Anyone work in customer service?

We have to ask
I usually say is the number you're calling from still the correct number
But if I don't confirm 4 pieces of information then it's failed GDPR and I risk a performance plan/disciplinary

See, when companies put profit over genuinely good customer service people will be angry. 10 call handlers to answer thousands of calls a day is awful management of the system. Monitoring influx and call wait times can easily mitigate this. Expecting people to spend upwards of 45 minutes to even be dealt with is unacceptable. People are already being handled poorly before they've even began the call which sets things off on a bad foot.

It would be interesting to know if your calls are how your type as personally I think your explanations of "we can't do that" are very poor too. I would hope you're explaining why certain things can't be done or why timelines are in place, in my experience the more details you give as to why something cannot be done helps the customer understand and lowers frustration levels.

Death threats and abuse are not acceptable and very clearly should be stated as such and calls terminated when it does happen. But customer service standards are slipping across the board.

Also someone mentioned that you can see who the customer is from the account number/telephone number they put in/are calling from.

So why do people then ask for all the details all over again?

Why not say Good morning Mrs Parkrun. Can you confirm the first line of your address for me/second digit of your PIN or whatever, and get on with the call? But no you have to give all your details all over again. Such A Waste Of Time.

It's like on here, you see a different side to people when it either involves anonymous posting, facebook comments or customer service. People take all their frustrations out. It's awful, especially as a lot in customer service are young and in their first jobs

A lot of the problems arise because staff don't listen to customers either. Probably because of the poorly drafted scripts and lack of training - they just have their framework and can't work outside it.

In particular, the problem comes when they don't do what they are meant to, or it's too hard and they just leave it, and don't escalate it to someone who CAN deal with it. The number of times for example that you see newspaper articles about problems with meters and the wrong meter reference number which causes massive bills for people. It really can't be that hard to sort out, but there's no will in the utility companies to do it - because they have to speak to their opposite number in another utility company - unless Which? or a newspaper gets involved.

If we had that, we would have involved the police. I would refer to management and they would report. All calls were recorded. I'm sure they would think twice about saying it to someone else after receiving a visit from the police about making bomb threats.

@Jumpingthruhoops I agree with all of your post
"
-The fact the first port of call for a lot of people now is an AI 'chat bot'?
-And I say 'first' but this probably isn't the first time a customer has tried getting this particular query dealt with.
-Your call/email is finally directed to an 'agent'... who you eventually get through to after being on hold for nearly an hour (Sky, I'm looking at you!).
-When you do eventually manage to talk to a human, there's still, very often, a 'computer says no' approach.
-On top of all that, these queries usually have to be dealt with mid-week when people are at work, adding to any stress that might have been there to begin with.

There's never an excuse for abuse, death threats. BUT I can totally see why people might be thoroughly pissed off by the time they actually get to talk to someone."

It's certainly not the individual agent who deserves the abuse but any query I know I have, I literally have to take a morning or afternoon off work to sort. I'm not rude or nasty but by the time I get through to a person, sometimes I'm ready to throw my computer across the room. It's SO arrogant of these companies to expect the general public to put up with such appalling service. Most of them just need to stop taking huge dividends and get more staff out there to answer the phones.
Martin Lewis is monitoring this at the moment-I hope customer service gets regulated at some point and companies are fined for inconveniencing their customers and the cost of their time waiting to get through.
I really feel for elderly people who struggle with technology - my mum can end up in tears and she's computer literate for her age (84).
Thank you to all the staff who do actually help at the other end of the phone - you deserve a medal.

Don't mention the overpopulation or your post will be deleted

I've never used booking,com in my life, and have no intentions of doing so. I don't even live in the UK, maybe your overpopulated island has something to do with the apparent lack of good customer service provided. 😅

My DD also worked in retail while at uni,.she worked in a clothes shop she actually had a coat hanger thrown at her head when an item the customer wanted wasn't in stock in her size, I told her to quit as manager didn't care at all that was unacceptable. DN also worked in retail clothes shop while working through college she had clothes thrown at her because there was a technical hitch with the till and she had to wait for a manager to come and clear the fault.

I don't anymore but I used to. It made me realise how many dickheads live among us tbh.

A lady who sat next to me wasn't English however her spoken English was perfect as was her ability to understand spoken English in regional accents. She basically had a slightly noticeable accent that didn't hinder her ability to do her job at all. The shit she used to get about it on a daily basis was actually unreal.

Not customer service as sorts but work in DH company dealing with the public. It's been an eye opener as to how awful some people are. I've been called a c@@t by a woman because I couldn't giver her an exact time for an appointment (despite the fact I was doing her a favour squeezing her in to try and help her), one guy had a meltdown on the phone because one of our staff stroked his dog to calm it as it was barking at him when he went in the house and threatened to call the police because of that! When I said I was ending the call due to his behaviour he proceeded to repeatedly call us to try to continue being abusive this went on for an hour of us cutting him off and him calling again. I was verbally abused by a woman who rather then check what certification she needed (she didn't need any) had gone and ordered it online from a third party, paid a small fortune, realised it wasn't relevant and thought I was appalling as I said our company wouldn't refund her as had she called and asked us in the first place we would have advised her accordingly. The stress if dealing with these types is ridiculous

In one call centre I worked at, customers’ accounts came up automatically as either rang from a number on their account or had to key account number on phone keypad.

One customer’s details came up and a pop up came up (never did with other customers) informing that if customer rings tell them you need to transfer the call to a certain extension. I asked a manager what was this about. He said that this customer had been sending death threats to this CSA.

I hated working at this call centre as we had to
disclose first name and surname when introducing ourselves. If the company didn’t make us say our surnames to customers then this CSA wouldn’t get death threats. The colleague from what I remember had a double barrel surname.

We don't all do that. If you are running a business you should have enough staff to cope with queries without making people wait - no matter how cheap your goods.

I would consider a business which couldn't answer my query for 2 -3 days to have poor customer service, and they wouldn't be getting my my future custom.

I don;t live in the UK, but I can't think of anywhere I have phoned with a query (or even emailed) where I have been told it will take 2-3 days for them to respond. Usually I am quite surprised with how quickly they do get back to me. I'm not blaming you, but the company doesn't sound great.

But people go on comparison websites to buy the cheapest. And then wonder why the company go with doesn't have enough staff. Lack of joined-up thinking.

Ironically Amazon has really good customer service the few times I’ve had to use it over 1000’s of orders.

To be honest it sounds as though there aren't enough staff. Someone with a problem doesn't care how many hundreds of other queries there are, they just want someone to look at their issue and having to wait 2-3 days for a response really isn't good enough.

These companies have a duty to you as their employee. If they are giving you verbal abuse, can recorded calls be given to the police? Such as the threats Etc.

If it were up to me and I was in power, anybody who does such a hideous thing, the voice call would be sent to their friends and families.