Anyone work in customer service?

[SparklyJadeFawn]

I work in a customer service and admin role.

A lot of the job Is answering customer calls.

Honestly the abuse I get.

They shout scream swear at me. One of them called me stupid before I'd even said anything!

If I tell them that what they're asking for simply can't be done in the timeframe they want, they demand to have it now. Then call me useless etc.

Why are people so aggressive?

Is anyone else here dealing with customers?

I've been in my current customer service role for 16 years. My colleagues and i have noticed that people have become much worse since covid happened, it seems to have sent people loopy. I used to get verbally abused by customers a few times a year, but now it's at least once or twice a week. Last week I answered a call, only to have a man scream down the phone "answer my call, you mother fucker! Don't you ever make me wait on hold, you mother fucking whore!" He'd only been in the call queue for 2 minutes. It doesn't help that the industry I work in isn't popular with the general public either.

I can understand that being on hold is irritating when you're Trying to get an issue fixed.

But customer service people don't leave you on hold on purpose.

For example where I work, we only have so many staff to answer calls.

If one hundred calls are coming in and there are five people answering calls, customers will have to wait for a while.

They never seem to realise that no company has the staff levels to answer every single call instantly. Its not possible. They don't ever seem to understand that we answer them as quickly as we can.

They seem to think that we put them on hold just to annoy them.

Not that actually we are trying to answer calls as quickly as we can

They never seem to think that there are humans at the other end.

I also think that people have completely unrealistic expectations of timelines.

For example a woman called in, and was told by someone else in the company that we would look at her issue, and call her back.

She rang in again one hour later to me to complain that she hadn't been called back, and that it was terrible customer service.

I said to her "but you only called in one hour ago. We get hundreds of customers calling in every day. We usually get through callbacks in 2-3 working days".

I'm thinking of funny customers now.

The ones where you ask them to do anything on the website, who say

"Oh god I wouldn't be able to do that now, I wouldn't be good on the old technology AHHAHAHAHAHA.!!"

And they say insert here " my wife usually does that for me, my mother usually does that for me, I'm too old to be able to do something on a website"

and im thinking "didn't you just say you booked and paid for a hotel on booking.com, ".

Customer just always says they're not good at technology, and cant do a thing, as they want me to do every step for them

Not validating their behaviour at all but many places the customer service has gone to shit, you can spend 45 mins on hold to get cut off and join the queue again or get told it's not the right department, or you have to go into store to do that and store tell ou you have to call.

It's infuriating and businesses are not providing enough customer resource experience.

I did it at uni and it was better then. My sister does it now and can't even go for a week without permission. It's shite.

I'm getting it all out now! I needed to vent

The customer who gets you to repeat things five times.

Customer wants a new password

Me. OK no problem you get that on the self service menu on this phone call. I'll send you there. You just need to press option one for new password, and a voice will read out to you the new password

Customer: are you going to send me the new password as a text?

Me: no I'm sending you to a self service menu on this phone call you just need to press option one.

Customer: do I hang up and call back?

Me: no you don't need to do that. I'll send you to the correct menu.

Customer: do I get the new password on the website?

Me: no you get the new password in the self service menu on this phonecall. You just need to press option one

Customer: but will the password come to me as a text Message?

Me : No! The voice will read it out to you!!!

Customer: so I have to call back? What menu do you mean?

And then the glorious customer finale:

'can you not just give the password to me, I'm not good with technology"

:)

I work in customer care (complaints).

It's ridiculous, people expect to pay the lowest possible cost and receive the highest level of service. The level of entitlement is unbelievable.

I work for McDonald's - the amount of abuse I & my young co-workers receive on an alarmingly increasing basis is just appalling.
Many of them are young teens earing money to put themselves through driving lessons, college or uni etc. They really do not deserve the way they are spoken to for simply trying their hardest (& the ones in my store are generally lovely, hardworking young people)

Youre 45 minutes on hold because realistically how can 10 people answer hundreds of calls mmediately. It's not possible.

Hundreds to thousands of people call in to large companies everyday

It's never going to be possible that your call will be answered immediately

People can't expect to pay the lowest possible amount for their goods or services and then expect the company to be able to answer all calls quickly regardless of how many people are calling. Expectations are unrealistic. People like Martin Lewis don't help matters.

And the way some of the customers act like everything is a massive deal.

Me " you just have to press option one".

Customer "what? Is that difficult. It sounds difficult."

Me" no you just have to press one button on the phone".

Customer " but will that hang up the call?? Oh god!!!".

Me "no it wont hang up the call".

Customer "so then when I get the password how do I get back in to my online account.

Me "you just go to our website and log in with the password

Customer "do I put the password in where it says password"

Me "yes"

Customer "oh god but does it have to be done on a computer because I won't have access to a computer until this evening!! Oh god!im not near a computer"

Me "that's no problem you don't have to log in straightaway. Whenever you're ready it's fine"

I once had a woman call and start screaming at me down the phone. I was pregnant at the time and I didn't mean to but I let loose and gave it her back. It felt great lmao

The best is when you get a customer on the live chat platform who is completely angry about a product they have received and then it turns out they bought it from your competitor. They abandon the chat pretty quick!

I used to do web chat and it's amazing how many people will type out something full of swearing and abuse before deleting it and rewording it a bit more politely. They don't realise that we can see what they're typing before they press enter!

We have one service that takes three working days to do.

Customer: but I need it today.

Me: that option doesn't exist unfortunately.

Customer: can you not speed it up.

Me: if I could I would. There isn't an option to do it in a shorter time

Customer: that's ridiculous. All other similar companies do it within one working day.

Me thinking "well go there then!!"

I think the average level of intelligence in this country is decreasing rapidly. And half of people are even more stupid than that.

I think there may be another factor caused by internet. 20 years ago, everyone phoned up for this stuff, so most of your queries were the run of the mill easily solved things. Now most of those are solved by internet, so a far higher proportion of queries are things where it's complicated, something has gone wrong, or the customer simply doesn't understand how to do a simple thing.

And if you've been waiting on hold on a loop that constantly distracts you with a message making you think your call's being picked up, but actually it's a patronising message telling you to go to the website, when the whole reason you are on the phone is because the website didn't help, then you are unlikely to be in the best of moods. Of course that doesn't excuse some of the abuse people have listed here, but I'm trying to answer the OP's question and work out what's changed.

And some companies have terrible systems! I moved house last year and ended up on the phone to companies far more than usual. Some were great, but some were genuinely bemusingly awful. I had one sign me up to package, with my consent that was never activated. Did they have a record of the call? No. Could they see what offers had been active when I signed up? No. I had to sign up to a completely new offer. My bank were awful and kept giving me conflicting advice about transferring money. Luckily I'd done stuff well in advance, but they wasted hours of my time and could have delayed completion, which is no joke.

In contrast my solicitors were great, my LISA people were great. So are my ISA people.

Definitely
"The whole world has gone mad" is a phrase I hear every week from people in the same business

I pay yout wages

No you don't idiot

What drives me mad is the customers that can't remember a single thing

In my company when they join us, they get a customer card.

They'll ring in and ask about their account.

Me: can I have your account number please?

Customer? My what ? Where would that be?
(Aggressively) What number are you looking for?

Me: your account number please

C: WHERE WOULD THAT BE?

Me: if you have your customer card it's on the back of the card.

C: oh jaysys I never knew that! Right wait a moment till i find my glasses. the number is (booming voice) ONE FOUR SEVEN...

Me "I Don't think that's the right number , are you looking at the back of the card?"

C: "ah jasys! I was looking at the front of the card! Where is it on the back?

Me " on the bottom left. It says account number before it"

C: NINE NINE ONE , well now wait now, it could be a one or a seven

Finally get the customer accounts number.

Me " now can I please have two numbers from your password".

C: what password is that? Is that my account number?

:) :)

I didn't realise how many people don't know their phone number or postcode

"Can you not just search by my name?"
"Ok what's your surname?"
"Smith"

Yeah. I'll need more than that!

Also repeating F or S louder is still just as hard to hear. I really don't mind if you say F for fuck rather than just getting cross and louder as long as I can tell what letter it is

Yeah i get that aswell.

Can you not just find me by my name

Jane Smith.

No we can't!! We need your account number

*I also think that people have completely unrealistic expectations of timelines.

For example a woman called in, and was told by someone else in the company that we would look at her issue, and call her back.

She rang in again one hour later to me to complain that she hadn't been called back, and that it was terrible customer service.

I said to her "but you only called in one hour ago. We get hundreds of customers calling in every day. We usually get through callbacks in 2-3 working days".*

Would it perhaps be helpful (for both customers and the next staff member) for your staff to give out a rough idea of that timeline when saying someone will get back to them?

I think you need to find another job OP. You don’t seem to have any empathy, or any understanding that not everyone is capable of navigating phone / web systems.

I’ve been in customer service for a long time, over the phone, in person, retail at Christmas. Yes people can be arseholes but you’re being just as bad. You’re mainly taking the piss out of people who are trying to ask for your help in this post, not the ones being vicious bastards.