WIBU to Shout at the Young Man in the Call Centre?

[19lottie82]

OL this is longggggg but I need a rant..... sorry!

I'm an eBay business seller, i.e. That's my main source of income. My local Post Office offers a drop and go service, where I top up a pre paid card then drop (and go) off my parcels each day for the branch to process.

Around a year ago the couple of ran the PO retired and a youngish guy took over the franchise. He is however useless. He closes the PO early whenever he feels like it and sometimes doesn't open at all.

Anyway..... I dropped a bag of about 30 parcels in on Friday about 230pm. And when I drove past 30 minutes later, it was closed, and is still closed as I type.

I called the PO call centre and reeled off my complaint / concerns. I told "Daniel", that I was sitting outside the branch in my car and it had been shut for three days, and my parcels must be in there, unprocessed. I need them back or sent urgently.

"please hold while I try and contact them"

4 mins later "I'm sorry I just called the branch, no one is answering"

Again I reiterated I needed my parcels, do they not have alternative contact details for their franchisees? Nope.

What would they do if the branch remained closed indefinitely?
They would send a letter to the branch, apparently.

How did they keep in touch with him during the franchise application process.
They can't disclose that information.

Look..... I really need to get these parcels, telling me to "wait until it opens" isn't acceptable. This is my business, my income. Please can I speak to a manager."?
There aren't any avaliable, sorry (he didn't even check).

Are you telling me one of the largest companies in the U.K, with a nationwide call centre, there isn't a single manager around to speak to me?
That's correct.

This went on for a long time, then I was put on hold for 40 minutes.

He came back and said I can get someone to call you back.
I told myself to stay calm......

OK that's fine. Please can you confirm a manager will call me back today.
Oh no sorry. I can't promise that.
When WILL someone call me back?
It will be within 10 working days

Are you joking?

"Why do you want to speak to a manager anyway, they won't tell you anything that I haven't already".

I started explaining that speaking to him wasn't resolving the situation so I wanted to speak to a manager, TODAY.

Then he started speaking over me, and I'm ashamed to say I lost the plot and I SHOUTED.
Eventually he said, yes, someone will call you back today, but I'm fairly confident that they won't

WIBU?

I've worked in call centres like this and you aren't allowed to pass calls to managers. You just have to tell people there aren't any available even if they're standing next to you! I think people have an unrealistic idea of what powers you have in a call centre to solve customers situations, in my experience you have little to no training are just employed to pacify customers.

I worked in a call centre for many years and I didn't like being shouted at. However as a user of call centres I am a regular shouter. They are the most infuriating set ups, the crappest customer service and no one cares.

As for the "no manager" fine. Who checked you actually came into work this morning? I raise a formal complaint about that too please, your company are such poor employers they can't even offer Senior support to front line staff.

Formal complaints all the way

OP, YANBU.

Complaint in a public forum (twitter or facebook) is the only way I've found to get large companies to respond...

OP - can you please confirm the branch that you used? I am sending you a PM and might be able to help

I've found crying down the phone at people gets things done quicker than shouting.

Maybe I've just been lucky.

My family ran a PO when I was growing up, they are very strict about being open at all the standard times and the franchise holder as to organise relief staff etc if they want to go away themselves. I would be unsurprised if the branch has been shut pending revoking the licence if the franchise holder hadn't been opening, with epic panic behind the scenes as they try to get someone in to hold the fort asap.

mesmerising is right. You'd be amazed at how fast you get a response if you complain on Twitter.

Over 2 hours I spent on the phone with eon last year with no resolution. 1 tweet about it and my problem was solved within 10 minutes.

Even if you could get through to someone you won't get your parcels back unfortunately, technically once youve handed them over to the PO they are no longer yours (even if they haven't actually posted them yet!) The only way post is usually 'stopped' is if there's something illegal going on and the police get involved to intercept a parcel which is not the case here obvs. Shouting at call centre staff is never good, and you know that what ever the kafkaesque responses are, it's not the person on the end of the phone that makes the rules, it is however incredibly difficult not to shout when stuck in this kind of situation, I'll agree. Of course there was a manager there, but procedures will dictate that there are only certain circumstances in which you'll be put through to one. The 'they'll only tell you the same as I have' response sounds like it's off piste though and will probably get him sent for 'retraining'. As for protecting your business, I think you should draft an email explaining the situation, and apologising profusely, that you can send to your buyers. Explain that you have no idea if/when their parcel will arrive but if it doesn't get sent (you'll know if you have the tracking details) you will be claiming in full for all of the 'lost' parcels and refunding them. This may at least buy you some time with them and avoid 30 negs. As a fellow mass ebayer, I feel your pain.

mrsmortis not mesmerising, bloody phone.

Well done LemonEmmaP - hope you can help the OP

Well yes YWBU. It wasn't his fault. However that's not to say I blame you and I can't see how you lost your temper and yes, Nor can I put my hand on the rule book and say. I wouldn't do the same.
We're talking about your livelihood here.

Thanks people (and Lemon, PM sent, thank you), I'm just hoping it's back open tomorrow.

I worked in a call centre for three months.

When customers are abusive to you on a daily basis, it really gets to you.

No matter how frustrating the situation is, it is not the person who has answered your call's fault. They don't deserve you anger, and speaking from experience, sometimes there genuinely hasn't been a manager on hand... And customers have called me a liar for it.

So, yeah, you are being completely unreasonable. If you weren't it wouldn't have bothered you and you wouldn't have posted on a forum about it would you? I get it's frustrating - I've been frustrated with customer service before now, but you don't know who you're talking to and what's going on in their life. He was just doing his job.

Further, the tweet is a good idea. A few years ago a postman was imprisoned for taking post home cos he couldn't deliver it all. He didn't really intend stealing it - it was all unopened - but he was found guilty anyway. A tweet saying you've 'lost' 30 parcels that have been handed over but not sent will trigger some sort of response surely.

Best regulars are always complaining to the PO head office about the new franchisee, but nothing seems to have been done.

I have tweeted the PO. They gave me an email address.....

Do call centres really have no means available for passing customers on to someone who can resolve an urgent problem if the call taker can't? It must surely be obvious that in this situation the answers OP was given were completely unsatisfactory and it should, at the very least, be possible to offer an email address or phone number for someone who can deal with it.

OP, I suggest you have a good trawl for details of senior staff and/or email and postal addresses and point out that if they continue to hold your parcels and refuse to help you to retrieve them, you will have no choice but to ask the police to help you break in. I'm not suggesting the police would do that (though there is a case for saying this is theft) but I suspect the threat may work.

Just wondering where you are OP? I'm in Scotland & it's September weekend here (holiday weekend).

judy That's not really how it works..... it's more like this

Operative "Will anyone take this call, this woman is shouting and going on about her PO being shut with her parcels locked in it and won't be fobbed off"

Manager "Nah, tell her we'll call her back - within ten days if she's lucky!"

I'm an eBay business seller too, so I feel your pain/panic.
I know you know what you need to do, but sometimes when you're in a flap it helps to be reminded;
First, contact the customers and explain what has happened. Depending on the value and stock levels it might be worth re-sending at least some of them.
Absolutely complain loudly on Twitter and Facebook or any other public space you can think of. If you speak to the staff at a more reliable PO they might pass on the phone number for their area manager (POCL) or at least pass on a message to them.
When you've got time after sorting this mess out, look into OBA/PPI or DMO. If you send more than 1000 parcels a year it could save you money, plus it's good for cashflow and you can hand in your sacks of mail at any PO.
Have you posted on the Powersellers' board about this? There will almost certainly be someone there who has experience of something like this.

I once had a long saga with the late unlamented Tiscali when we completely lost broadband access at home. I started out being extremely polite, even when they told it would take three weeks to repair, and even when I phoned after three weeks and was told it would be another three weeks. But I got more and more fed up with wasting my time on the phone (particularly when I was on hold for ages every time) only to get the same promises. When I asked why I should believe them when they'd made the same promises a number of times before and never kept them, they would only ever say feebly that they would keep it this time. When I emailed them (from work) I would get a standard form response asking me to phone. So then I decided to terminate the contract, but needed them to release information so that I could sign up with the next provider, and they proved just as useless with that.

Eventually when I was in the office on a Saturday I got so fed up that I decided to keep emailing the complaints department. I suspect they had some sort of system whereby questions got asked if they had too many complaints that were unresolved, because although they started with sending out the standard form emails I replied immediately requiring them to deal with the complaint properly and I started to get non-standard replies although they mainly consisted of asking me to phone. I would just reply saying I had wasted far too long on the phones without getting my issues dealt with, and I now needed a proper written response. They then started getting their wires crossed with different people repeating what others had said or contradicting each other, and got increasingly desperate and shirty. I just kept firing back responses insisting that they needed to answer properly, not keep trying to fob me off. Ultimately it did get escalated to the supposedly non-available seniors who also tried to fob me off, but eventually gave in and supplied the information I needed to wave goodbye to Tiscali for ever. It came as no surprise when they bowed out of the UK market due to their poor reputation.

So being persistent and bloody-minded can work, and I have to say that nothing else seemed likely to sort the issue out. But it takes stupid amounts of time sometimes, and call centre workers need to realise that customers can get frustrated for good reasons.

lily I'm in Scotland too, but the PO definitely should have been opened. The call centre confirmed that when I spoke to them.
Thanks tho :)

YABU because working in a call centre is shit. I can totally understand why you lost your temper though. Next time ask for the complaints dept.

Judy not at the ones I've worked at. When it's been a genuinely urgent problem (delivery driver had been sexually threatening/someone saw a delivery van stolen etc) I've put the caller through to the police and arranged an urgent call back from the escalations team. Every other call I've had to deal with myself. You can put the customer on hold and ask advice off a floorwalker or manager but they can't take the call off you. You could arrange callbacks off a more senior team but they'd take 24 hours + and would only call back straight away in the really serious cases. Lost parcels were never considered an urgent problem.