Customer service telling you off

[raranah]

Ive been told off twice by customer service help lines today.

First was telling me off for calling the sales number for a query instead of help desk. Seeing as the help desk take ages to answer and itsnt a free number of course I'm going to call sales who pickup in seconds.

The next one a mobile phone company was telling me off for not getting my new sim from the shop and instead just ordering one and getting them to transfer it over the phone. Its a two hour round trip to the nearest store, I'd have to park and then waste my time waiting for someone. Again I did the smart thing, and anyway its already been done now so shut the fuck up.

Aren't these calls monitored? They shouldn't be tellingme off

I don't see anything wrong with directing a caller to the correct telephone queue. The call operatives don't create policy and procedures. They just have to deal with customers, some of whom are rude and aggressive.
The other scenario is absurd though.

If you called our sales department they couldn't have transferred you to anywhere else as they're a separate self contained unit, and you would unfortunately be fucking up their call targets with every second you were on the phone, so I can see why staff get annoyed. It's not your fault but it's not their fault either.

Maybe direct your ire towards the head office of these companies where you may stand a chance of effecting some change. The staff and mumsnet can't change anything but maybe those in charge can.

Good point Cassie

what a stoopid reply, it's just a idiotic passive aggressive reply.

The reason I believe you to be rude, it because of your comments on this thread, in the first instance you were wrong, you couldn't be arsed to go threw the correct procedure because of your own I'm superior attitude, they were correct in telling you the correct procedure, much to your clear annoyance.

Were they rude to you though? It may be because the calls are recorded & randomly listened to that they are obliged to tell you you've called the wrong number/gone about something the wrong way.

Personally, they may not care less. If your query is something they actually have the power (or computer system) to help with, most customer service people IME will do what they can for you. Also, anyone working in sales may well be on minimum wage + commission, which does explain why they might not be overly keen to spend time on something with no hope of a sale at the end of it.

I one worked PT in a call centre for a small mortgage brokers. Our calls were recorded, as per industry regulations I believe, and were listened to randomly (when the Manager was sufficiently bored usually). This therefore led to us having to stick to a script a little more than we would have liked.

YANBU first they need to look after their customers - leaving existing customers on hold for hours on expensive numbers is wrong.
And you shouldn't have to travel for miles to do something basic.

You can guess which company from my user name - I have spent hours phoning over the last year one problem after another - and now twice a day sometimes recently as they keep giving me the wrong information. And because their customer services are split into departments and can't communicate which each other.
I now press their 'upgrade/thinking of leaving us' option - first of all I am desperately trying to leave them - so that bit is true, you get through more quickly and finally if you call in the day you seem to get to speak to their UK team and get put through to their UK customer services team - rather than the one that is farmed out overseas and seem to do be reading from an information script ...the ones that hand out the most wrong information/get things wrong and end up passing you onto to the UK team anyway after you have given them all the information because they can't help and then you have to give the UK team all the info again ..
I could actually do with speaking to their IT dept - the dept which is causing hold up after hold up but they don't take calls even from their customer service teams - they just accept forms that are submitted to them - and they have to my knowledge 4 or 5 for me for each of 3 different things - no wonder they have taken over 20 days to do something that should take a max of 3 sorry 5 sorry 14 days as they work through the back log of multiple resubmitted forms..
I currently owe them £50 - they can't take my money at the moment -an IT problem means they can't change my card details. I am very tempted to invoice them for the hours I have spent on the phone to them - even at NMW it would be double that ...
When I finally escape I will be making a formal complaint...
I have been happy with them for years - I have realised it is only when things go slightly wrong that you discover how crap a company are - and Virgin mobile is one of the crappiest I have every dealt with...don't touch them with a barge pole.

Yes calls have to be paid for I wouldn't object as much if the numbers were standard pay numbers but usually they're premium rate is they're profiting from how long you're on hold! That imho should be illegal.

Also whilst I know we're discussing commercial companies here I think it's outrageous that tax credits, cb, CSA etc (govt) numbers are premium rate too!

MrsJamie your comments to the OP are rude. Hers to you have not been. I suggest you reflect on why you feel it acceptable to address her in that manner, while whining that she is rude.

OP, call centre sales staff are often (usually, I suspect) treated quite badly. They will have really strong targets for their calls, and if they fail to meet them they more than likely will miss out on performance pay bonuses. The company are arses for expecting existing customers to make endless expensive calls while new customers are welcomed in, and they're also short sighted as it's well known customer retention is both easier and more profitable than seeking new, but it isn't the call operator's fault any more than it is yours. I can understand why they were annoyed - your doing that could well cost them money, too.

The second call, though, and he or she just sounds an officious little jobsworth.

I dont need to reflect, If by me commenting on someone being rude and trying to bypass the correct procedure and moaning about it because she was told the correct procedure is classed as rude then so be it. Meh!

For Ms. Jamie, It's "through" not "threw"! Sorry to be picky, but you did it twice.

Wow there's a lot of jobsworths on this thread! Have some of you automatons ever thought that maybe it's the process that is wrong rather than the customer? If the company is daft enough to make the customer service number paid and the sales number free that's their own fault, not the customers'; make a different decision and see a different result!

As for the second instance, I used to remind my teams (back before I got the hell out of dodge) when they used to grumble about stuff like this that if it were not for the customer asking them to do stuff they wouldn't have a job.

Customer service - the clue is in the name.

YANBU op and ignore those who lack the imagination to see that posting style in MN is not the same as how one conducts oneself in RL.

For Ms. Jamie, It's "through" not "threw"! Sorry to be picky, but you did it twice.

Gosh did you mean to sound such a tedious bore?

The bored are the boring dearie!

I bought a cheap voice recorder from Argos. When I phone any company, before they say anything, I politely tell them that I am recording the conversation.

trying to bypass the correct procedure Good grief - is this 2015 UK or 1967 East Germany?

why should I hang on the phone for half an hour waiting for the helpdesk while sales agents are doing nothing and can answer instantly

I work in a separate dept to customer service. Unfortunately, our phone number is publicised for something else entirely (not sales) and sometimes people do what the OP did, and ring us thinking we'll be quicker than customer service.

Nope, not at all. Our team does not have access to the customer ordering database they use, so the only thing I can do, is to politely switch the cistoemr through to the main customer service line. It puts them into a queue (which actually is answered quickly on the whole). I do get the odd huff, but I really can't help these customers, even if I wanted to.

Oh, and while I do answer the phone as quickly as I can, it doesn't mean I'm not busy.

YANBU with the first one.

If customers are calling Sales because they answer more quickly than Cust Serv then the company need to improve their Cust Serv!

Don't get me started on non freephone customer service lines but freephone sales lines. Companies who do that don't deserve any sales!

PP who said "you would unfortunately be fucking up their call targets with every second you were on the phone, so I can see why staff get annoyed" I'd be more annoyed because I worked for a company that exploited its workers and customers like that than because my call targets were FU.

123M

Did that make you feel good correcting another adults grammar? not everyone has the excellent writing skills!, as a human being, mistakes are with par of the course of life.

Yes bored may be boring, but at least its not crass!

MrsJamie, you decided based on no evidence that OP had been rude. That in itself was rude of you. Get over it.

If companies employ inadequate help staff so that customers then contact sales staff, any irritation the sales staff feel needs to be taken out on their employers, not the customers.

I'm over it, yes in my opinion the OP was rude, It is AIBU she asked if she was and I gave my opinion on her question, which I found rude. I based my opinions on the comments the OP made, so not evidence unfounded really.

I never asked nor warranted any advise on my grammar, but for me it says more about that person then it does about me.

Its always nice to come back to a thread that reverts back to normalness and sense!

Good grief - is this 2015 UK or 1967 East Germany? I think many of the po faced posters would love to live there