How to handle bad customer service ... without holding a grudge

NBC ^ | Dana McMahan

[plain talk]

very informative take. thanks.

[Tired of Taxes]

As soon as we automated and introduced web based services all of the “nice” people stopped interacting with us. What was left were the customers who were “special”.

Maybe the automated phone systems are making the customers angry. They have to fight with an automated system that sometimes throws them into a loop and disconnects. By the time a customer reaches a phone rep, he is ticked off. lol

Times have changed, haven't they?

Before automated phone systems existed, I worked in sales departments. All business was handled on the phone. We made outbound calls, and we made sure to answer every inbound call as quickly as possible.

We had to handle complaints, too. I always stayed professional, and usually I was able to calm down the irate customers. And customers sometimes threatened us back then, too.

One time, I had to warn a manager, "This guy is mad, and he said he's coming here right now." The manager and I joked about ways to handle the situation, but the guy never showed up.

A few other times, irate customers did show up. At one place, a man showed up and stormed through the office yelling and looking for someone. I talked with him and found out an employee had ripped him off - as in, the employee committed fraud and stole a lot of money from him.

So, with that history in mind, now, when I call customer service, I expect phone reps to be able to handle a complaint. I never threaten or yell. But, if a company is giving me the runaround, I use a stern tone of voice: "Your company has been telling me the check is in the mail for three weeks now. Where is it?" Most phone reps today can't even handle that tone. They become defensive. They hang up. We would have been fired if we did those things.

The industry has gone downhill. It's not what it used to be.

[Notthereyet]

“Indian people are so funny when they swear.”
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I tend to watch the ‘scammer’ clips when I need to remind myself why I detest dealing with someone I cannot see face-to-face.

It may be from watching and listening (Call Center Rep), that I’ve noticed their pitch rises a tad when they are outright lying. I think perhaps a lot of elderly cannot hear that change in pitch...

[minnesota_bound]

I worked at Earthlink (ISP) starting in 1998 and I had a co-worker who when someone with a apple computer called he would transfer back into the queue as he hated dealing with users and mac pc’s...

At my last job doing internal tech support we had some bad tech support people who would scold people. One lady would say “I told you what to do!”
Another similar to the earlier one hated anyone from Hawaii saying they were dumb... He treated people with contempt thinking he was so smart and he also did not think much of his co-workers. He got himself fired one day when he unknown to him was talking to the entire California division head who oversaw many offices and after telling the guy what to do and when that person did not quite understand he ‘sighed’ loudly. After the call he was called into the office minutes later and was told the manager had called and that he was fired 😁

I applied for social security and there was a delay. The guy I talked to approved it in less then 10 minutes after asking several questions.
Now that is great customer service!