The squeaky wheel vs. the damn phone system

[azurelunatic]

So they can detect angry callers now. Therefore, some people's workplaces are thinking about using this to route audibly angry callers to upper tiers or supervisors. This struck them (and me) as a bad plan.

Yes, from a management perspective, it is really great to have angry people being handled by the people who are screened to deal with them and have the most latitude to either help them or tell them to go jump in a lake (with sharks with lasers).

From a tech/customer service perspective, there's already enough urban legend with an element of truth floating around about voice telephone mazes and how saying certain things and sounding angry and mean on the phone is possibly going to get you through to a human faster. It's great to help genuinely upset people, but encouraging abusive customers is going to get techs so mad so fast.

I had a few ideas about how it could be used without falling into the old "The Jackass Is Always Right" trap:

Flag the call when it comes in, to alert the poor tech who's going to deal with it that there's a cranky one on the line and to brace for it. But some techs like to play with pissed-off customers. Their supervisor should know, to make sure that the tech isn't playing, and whoever's monitoring the calls, particularly if they do real-time monitoring.

A pissed-off customer is likely to genuinely need a supervisor anyway, so it's good to alert the supervisors that they too may have incoming, so they can check on what's going on with that customer and not have to spend post-"I want to talk to your supervisor" time doing research. Even if the customer doesn't need a live supervisor on the line, the tech may need a hand in general.

If I were supervising, I'd occasionally like the ability to sort my agents by their soft skills, and route the angriest customers at techs who could handle it better for whatever reason (more tact, the ability to tell actual jerks where to get off but handle righteous anger, a disinclination to cave) but who were the same Official Tier as the rest -- but I wouldn't want to leave an agent in that queue for long, ow.

It's also wise to not have your phone system do things to further piss them off, even if you can't or shouldn't route them to a supervisor to start with, or get them to a human faster.

• Turn off advertisements in their hold soundtrack. If I am mad and getting madder, I do not need to be enjoined to buy something from this company. I don't know what the stats are on people coming through and buying things they heard about while steaming at the ears, but I would imagine I would be less receptive, and in the short term, it is likely to make me more angry, and more likely to start talking back to the advertisement.
• Switch from telling them how important their call is (likely to come off as artificial and not actual caring when you're mad) and give a factual message (ideally recorded by a human and not a soothing robot) about calls being answered in the order they're received.
• Even before figuring out whether they're cranky, give them a choice about hold music (off or on).
• Telling me that I can do X on the website, when I have found myself unable to do X on the website, is another thing guaranteed to get me from irritable to boiling in about fifteen seconds flat.

Comments

[jamoche]

There was one company I dealt with, years back, that had a hold system that broke in to the hold music intermittently with "there are currently X callers ahead of you." It may even have given me estimated times until I'd be answered. It was *awesome*. I could make a judgement call as to whether it was worth waiting or not; I could tell that progress was being made.

I have *no clue* why other systems don't do that. It would be trivial.

[triadruid]

I love this too. I seem to recall it was a utility company, where I lived...

[triadruid]

And I just noticed this week that our State Motor Vehicle Licensing Office has this exact feature! *boggles at them doing something right, for once*

[ghoti]

My "favorite" is when I'm calling for the internet support ... and they tell me to check their website. If I had internet, I'd not be calling in the first place. That gets my blood boiling like no other, and then I take it out on the poor tech.

My other "favorite" is when I specifically press 2 for Mac, and then the tech starts out with "click on the Start menu...". *snarl*

[triadruid]

Our ISP now has a computer walk you through the 26 basic steps of fixing your modem, in an EXTREMELY solicitous and condescending female voice. Except that I've usually already tried 25 of them, and the other one doesn't apply because my modem doesn't have that feature. I've figured out the right keywords, but it still takes me about 7 minutes to get a human...

[azurelunatic]

...ow.

[triadruid]

Yeah, bad plan. I'd also add to your list that if the computer is going to ask you to put your account/phone number in via keypad, do NOT make the first thing the human does ask for your account/phone number. It can't be THAT hard to have the computer spit that out on tech support's screen...

[azurelunatic]

Heh. I used to work at a place where in some ways of connecting to the system it did spit it out, and some places it didn't, and if you didn't push the hash key after, it totally didn't, and goodness help you if you made a typo.

When we got a number, we had to confirm it in case they had made a typo. Which they often did.

[fairlight]

The #1 thing that phone support people could do to fix some of their problems is get rid of the "speak to me" robots. I don't mind typing information on the number pad at robots but I don't want to talk to them and have to repeat myself over and over if they don't like my accent or the words I use to describe my problem and I really don't like to have to deal with them if I'm not alone.

[azurelunatic]

Or at least make it a choice. Some phone systems do that.

[fairlight]

...are there people who actually LIKE talking to crappy voice recognition software?

[azurelunatic]

I go back and forth on the issue. It's all right if I'm alone and know where I'm going in the system.

[jecook]

I have run across some hold queue systems that give you an estimate of hold time. Those are not too bad. Otherwise, mostly spot on except for the "some techs like to play with angry customers." The vast majority of those who do phone support don't do that, and the ones that do tend to get weeded out quickly when they screw up and get recorded doing it. One thing that I'm certain phone techs would request (in a rousing chourus of damned souls) would be for the customer to *calm down first* before calling, be *willing* to work with the tech (they are generally getting paid to help troubleshoot and fix the problem, not make things worse), and be courteous to the tech. We have to because we get fireed if we don't. It blows us away when we get a customer on the line who's polite, willing to work with us, and says "thank you" when we fix their problem.

[http://users.livejournal.com/chas_/]

As someone who was until recently a phone tech, allow me to say "THIS!"

I will also note that even before I was a phone tech I realized that the quickest way to get stuff done with phone support was just to relax and let them go through all the steps they want to go through, regardless of whether or not I knew better. Having been on the other side I can honestly say that sometimes the tech's hands are tied about things.

[azurelunatic]

Point about the weeding-out, although I still would not want to knowingly give an angry caller to Mr. Trollbeard (a former co-worker of mine; he's still there and I'm not).

Another thing I'd actually be more concerned about would be people "accidentally" dropping known angry calls -- woops, phone problem -- woops, restroom emergency that just couldn't wait -- because it's never good to get one and some people have just had too much.

[http://users.livejournal.com/chas_/]

I don't think it is necessarily a "The Jackass Is Always Right" trap. I can see another angle where management's logic for boosting callers is coming from. They're not trying to coddle angry callers, but rather improve Tier 1's efficiency under the assumption that the majority of angry callers get put up to to Tier 2 anyways.

I'm not saying it isn't ripe for misuse, but then I'm sure call centers could evolve ways of handling such callers, too, I suppose.

Also, after reading the article, it sounds like it might also be something that would alert a manager or supervisor of an angry caller that they may need to listen in to or to grab the call from a Tier 1 tech who is floundering.

[azurelunatic]

Yes. Listening in and grabbing.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

My ISP's hold soundtrack keeps trying to get me to go to their website and deal with whatever the problem is. The only problem with that? The only reason I ever call them (rarely, thank goodness) is because I can't get online in the first place...

I have mentioned this little issue to them, but they don't seem to get it. They're a very good ISP otherwise, so I try to forgive them for this lapse.

[azurelunatic]

Yes. >_< I hate that. And when I'm cut off from my internet, I'm already predisposed to crankiness enough as it is, and little things can get under my skin.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[luminairex.livejournal.com]

I'm usually not angry at the company until I have to deal with their automated phone system. At that point, it's a priority queue; routing to a supervisor is just going to make me wait longer. :-P

[onyxrising.livejournal.com]

Several phone systems which I have to call on a regular basis transfer you to tech tier 1 immediately if you swear three times. If tech tier 1 is where I need to go, I open the call with "fuck, fuck, fuck!" and am automatically correctly routed.
One of the aforementioned phone systems consistently misroutes me if I choose the option for technical support instead of swearing.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

Getting told dozens of times that my call is very important between listening to the same ads over and over definitely increases my level of anger.

Phone systems that give me an estimate of how long I'll have to wait then offer to take my name and phone number to return my call when my turn in the queue comes up rather than making me wait on hold do a lot to make me less inclined to be angry.

[azurelunatic]

Oh, ugh.

I had never heard of the name/phone number form of call queue! That is very refreshing.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I've come across it a couple of times lately - my ISP and the local newspaper if I remember correctly. I definitely like it a lot better than having to wait on hold.