap time (and one of a long list of reasons why I gladly left)
Believe me working in that dept put me off for life too :) :)

Still though the customer shouldn't suffer as a result - maybe they've changed but depts like that should only employ people who've had previous experience in that area, it's not easy. It would save a huge % of otherwise non-shouting people from becoming annoyed.

True Carbe. This was me simply telling someone they didn't have free coverage because they bought their service cheaply, through a provider that didn't cover them. That definitely means I deserve death.

Carbe how lovely you bothered to follow up about that woman. Did she get you mixed up with The Samaritans?

Must be a common psychopathic theme Mrs -
'I'll come there and find out who you are and fucking kill you bitch'
MmmHmm - Sure you will. A) there'll be hundreds of people exiting at the same time and B) Nobody wears name tags - yup! good luck with that dude :)

carbediem yes it was early 2012. I don't think the fact I was pregnant and emotional helped. Afraid it put me off Npower for life. They'd have to pay ME for the power I consumed for me to even consider returning. If it was you I swore at I'm sorry. Oddly enough I still feel bad about it.

I used to be a PA. Data protection was the bane of my life - my boss wanted things sorted NOW and he didn't want to speak to the call centre. He used to go on clear security and then tell them to talk to me.

I've worked in a call centre and I've worked with violent ex-offenders. Guess which job involved my life being threatened; someone saying they were going to wait outside and hurt me? The call centre!

:)
I've had a few celebs Pa's/family members/runners/general slaves/ give it 'Do you know WHO I work for?'

'Yes dear I can clearly see but if you're not the account holder nor named on the account then I'm not discussing shit with you now pop your boss on, there's a love' :)

The 'don't you know who I am?'callers are the worst.

I felt like saying: ' I don't care of you are second coming, my friend, I still have to know who you are, where you are and what's wrong with you..'

listsandbudgets
I used to work in that very dept and also in the complaints team a few years back and I'm shocked at the treatment you had.
That is not on at all and takes seconds to look and see there was an obvious problem. Roughly in early 2012 there was a big system change and it fucked up allsorts and caused huge problems but that's far from the point.
Tip - mentioning the energy ombudsman or OFGEM can sometimes get your calls escalated to Team managers or the complaints team. Not always though.
Hope you manage to get sorted.

Terra
It's shocking isn't it - what vile shite can come out of peoples mouths.
Also just what the fuck some people have in their heads - I've had angry and sex pest customers try to add me on facebook Mostly the sex-pests.
I hate the companies that make you state your real full name when opening an call. Some I've worked for allow you to use either your real first OR last name - not both.

I'll never forget the lady who told me she was going to commit suicide. I won't go into details but she'd had a really tough time, bills not paid which the drastic end result was why I was speaking to her. She was distraught - crying, upset etc.. I done all I could while trying to ask if she had anyone to contact to be with her. She told me, in great detail, what she was going to do and hung up. It was my last call of the night, I tried to call her back a few times - no answer. I started getting myself ready to log off but I couldn't just leave it. I called the local police station closest to her address that I still had up on the system, and explained to the officer what had happened. I worried about her all night but knew that the police were going to check on her.
The officer left a message the next day to say that they'd been to her address and she was safe - that's all I could be told.

That's appalling Terracotta.

What I screamed at the poor girl at Npower was "if you don't sort this out noww I'm leaving your incompetent company forever and I'm going to the ombudsman and your bloody managers and computer system are f*cking useless". I then found myself saying in a perfectly calm voice "sorry love i know its not your fault but I've had enough if you can't help please can you pass me to someone who can". At that point I burst into tears

I was not proud of swearing. I wouldn't DREAM of saying those things to anyone. I think you're right to close their accounts just feel sorry for whichever call centre staff had to deal with them just after they got the letter :(

I work in a call centre environment, in the complaints department of a bank...probably the worst one for shouters.

We're used to unreasonable people who demand £5k compensation because a branch was 5 minutes late in opening (yes really). And we're used to shouters and the ever-so-polite but PA and patronising wankers.

We deal with those as that's our job. What it's not our job to do though is listen to some scumbag screaming at you that you're worthless, you're a cunt and a piece of shit, that we'd better fix the issue or they're going to hunt you down.

I've been told that clearly I'm a filthy little slag who's been dragged up on a council estate and I'd better refund charges or I'll be 'face down in the gutter' permanently. I was told by one 'lady' that she hoped all of my future children would be born disabled so that I understood how upset she felt right now (for being charged £50 incorrectly).

Completely disagree with whoever said it must be down to poor service...it's not. My team are excellent, but some people are cunts and there'll be no pleasing them wherever you do.

If I have to take over a situation because a customer is screaming for a manager and being abusive (i've lost count of the staff i've had in tears over the 5 years i've been in this job) they get one warning from me to stop. Just one. Then I disconnect the call, email our closures department and give them 60 days notice that we're closing their accounts and no longer wish to do business with them. Would love to be a fly on the wall when they open those letters :)

Not my proudest moment, but when BT sent a bill of £130 when DH and I didn't even use the landline ( used our mobiles ) I lost it.

Said I would leave and paid the most helpful debt collection agency who accepted my payment proposal.

Not my proudest moment, but when BT sent a bill of £130 when DH and I didn't even use the landline ( used our mobiles ) I lost it.

Said I would leave and paid the most helpful debt collection agency who accepted my payment proposal.

OP, you are missing one very obvious fact. It's not about you.

Stop talking it personally and kill them with kindness.

Driven to tears of frustration by BT. Hopefully moving soon but am dreading dealing with them already.

Sorry that was long! Getting it off my chest!
But just to add... the polite helpful guy was on the corporate contracts team, rude guy was on consumer.
Not a coincidence I expect.

I think it's easier to be rude to faceless people. And also you do tend to be calling because of a problem - so likely to be annoyed.

But some staff are good, some are not. And in my experience, UK call centres are better than overseas. Simply more polite. I think it may be a not first language thing... Tone of voice is so important when you have no body language.

I spent an hour on the phone to Vodafone on Friday. Their admission, their system has cocked up. I want to port over an existing number. I have a temporary Vodafone number. Which they gave me. Which doesn't exist on their system. I shit you not. It's Kafka-esque. They cannot find me by phone number, account number, address... The phone works though!

So I did an full hour with one guy, on and off hold, all the while we were chatting and laughing. At one point he said he had to give up and could I go into store. I said, "look, I'm going to sound stroppy now and you must not take it personally - but no, I'm not doing a 2 hour round trip when it's your fault". And asked for his manager. And first thing I said to her was that her been great and please not to take my request for her as anything negative on how he'd handled the issue.

So - low stress levels, despite over an hour and no resolution.

An hour later, I've got what sounded like an offshore guy, by his English. Within 3 minutes, I heard my voice rise, and I hung up on him. I did actually say, "look, you're not listening to me and I am hanging up on you". But he was downright bloody rude.
Example: when you call Vodafone, you have to type in your number. It gives you 3 attempts then cuts off the call. When their system doesn't recognise their number, this means you can't get through. I managed it by entering a friend's number!
I tried to explain this and in a rude tone he cut right across me and said I should have pressed 0 (the message doesn't say this).

He should have said "I'm sorry, that would have been frustrating. You can actually cut out that part by dialling 0..."

Seriously. An hour with one guy and I'm still smiling, 3 minutes with the next and I hang up on him.

God I could have started this thread myself on Saturday evening.
The industry that I work in by its nature means that customers are often incredibly angry when they call. I try to keep in mind that they're not actually angry with me personally, i'm just a sounding board.
I took a call on Saturday from a man (boy) who clearly had issues with women, he made the call an incredibly personal attack on me, subordinated me and left me jelly legged and shaking at my desk. I've never been made to feel like that before and I could have wept at my desk.
I'd much rather have been shouted and sworn at, I am quite regularly and I can take it with a pinch of salt.
It's a bloody difficult and thankless job.
The main thing that puzzles me though is that people think that an aggressive attitude will get them anywhere. Come on the phone to me and be friendly or even just polite and I will bend over backwards for you, at the first hint of an attitude, I certainly won't be going out of my way. Every minute, procedural, bullshit, inconvenient little detail will have to be adhered to precicely.

Npower moved me to screaming and crying down the phone.

7 different bills (all for increasing amounts) in the space of 10 days followed by a debt collection letter for a different amount. A wait of 37 minutes for them to answer the call only to be told that I should just pay ALL the bills totally several thousand pounds. Get nowhere despite being polite. they won't even let me speak to manager. Give up.

Two days later another bill for a different amount again. Phone them wait 25 minutes for them to answer. Get same response. Explode completely finally get to speak to a manager who was useless too.

End up with the ombudsman.

I knew screaming wouldn't help but their service was so bad they drove me too it.

Try working as an NHS call handler.
I've been sworn at, perved on, accused of all sorts. Christmas Day - everyone drunk, rude, not one 'merry Christmas'

Lots of people are ill, lots are in pain and lots very upset/worried -and they manage to be courteous, they have info to hand, they know the address of the emergency, etc

But some are just awful - dismissive, telling you your job, blaming you because they have given wrong info,because they have to wait - and it's often the 'nicer' accents who are rudest because they think you are beneath them. Glad I'm out of it now.

Don't get me started on sky!

I understand about the script, but I had ongoing problems and started each call with a spiel about the previous calls and the things we had tried- 'my modem is plugged directly into the main test socket and I have micro filters installed but I'm having x y z problems'
'Thank you MrsPissedOff, now can I just ask, do you have a 'test socket' in your house? This socket has a horizontal line across it...'
Why couldn't the call handler just tick the 'yes' box when faced with the 'is the modem plugged into the test socket' question instead of asking me again? Or even if they phrased it as 'so, as I understand it, you have plugged the modem into the test socket' instead of 'have you' so I knew they had listened to me.

Instead each successive call got longer and longer, as we had to retry all the previously tried but unsuccessful steps (they used to insist I tried the step even though I had done it 3x previously, they wouldn't even accept me saying 'yes I tried it' if I hadn't spent at least a minute clattering around making unpluggy sort of noises!)

Eventually they got to the end of the script and said they couldn't help because my computer wasn't supported, even though my computer had been working fine until I tried to fix the internet connection as per sky's instructions and the original call was actually about DH's computer.

I think that's the point I lost my rag
'my computer running Windows whateverthelatestnumberis was working fine until you asked me to change these settings'
'ah MrsPissedOff, we can't help you there as Windows whateverthelatestnumberis is not supported, we can only help you with Windows notquitethelatestmodel'

Is it any wonder I'm CrohnicallyPissedOff?

Yanbu!

I've worked in lots of Call Centres and the debt collection and complaints depts for banks and energy companies were the absolute pits. Sometimes quite amusing and shocking in equal measures, to listen to fully grown adults rant, rave, scream, threaten and verbally abuse me (including a few death threats :) ) but often it's just tiring and bloody rude.

I've always said that those customers should have a recording of the call sent to them so they can listen to themselves behaving like idiots - I know I'd be thoroughly embarrassed if it was me.

Sometimes people can't comprehend that we physically don't make the rules, we are bound to them by the company we work for and we're not telling them that they will be taken to court/cut off/ account suspended for the fun of it or just because we feel like it.
The worst for me is when you open a call from someone quite clearly pissed off - rightly or wrongly - and they won't, absolutely 100% refuse to complete DPA to continue the call or discuss anything. There's just no reasoning with them.

I won't put up with people talking to me like a piece of shit, I'm simply there to do a job, I don't mind upset, annoyed, getting a bit pissed off - we're all human and I'll do my best to help you but when it turns abusive, nasty and personal - quite frankly I've switched off when it crosses that line and want the customer escalated or off the phone - some companies allow us to hang up after 1 warning, some after 3, some fuckers not at all.

I never get arsey with call handlers when I make a call as a customer because I know exactly what it's like. I'm not an angel and one company in particular tested my patience to the limits (I'm glaring at you Talktalk) but I wasn't once nasty to the handler I simply took my business elsewhere.

Unfortunately we are trained to shout. My colleague had a lovely lady yell at her the other day. Colleague, quite rightly, escalated it. Management response was to ensure she got what she wanted to avoid a complaint. My poor colleague had to call her back with the news, lovely lady said "see, I always get what I want when I have a tantrum"

Sadly this issue will not get better unless call handlers are allowed to go back to the old system of "I will terminate the call if you continue". The prospect of another hour listening to elevator music should, eventually, teach people to be reasonable as opposed to the current "he who shouts loudest" balls up.

I don't scream or shout on the phone to a call centre. I can however be very firm and have asked to be given to someone higher up before.

I've found that many employees do not understand enough english to work there, have such a strong accent that I can't understand them - let alone on a bad line, don't listen to what I am actually saying and blindly follow some script so the conversation makes no sense and we can't get to a point where they are offering helpful advice, they often have no idea about the product they are dealing with (eg. internet and how computers work)... I could go on.

I have been spoken to very rudely by BT and hung up on despite being calm (but frustrated) because they just would not sort out my blinking internet and I work from home for an online magazine and run social media weekly so it's vital that it works. They refused to send someone out or listen to the problem. I had to threaten to switch to another supplier before they would send someone out to have a look - when the person finally came out they asked why no one had been sent sooner as the problems were to do with the way it had been installed.