AIBU to expect Customer Service Advisor to tell me their full name?

A bit of a difference between a person in what is likely a generic customer service role with high turnover and taking on a profession where a name is needed, usually set out in policy

Standard. When I was a manager at a call centre I had a customer (my first ever customer in that job) tell me the address of our building and say he'd wait outside until the end of my shift with a carving knife.

Because his router had been delayed by the courier service...

So yeah, like fuck were any of my team giving out their full names.

Back over 30 years ago I was advised never give a real first name by a state body. Reference number of applicable but not a chance they should give their name too risky

I worked for a council back in the 90s and we all had ‘phone names’ that we gave the public. We had contact with them in person too, with open public access, there had been some difficult incidents so we were given more anonymity.

The company will be able to work out who you were on the phone to.

Some customers are absolutely vile. In a previous job the company went into liquidation, a colleague actually got bombarded on social media with abuse from a customer, and was told she should go to prison for a very long time. She was only a member of staff, had nothing to do with the board of directors, had lost her job, had to claim her unpaid wages and redundancy off HMRC plus lost out on commission she was due. The client had paid his services via credit card so could claim his money back, she lost a hell of a lot more. A quick search on companies house would've given the name of the directors but according to him it was her fault.
I'd say half of my current colleagues use a fake name as a work name, and I don't blame them. The only reason I don't is because I know I'd forget and introduce myself as my actual name.
You don't need a full name, they'll be able to find out which Sarah the complaint is about.

Definitely YABU. There are some seriously fucked up people out there. DW and DD have been threatened with assault, rape, car keying, along with death wished on family members. The company systems know who dealt with you OP, you do not need the advisors full name.

I was told by one nut last month that he wanted to throttle me. Should I have given him my address and phone number too?

Another aspect of this- police, teachers, nurses etc all have a fair degree of autonomy in their roles.

CSA in a call centre? There's a possibility that they got something wrong, but the far bigger likelihood that 'computer says no'. If its not there on their screens, they simply cannot do it. In an unusual situation, you are nearly always far better off via email because its more likely to get escalated to someone who can help you.

There is no reason you need information that could be used to track down the person outside of work. At best there could be an employee id number. However, first name plus the day and time of the call will be enough to link the complaint to the employee. They may even be using fake first names and that is fine as well as long as they are consistent.

The public are utterly horrendous & are only getting worse. It used to be we rarely called police about customers but it happens regularly now.

If customers don't get what they want, they threaten to turn up at offices to physically assault them. I had one a few years ago who threatened to turn up with a gun & then complained when they were arrested & had their account closed

We still have to give full names. It must be truly awful for people with unusual names. They generally have to change their names on social media so morons can't find & harrass them

Never, ever would I have the expectation that somebody would give me their surname.

If they warn you that all calls are recorded, not only will they know when you called and who you spoke to, they'll be able to listen to the recording of the call. quite. And “your call will be recorded for monitoring purposes” should serve as a warning to anyone thinking they should be able to get away with abusing staff like that.

Of course they should not give people their surname! There's people out there who will stalk people, and try to hound and harass them on social media. Some people ringing are very rude and aggressive and threatening, and DO say 'I will find out where you live etc!

I have a very unusual forename, and I don't even give my real first name. (So if my name is 'Jupiter' I call myself Jude.) I would easily be tracked on social media/the internet if someone knew my real first name. I have never known anyone else with my name.

I work for the council and never give my full name or sign off with it in emails. I've also changed my name on social media so I can't be tracked down. There is literally no need for you to know it, all calls will be recorded and shel have updated your account.

Absolutely no need for you to know their full name. The organisations call system will know who you spoke to.

Yes, I never give my surname. It can be seen that I spoke to the customer on the logs anyway or the recorded call

We have had issues where customers have tracked people down and been abusive on social media

Back in the 80s I had a Saturday job where we had to have our full name on our badges. We were the only family with XXX name in the local phonebook and I had at least 3x calls from complete strangers that I'd served in the shop phoning to ask me out. Eventually the company agreed to let me use a false surname.

In these days of social media/google I wouldn't want my full name used.

You really don't need her full name

If they warn you that all calls are recorded, not only will they know when you called and who you spoke to, they'll be able to listen to the recording of the call.
When I had a complaint the firm were able to go back a couple of months to listen to my call as the details were in their response.

There's no reason why you should have to share your full name either. A first name only (or a Dr X or Mrs Y only in some cases) is enough to identify someone with the context of where and when you dealt with them. You should push for that for change, rather than complain that other people aren't being put at risk like you are.

As a teacher, I never had to share my first name with parents or children. So there was still relative anonymity there.

The audit trail is that in a customer service role every damn thing they do is being monitored constantly. You don't need to know which John you dealt with, and the company can very easily work out exactly which John it was

Honestly the public are absolutely batshit vile human beings sometimes.

Did you read the hospitality thread? Awful.

I work in CS as well and as well as afore-mentioned rape and death threats levelled at agents, I’ve had someone threatening to come and burn down one of our branches, another of my colleagues had a customer threaten to blow up our head office, and gave a date and time of when they were going to do so, which triggered a major security incident.

We’ve had physical/racist/ablist comments hurled at our staff, and most of these people have fairly generic, ordinary queries.

In fact in my experience it’s the people with genuine complaints who are the nicest about it and will let you take the details, log the complaints, and wait for an outcome, even though they have a genuine reason to complain and when I log the complaints I absolutely understand why they’re complaining.

The abusive cunts are usually the ones who are just shouting and swearing because they can. Because they think it will get them further - it doesn’t.

But I suspect these are the same types who abuse their partners and their children.

You really don't need their surname OP. You will have an account, and the call handler would have left a digital footprint. If a note was left, this will identify the person you spoke with.

It doesn't drive you "insane ", and it's not necessarily for you audit trail. The call will be recorded, and the company will be able to locate your call.
The behaviour of the general public/customers on the phone over the years is worsening and the threats are very real.
When I worked for a well known Over 50's insurance provider, the threats were daily and escalated to customers waiting outside the building looking for staff who wouldn't authorise another free gift. Absolute nutters.

Yeah I had a lovely man threaten to knock my teeth out. He said he was going to stand outside the office to get me. As my name was the only xxxx in the office it did worry me. However I did say ‘ you have no idea what I look like?’ Daft thing to say but I was shocked. He said ‘well I’ll just look for an ugly, stupid cunt leaving that office and kick their head in as it will most likely be you!’ It was reported to the police.

You really want my full name being given to people like that?