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

[Complaintxoxo]

I rang about a problem l currently have with a well known national organisation. The customer service advisor was unable or unwilling to come up with a solution.
I asked for her name so I could follow the complaints procedure. She gave me her first name but declined to give me her surname.
Is this standard practice? I was surprised. I worked in front line customer service for a local council for many years. It wouldn't have been accepted for me to refuse to tell the customer my full name.

Yes, it will be for their safety.

It's standard in my experience. It's to protect staff from angry people trying to track them down.

Why do you need her full name?

Completely standard practice, yes.

I've never known it to be any other way.

I too work for local council and we would never be expected to divulge our surnames.

Yes of course it’s fine. You have a first name, you don’t need her full name. 🙄

Absolutely standard. When I worked in a call centre on incoming calls we weren’t even allowed to give surnames.

I don't think that's unreasonable.

People can be quite vulnerable if someone wants to be nasty to them.
As long as the company can identify them, I actually think it would be fine if everyone has a 'work name' rather than having to give their real name out to the public.

Times have changed, it will definitely be for security reasons

If her work don't allow her to use a fake name for calls, then she is right not to give her real name out to a pissed off customer. Would you?

With social media the way it is? Totally unreasonable of you.

It's standard practice not to. We are told under no circumstances ever give a full name to a customer. Giving your last name is a good way to get some psycho with anger issues cyber stalking you. There will be a record of who you talked to, you don't need her last name.

I think it's fine. What do you need her full name for? Planning to harass her?

Surely being able to say 'Sophie' who answered the phone at 'x o'clock' is enough? It is up to their internal investigation to figure out who and if they are at fault.

Yes it is standard practice and has been for years. I worked in call centres about 30 years ago and it was the same them. Some call centres also get staff to use fake first names for their protection.

You don't need the person's surname anyway, you just need their first name, and the date and time of your call. The call records will be able to be found snd listened to from that information.

I worked in Cs for years and we would have been told off if we gave our surname. There are ways for companies who to trace their employee

I don't see the issue to be honest. You could've asked for a reference number or, simply confirmed with her that notes would be made on your record. It really isn't a problem.

I worked in front line customer service for a local council for many years. It wouldn't have been accepted for me to refuse to tell the customer my full name

Presumably this was pre-Google. Times have changed and there's no need for you to know this person's surname. I'm sure you can work out why that is!

Often false first names are used as well. They will be able to track who you were talking to from call data.

Security and privacy reasons, anyone divulging their full name would get searched on social media and anyway you don't need a surname just the time of the call

Yabu. Surname not necessary.

A few years ago , I was dealing with a customer over email which had an email signature with our full names. The customer found me on Facebook (I didn't list or post anything to do with work but he still found me because he had my full name). It must have happened to other colleagues because the signatures were soon changed to first name and position eg "Christine - Customer Services ".

yes of course it’s standard practice.

I work in customer service and both I and other colleagues have had physical threats made against us while on calls. We’re talking things like “I’m going to find out where you live;you’d better watch your back;don’t think about walking around alone any time soon,” One of my colleagues had a death threat and another was told that the caller hoped they would be raped.

You think we should give psycho’s like that, with access to the internet, our full names so they can track us down? I don’t think so.

Yes, another one whose worked in a call centre and we were allowed to just give our first name. We'd also give our team number if they wanted to complain about us.

I have a really unusual name and you'd absolutely be able to find me on social media if I gave you my full name.

In fact we had a vexatious caller who kept ringing and demanding our full names, he had a real bee in his bonnet about it.

YABU. I’ve worked in many CS roles and would never have given my surname.

They could just give you a random surname if they do not want you to have it.

It’s a good thing. People have turned up at our office before demanding to speak to customer service staff who’ve pissed them off. The contact centre’s actual location is unadvertised for this reason.