Posted on 01/10/2005 7:50:29 PM PST by neverdem
MELVILLE, N.Y. - It is the opening line on so many phone conversations these days: This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.
The taped message is so common that many callers might assume that no one is ever listening, let alone taking notes. But they would be wrong.
Monitoring is intended to track the performance of call center operators, but the professional snoops are inadvertently monitoring callers, too. Most callers do not realize that they may be taped even while they are on hold.
It is at these times that monitors hear husbands arguing with their wives, mothers yelling at their children, and dog owners throwing fits at disobedient pets, all when they think no one is listening. Most times, the only way a customer can avoid being recorded is to hang up.
"You could have a show on Broadway just playing the calls," said Mike Schrider, president of J.Lodge, a call monitoring service based in Hammonton, N.J.
Call monitors eavesdrop on millions of exchanges a year, and listening to the mumblings and rants of people on hold comes with the job. Over all, about 2 percent of the hundreds of millions of calls made to call centers are monitored by a company's own managers or, increasingly, by third-party monitoring companies, which have come on the scene in the last couple of years.
Tapping into calls from his cubicle in Melville, N.Y., Stuart Pike is one of an army of listeners employed by these companies. He has an unrestricted view of how corporate America deals with the public - and how the public talks back.
The business of assessing the behavior of operators has taken on a new urgency in recent years. With so many companies selling similar products at similar prices, competent and professional customer service agents are more and more the difference between a sale and a lost opportunity, a burnished brand and a tarnished one.
That reality has turned third-party call monitoring into a fast-growing industry watching over the nation's six million call center operators as well as hundreds of thousands offshore. And people like Mr. Pike, who listens to about 150 calls a week, have become the equivalent of factory foremen policing America's service economy.
Recently, Mr. Pike stumbled onto a call where a young male customer was flirting with a female service agent at a cellphone company. After some giggles and banter, the woman relented and gave her personal phone number to the customer. Mr. Pike quickly alerted the cellphone company to the phone date.
"You'd be surprised how casual it can get," said Mr. Pike, who works at Aon Consulting, one of the nation's biggest third-party call center monitors. "It's like watching TV. There's always something interesting on."
Some privacy advocates worry that monitors, as well as operators, can steal customer passwords and other sensitive data. Thus far, few documented cases of identity theft have been unearthed involving monitors, and most monitoring companies screen their applicants. State wiretapping laws generally do not provide protection against recording of call center conversations (the taped message at the start of the call is in most cases considered an adequate privacy warning).
Fears of identity theft have not slowed the monitoring business. In fact, under tighter scrutiny by regulators, most financial institutions are now taping all their calls.
The growth of monitoring has also been fueled by the advent of Internet phone technology, which has substantially cut the cost of long-distance calls and made call monitoring as easy as clicking a mouse. Sophisticated software that automatically records conversations has increased the number of calls monitors can assess.
As more call centers move offshore, companies are starting to outsource the monitoring, too. From any corner of the globe, call monitors with just a computer and an Internet connection can oversee workers virtually anywhere. For instance, Mr. Pike on Long Island listens to service agents in India who may be talking to customers in Indiana. Monitors in Britain are likely to listen to customers in New York talking to German operators in Frankfurt.
In effect, monitors have become referees on an international scale. "We act as the conscience of the company," said Paul Kowal, the president of Kowal Associates, an industry consultant and a third-party monitor.
Sometimes, refereeing means reporting off-color calls - known in call center parlance as a "hot line" - like the flirtation that Mr. Pike overheard. Plenty of other calls also raise red flags, including customers and operators who shout, swear, talk politics or threaten bodily harm. Anyone hanging up - either an operator or an angry customer - sends out warnings, too.
Just a few years ago, most companies simply ranked their operators on how quickly they picked up calls and ended them. Now call monitors rate operators by checking off boxes on detailed electronic questionnaires that assess qualities like efficiency, conversational skills and ability to mollify frustrated customers. The scores from each monitored call are collected to rank an operator's performance.
Handling angry callers "is like dealing with road rage," Mr. Pike said.
Operators who can defuse aggression - a not-insignificant talent - win plaudits. Operators also have to deal with the slow talkers, the lonely chatterers and the absent-minded. At night, the drunks come out.
Hearing this hidden side of American commerce turns the monitors into amateur experts in American phone etiquette. "Bad calls stick in my mind because I can't believe what I've heard," said Renee Rea, who sits, with headphones on, a few rows from Mr. Pike in a room largely silent except for fingers tapping on keyboards.
To do the job, Ms. Rea and her colleagues need an aptitude for listening, a rare commodity in a culture where the opposite of talking is waiting to talk. Indeed, finding monitors willing to sit in silence all day is not easy, and turnover is a problem for jobs that involve a mix of industrial psychology and Marketing 101.
Monitors typically score operators on their "openings," like the friendliness of their greeting. They flag annoying habits like using run-on sentences or talking in a monotone, and even gauge the mood of calls by noting whether operators sound like they are smiling as they talk.
Operators are given demerits for transferring customers without asking, keeping someone on hold for too long and blaming others instead of trying to solve problems. Providing incorrect information is another no-no.
Occasionally, monitors will right mistakes they hear. Michael Betts, another Aon assessor, once heard an operator book a hotel room for a customer on the wrong date. Mr. Betts, a former comptroller who says he is "a born editor," alerted the hotel, which notified the customer and undid the error.
Sometimes, monitors are privy to domestic disputes that erupt in the background during a call. But intervening on those calls is rare because many are recorded and are assessed hours after they take place; often the monitor does not know the caller's location.
Joyce Van Doren, an assessor for J.Lodge, recalled one man who canceled the cable service that was in his name because, he said, he had just divorced. The man, however, failed to hang up the phone when the customer service agent ended the call, so the tape kept rolling.
That is when Ms. Van Doren heard him reveal his real motive to a friend in the room: getting back at his former wife, who was going to be livid when she came home to find the cable TV disconnected.
Other calls are more poignant. Ms. Rea at Aon recalled with a tinge of sadness a woman who called a financial institution to change the name on her account because her husband had died. Rather than offering condolences and making an emotional connection with the customer, however fleeting, the agent robotically asked for her account number. Ms. Rea marked the agent down for failing to show empathy.
Operators can also be marked down for being too helpful. Ms. Van Doren recalls one who told a customer about a special promotion on a cable service that was to start two weeks later. The customer was delighted, but the operator was reprimanded for failing to make the sale the day the customer called.
With thousands of call center jobs moving overseas, monitors are also noticing a growing reaction against operators with foreign accents. More customers now ask to speak to an American after they hear an operator with an Indian accent, said Miriam Nelson, who helps run Aon Consulting's center.
"In India, the operators are doing a lot of the courtesies they are trained to do," Ms. Nelson said, but they often miss the nuance of conversations. She added that some Indian call centers show their operators episodes of "Seinfeld" and "Friends" to teach them about American culture.
Nothing on television, though, can prepare an Indian operator for chatty American consumers who like to talk about the ups and downs of the New York Yankees or the latest blizzard in Chicago.
Perhaps inevitably, monitoring is also moving offshore. HyperQuality, which is based in Seattle, has 100 call monitors in New Delhi who eavesdrop on call center workers around the United States. Those raters, oceans away, are trying to make sense of hot lines and hotheads, too.
<< Remember when it used to be music on hold? Now it's music interrupted every twenty seconds by a recorded voice asking if you knew you can access help through their piece-o-crap website that is just real enough for a half a second to fool you into thinking "Hey, someone's answering!" No, they aren't. >>
Yes I do. And as I spend 98% of my time overseas and "toll-free" numbers are not free from any overseas location and cost more than a Dollar a minute from many of the Hell holes in which I "spend my time," I call only after scouring "through their piece-o-crap website" and being left with no alternative but to call.
And of course outlasting my 50 minutes or so of rage and getting through is not usually the end of the problem as the answerer is as often as not a self-righteous and supercilliously snot-nosed and otherwise deservedly unemployed quota hire who also as often as not makes me wish I hadn't been picked up and whose subsequent screw-ups costs me even more money than I not been able to get through and had simply been another hour or two on hold.
Before calling back on another day.
'Compuserve/AoL' is/was one of those and the every-bit-as systemically-corrupt and criminal 'PayPal' is another.
When you wake up one day and find the only person on the block who speaks English is you, you'll understand.
The other night someone called about 11, unknown name/number, so I answered. Some guy started speaking to me in Spanish, I said, Uh, no habla espaniol. He said, "Oh, you don't speak Spanish, sorry." End of conversation.
LOL!
I've done Chinese before. Not too hard to fake it to a Telemarketer as long as you draw out the vowels.
Funny story: In WalMart the other day to buy french fries. Can't find them. The butcher is loading up the case.
Me: Excuse me, where are the french fries?
Butcher: {{blank stare}}
Me: {{thinking he hadn't heard me}} Excuse me, where are the french fries?
B: {{lowers head like he's telling a secret}} No English.
M: {{Didn't hear him. Thinking he's deaf I, of course, enunciate}} F-R-E-N-C-H F-R-I-E-S
B: {{quietly}} No English
M: {{well, he doesn't look Hispanic. Look at his nametag - IGOR. Well let's try some rusty Russian}} Gavariti pa russki?
B: {{Eyes get REALLY BIG}} Da
M: Chto?
B: DA!
M: Xorosho! {{Now how in the world do I say "French Fries" in Russian}} Kartofel?
B: Ah, aisle two
M: Argh.
My son told me later on that the look on the guys face was priceless and that he probably had never heard Russian in WalMart before :-)
I said that your answering system phone said the call may be monitored for QC purposes, therefore your organization has given permission for this conversation to be taped, ergo, you have given your permission by speaking on the line.
Had him really confused. LOL
I have used Russian in my local Wal-mart before, but only so as to employ a few choice obscenities (that I think I remember) in response to the gang of incorrigibles who work there.
I only remember a few choice obscenities myself. Gosh, I need a refresher course!
I'll have to try that next time.
I loved the calls I'd get in college when I lived on campus. Of course I needed new siding, and re-finacing. After asking a bunch of questions they'd usually ask about the property, I would have loved to see their faces when I replied "a college campus".
If you cannot do the real accents in the foreign languages, just do the Monty Python versions, they've got to be even more frustrating. By far.
And their frustration is the point of all this, isn't it? ;OD
LOL. I have to say, being fluent in Spanish has gotten me much better service in hotels and restaurants. Just letting them know you can speak their language keeps them on their toes. They know they can't talk about the "Gringo gordo" or anything like that. Plus, some friendly chit chat and small talk always yields better service, regardless of language.
It really came in handy when I sold my Jetta several years back to a couple of Mexican guys. I didn't let on that I spoke Spanish until we were well into the buying process.
I somewhat agree with you. However, I don't think English should be the only language 'permitted' (as you stated) in the public forum. If businesses need to cater to customers of various dialects, that is, well, their business. That said, when it comes to the government publishing documents, posting signs, etc., I am less inclined to think it is appropriate to cater to multiple dialects- particularly with street signs. Imagine coming to a stop sign and seeing 3 or 4 different translations for STOP; or driving an unfamiliar road, looking for a certain street name. So in that way, it makes sense require someone to be familiar with the predominant language, in this case, English. I recall being in areas of big cities where there is a large congregation of a particular country, such as Vietnam, and the signs are posted in English and Vietnamese. That doesn't bother me so much, but I still wonder who is footing the bill for such things.
On a side note-
One thing that I find funny is when I am talking to someone and they find out that I am of Hispanic descent. If they speak Spanish, they immediately begin talking to me in Spanish. I find it funny because we seemed to be doing just fine talking in English. I suppose they do it because they think it is just nice to find someone who speaks a language other than English. Another thing they might do is ask me where I am from. To which I reply- Texas (though I now live in New Jersey). They press on and ask, "but what nationality are you". To which I respond that I am a U.S. citizen from Texas and if I had to pinpoint my anscestor's nationality, it would be Texan. Not satisfied with that, they ask if my parents or grandparents or great grandparents were from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, etc. I then counter that, as told to me by my grandmother, with the exception of her grandfather who is from Europe, for the past 200 years plus my family has lived in the area now known as Texas. Apparently we didn't move around a lot. So yes, one could say that my family is from Mexico, or Texas, or France, or Spain, or the Confederate States of America, et al. That answer just seems to make them frustrated. Say la-vee. :)
That comes in handy, doesn't it? My wife is a native speaker but is not Hispanic. It's been beneficial more times than I can count.
This goes well beond the using of information for 'sales outreach' or whatever they purport to justify this violation of an individuals privacy.
I also do not recall being told - beforehand - that anything said on 'hold' might. . .could. . .will be, recorded; much less used against one. . .by said company. That in itself. . .seems an incredible violation to me. . .
Do not like this threat that is now seeimingly embedded in 'business as usual'. . .
"Is [XXX] there?"
"L'Hopital de Notre Dame, Department d'urgences."
"DuSaQ vumghzchwIj Sopta; targwIj"
How's that pronounced?
Yep, that's us.
I have a very young sounding voice. I have had relatives and friends ask for my mom when I answer the phone. So, I use it for telemarketers. One yo-yo from the New York Times called asking for my parents. I said my mom lived somewhere else and my father was dead. He still had the nerve to try and sell his paper.
I had a Russian guy working for me and this particular day we had just hired another Russian guy. The new guy did not know where to find something so he goes over to the other Russian guy to ask. Now neither one of these guys knows that the other guy is Russian. After 5 minutes of watching these two guys trying to understand each other in ENGLISH the whole shop was cracking up.
"If businesses need to cater to customers of various dialects, that is, well, their business."
That's true to a degree.
However, its pretty aggrevating having to listen to a phone recording of endless audio menus in the first place, instead of conversing with a real human being and getting your problem resolved immediately. And suppose you had to listen to a series of recordings in English, Spanish, Portugese, Russian, Chinese, Viet Namese, Gujarati, Arabic, etc???
THe whole point is that English has long been the Lingua France of America, and the overwhelming majority of people speak and understand it, even those for whom it is a Second Language.
Perpetuating an official multi-lingual society is in the long run detrimental to America as a whole as it encourages ethnic enclaves, discourages integration of new arrivals into the society, and increases the Balkanization of America.
My grandparents came from other non-Anglo Countries and they spoke their laguages in their home, their churches, their community and ethnic stores which were owned and directed by people of the same ethnicity.
But in Public Life, in mainstream stores, etc, they were expected to learn English and they did - at a very early age - as they WANTED to be AMERICANS and participate in American society, as much as American society was not willing to cater to non-Anglo speakers at the time.
You say you have a Hispanic background. My guess is YOUR parents and grandparents made the effort to learn English, why shouldn't others?
As an additional aside, I took Spanish, Greek, Latin and German in school. They are all fine languages. Spanish itself can be quite a beautiful, melifluous language, as can - surprisingly - German. Greek and Latin are much more logical than any modern language in their grammatical contruction.
But when it comes to the variety of vocabulary, the refinement of dnuances in verbiage, and the flexibility of meaning, I find English far superior to all the others. English readily assimilates words from other languages and Anglicizes them - enriching the vocabulary. It employs Greek and Latin and other stem words in its technological terminology which makes it far more versatile than say, German which strings a bunch of common German words together to create what English can do with a single Anglicized Latin or Greek Term, or French which is has an obssession for "purifying what is otherwise an entirely unappealing-sounding tongue with a totally incomprehensible spelling system from English frequently suffers due to Norman French infusions.
I consider ALL Languages world treasures to a degree - artistic creations of the human mind and heart and do not want to see ANY of them become extinct.
But at the same time, logic would dictate that a common tongue is a necessary glue to help hold together a society composed of such a great variety of different ethnic elements.
Sometimes people ask about somebody's background because they are just curious. I do so myself at times. But I find it offensive that anyone should consider anyone less an American simply on the basis of the time of their arrival here as citizens or the derivation of their ancestry.
Being American is not a matter of race or ethnicity - its a way of thinking and political philosophy which is relatively unique.
Sometimes we get calls which are a recording saying we have an important call and please hold, someone will be on the line shortly to talk to us. Never have found out what these calls are. Just turn the radio on and lay the phone on top of it. When I pick up the phone later they have hung up.
Sometimes when I have been on hold for a long time I ask whoever finally answers to please hold. Petty? Sure but I feel better.
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