Used to be a sup in a call center for pharmacy processing. If you haven't heard of what goes on when a pharmacist runs your insurance at your local store, I highly recommend you take the time to learn about your plans and how they work. One of the biggest things is lost medication coverage and what a customer has to do to get coverage (if any) to allow for the insurance to provide a discount. A lot of the time they will call a processor to oversee the override that allows payment but we would first have to see if the drug is permitted under the plan to be excused for an early fill.

It was a bit of a laugh to get customers who had lost their erectile dysfunction pills. From time to time the wife would be in the background. It was my job to see that I could get my stranded soldiers to high ground. I'm sure I have saved some marriages.

Other times, it was more controlled substances. These types of therapies have no coverage under most insurance policies if lost or stolen. While we gave no attention to a customer's use of the medication, there were sometimes red flags that one personally could see from someone's behavior.

I had to put a message out one night about someone trying to request early refill for stimulants. All calls were to be forwarded to me because earlier the customer had called to my floor and was escelated to me. Since the state where they resided would not early refill such a medication, it should have been crystal clear that we would have no say in the refill. The customer would call a few more times to try and get some leeway, but would be met with me.

There were some very wholesome interactions where we were the front line in getting coverage for life-saving medications to a customer who did not understand how their coverage worked and were met with a high price after the claim was denied. One time I spent three hours after the end of shift to ensure a parent could get a one-time fill of a drug that kept their child alive. That evening, they had been met with bad news by a couple of reps who didn't know how to make sense of their coverage. A lot of insurance groups can allow for a one-time coverage at a discounted rate for customers who have either changed plans or have had a new medication. The hard part about processing these claims is that it can be a troublesome task of finding the right channels to fix the issue. I set them up with the next steps to get their coverage for this medication, and they got processed at the end of the night.

I would definitely do this line of work again, but it would have to be for better pay and for a better title. I know it is easy for people to get in a loop when it comes to call center work, but I hope that anyone in this profession can see how justified their work is and how much easier they are making people's lives. Thank you for reading a chapter in my life and I wish you all the best in life and business.

So I said in the last post I made here, I worked tech support for a specific fruity brand of phones, for a specific cellphone carrier back in the day. And I learned a lot about being on the other side of the phone, what people can and can't do, all that good jazz.

But I had a customer tell me something once that I still use to this day when I have to call any customer service line.

So the call comes in, and I already knew what it was about as soon as the information pulled up on the computer. This particular carrier was switching all their celltowers over to 4G towers, by tearing out all the towers in an area, and rebuilding them over a process of two-four months.

Obviously, while the towers were down... nobody had service. I don't know why they did it this way, but when people called in to complain, we were told to offer them a $50 reduction on their bill that month. Obviously many people were unhappy about this, because well... I'm still paying for a product that doesn't work. Giving me money off doesn't actually change that my phone doesn't work.

But I see the address, and I know what it is already. So I put on my extra perky 'We Love Customers!' voice, and answer, "Thank you for calling Company, this is Morrighan1129, how can I help you today?"

The voice that responded back was -to my surprise -relatively pleasant. A deep southern drawl, to be sure, but he sounded fairly laid back... Until I actually listened to what he was saying.

"Hey, darlin'. So here's the thing. I'm 'bout ready to lose my goddamn mind here. I've talked to three different people 'bout getting my contract canceled, since my goddamn phone don't work. But I get it ain't your fault, and you ain't done nothin' wrong, and you sound real nice. So how 'bout we skip me yellin' at you, and me feelin' guilty for makin' a young woman cry, and you having a bad day because of my bad day, and you just go on and get me your manager? You don't get paid enough to deal with me when I'm in a mood like this."

It stunned me for a second. What? You're not going to yell at me for something I can't do and have zero control over? What even is this?

But I'm not gonna complain.

"I will absolutely do that for you, sir. If you give me two minutes at most, I'll get a manager right over here to help you out," I say, still pleasant, but probably sounding confused, because my head is still trying to wrap around the fact he's not yelling at me.

"Alright then, you go on and do that. But don't put me on hold, I ain't goin' on hold again. You just set the phone down on your desk, and I'll keep good and quiet until your manager gets there."

Well I stick up my little red solo cup on a stick (we were a real class act) that we had to notify managers we needed them. It took about a minute and a half, but my manager came over, I explained the situation, and the manager sat down.

Y'all, I could hear the second the man started yelling. I couldn't quite make out what was being said, but it was enough that I could hear him through the headset.

I don't know what ended up happening or how it all played out, as I took my fifteen for a smoke, but I've never forgotten that. And when I had to call my cable company for the ninth time, trying to get my internet fixed (I'd went and got a new router twice, a new modem twice, and it still didn't fix the problem), I ended up using that same line. "I know it's not your fault, and you haven't done anything wrong, but I'm mad as hell, so why don't you just get me a manager so I can yell at him instead of you?"

Which job is less unpleasant,which one would you choose? A job where you are basically an over the phone first response, but is potentially remote after training, a little over minimum wage

Or

A in person collections job, that pays slightly more than the last one

They both seem like theyd potentially be depressing lol, but I need money for language lessons

I work for an electricity company. A foreign customer who's currently in my country wanted to pay with his international debit card, which my company doesn't accept. (We only accept local currency and local mobile banking). At first I suggested him to pay with credit card but he said his card didn't work, so I suggested him to withdraw cash in the local currency and make a payment at the office. He said he would pay with his international debit card and would want to talk to another agent because I "made no sense". I transferred his call to another guy, who said the same thing I did because that's how our company accept payments. The customer got frustrated and demanded to talk to our manager/sup, saying we need to fix the problem so "he" can pay. He gave us his number and told us to call him back when we finally figured out how he will be able to pay with "his" card

Completed graduation in BCA May24 and does the 4 months of internship after completion, but didn't able to get job so think to start in BPO so i applied through naukri app and boom i got call from hr and says concentrix is hiring for such posts and if you looking for job you can start with concentrix so I agreed and after that concentrix mailed me that you have to give ACAT exam test first and after that you are eligible for interview so I given test, so my question is is good option??

I worked in customer service for a 3rd party center that supported Dell Computers. 90% of calls were customer order tracking as that wasn't a thing available online back then.

Got a call from a Dell employee in Texas. His computer hasn't arrived. Tracking shows it was delivered days earlier. Something seems off about the address so I ask. He had it delivered to his work to ensure he received it.

He worked at the dock where old computers were received for recycling. His order was delivered and promptly destroyed.

Working for a company that works in multiple states, there’s bound to be a few things can have a bit of overlap in information. That or people are idiots and force you to ask more questions than are necessary.

Just as an example of what bothers me when taking calls.

Customer: I’ve called to change my mailing address.

“Oh great, I can help with that. what’s the new address?”

Customer: 555 Tristan

Customer: - - -

“Is this Tristan avenue? Street? Boulevard? Drive?”

Customer: oh uh…. Hold on. Oh it’s drive. I think.

“Thank you. and is what’s the city and state is this in?”

Customer: oh… it’s Boston, Maine.

Searches for the address

“Oh I’m noticing that this address is an apartment complex. Is there a certain apartment we are to add to your mailing address?”

Customer: 45.

cue internally screaming and loss of hair from stress dealing with this multiple times a day.

Alternatively, people who say things all at once as fast as possible create about the same amount of stress. As an example of how it feels:

Customer: YEAHIWANNAUPDATEINFORMATIONONMYACCOUNTCHANGEMYMAILINGADDRESSTO555TRISTANAVEAPARTMENT45BOSTONMAINE12345ZIPCODE

“Can… can you back up a moment I am trying to recover from that information overload…”

Been at my current call center for four years. I'm a pretty good employee. I have a spotless attendance record (no late logins and no long lunches/breaks) and I get excellent performance reviews. However, I have a couple bad habits. I tend to get frustrated when I have a caller asking me the me same questions over and over again. I also have a very stilted and stiff sounding speech. I get called a robot a lot and I hate it. Sometimes, i'll mute myself just so I can say something rude or sigh, when a caller starts getting to me. Well today I forgot to mute myself first. Had a caller ask me politely to repeat myself. I proceeded to let out a sigh and loudly say "come on, really?". The caller did not deserve that, they were actually very nice. I profusely apologized to the caller. They chewed me the fuck out and asked to speak with my SUP. I begged for forgiveness and the caller took pity on me. The caller told me I needed to get help (they're right) and ended the call. This is my first time having anything like this happen. I'm terrified about what may happen. I'm pretty much paycheck to paycheck and I can't afford to lose my job. If I do it will be on me for not getting my mental health together a long time ago but I don't want to lose what little bit I have right now. Do you guys think I'm done?

Ok long one. TLDR: Mr. NoMath customer gets balls clipped by troll after treating me like shit.

One night while working on a call center for a satellite TV provider, I learned what castration sounded like over the phone. The caller an older guy, Mr. NoMath, upset about his bill, and in this case a prorated charge for a premium service which was just added. I want to preface this that my normal professional demeanor never broke the entire call.

I was a college student at this time and gifted in math could immediately see it was close and quickly confirmed on a calculator. He got more and more irate with me as he didn't seem to grasp algebra. When that failed his story changed that he had never been informed it would be prorated and the charge shouldn't be there. I advised all CSRs are all trained and reminded regularly on policies like this and he hit the roof.

I'll save you the explicative laden screamfest, and sure I was within policy to advise him abuse of CSRs is not tolerated and click. I have thick skin and this jerk isn't going to win by calling back and crying that he got hung up on. While waiting for him to run out of insults to my person and intelligence, I pulled up the call on his account and the heavens poured forth manna and every bit of ammo needed to save this call.

He finally took a breath and I jumped in to advise him not only was I the CSR which handled the request, but it is my practice to type notes as I explain details of packages and that they are prorated just as he saw on this bill. He took it as an insult and now he's screaming about how I was calling him a liar. This led to me stating no just a small detail which was forgotten.

Weeell that was NOT what he wanted to hear and immediately demanded to have his service cut off. Not missing a beat I went into the "We're here to help" mode. Confirmed that he was requesting his service be terminated, and after advising his final bill would be prorated and someone from field service would be in contact to retrieve the equipment, I completed his request and began to shift into the end of this call.

And that's the moment Christmas came early. It seems Mr. NoMath was both ignorant to new technology and married to an actual Bridge Troll. As her tromping loudened harkening her approach her battle cry rang out, "WHAT THE F#############!"

Now I didnt hear and DV going on, but what was heard is a complete dismantling of Mr. NoMath. Once she learned what had happened and it was at this man's request, no verbal weapons were spared. Like music to my ears rang insults the likes of which actually had me feeling sorry for this guy. After all this call ends in minutes for me but he's gotta live with her.

Having exhausted herself she left him with a barked order to turn it the #### back on and tromped back off to her lair. A very meek Mr. NoMath returned to speak with me and his rage never was seen again as I covered reconnection fees and the like. Once I confirmed service was restored the call ended.

As I listened to the call with my lead I was making sure I had covered all my bases thinking I may have missed something. Once it ended he simply said, "Huh, so that's what castration sounds like."

It's been over 20 years since I worked in call centers but the stories here bring some of my own flooding back. Some are frustrating, some are depressing. Then there's the wtf ones.

A call comes in to check the progress of a benefits claim. We offer two, one for rent and the other for a national tax.

Caller: "Hi can you tell me why I received this letter and form to fill in?"

Me: "Sure do you have an account number?"

Caller: "No I don't even have that yet"

Me: "Oh so you have an application form to start the process?"

Caller: "No I already contacted you, why have you sent me this?"

Me: "Ok can you tell me what the letter says?"

Caller: "It says I need to coomplete the form to apply for benefits"

Me: "Are you saying you already filled in a form? It may have crossed in the post"

Caller: "No but I already wrote to you"

Me: "Ah ok so you may have contacted us but we would need the form filled in to start your application"

Caller: "But I already said I needed help. It was all in the poem I wrote you"

Me: (Brain just deflected the key word there) "If you wrote us a letter we can take that as the start date of your application, but we would need the form filled in to complete it"

Caller: "Not a letter, a poem"

Me: (Brain acknowledges the key word, it just needed a second try bless) "I.. I'm sorry did you say a poem?"

Caller: "Yes I wrote you a really nice poem!"

Me: "Umm.. Can I take your name and address and I'll see if I can find your record another way?"

I put the caller on hold while I throw the awesome computing power of a low spec late 90s office computer at the task of rendering a dozen pages of scans of her paperwork on my screen. Among the stamped and certified "ORIGINALS SEEN" photocopies of her ID and tenancy agreement, there in black and white I do indeed see her handwritten earnest plea for support. I can't recall it after all these years but it's a whole page, several verses along the lines of:

I have no money since I lost my job

It's hard but thats the facts

It would be great of you could pay my rent

And exempt me from the tax

I'm so bewildered I do not immediately take her off hold. I take several moments for myself first. I contemplate my approach, and next steps.

Me: "Ok I was able to find your documents, thank you for sending those in. I do see you have expressed your intention to claim benefits so I will put a note on your account to ask they are calculated from that date. If you could also fill in the claim form as well please, as it will ask certain questions that the details you provided don't cover already. As soon as we recieve this we can complete your claim"

Caller: "You still need this filling in? It's 40 pages!"

Me: "It won't all be relevant for you, please read it carefully but if you don't have dependents or children etc there are entire sections you can skip"

Caller: "Ok.. Ok yes I will then. Thank you"

Me: "Thank you, take care"

Take care, dear. You blessed blessed heart. I'm sorry for this world you live in. I'm sorry we live in a world of landlords and taxes and bureaucracy. Stay precious, child, never let your innocence be sullied. Be well.

Just had a caller cough and sneeze all throughout the call like they were auditioning for Les Misérables! I get it, life doesn't stop because you have a cold, but how rude! You have a mute button, use it! Or at least rotate the phone up so it is away from your mouth. Don't cough straight into my ear, nobody wants to hear that!

I had a call come in today due to suicidal threats and it crushed me completely. I have a friend who have committed suicide and just the thought of it alone has made it so hard for me, I ended up taking the day off plus My dad‘s Death anniversary is coming up so March is really a hard month for me and I don’t know what to do next. I’m thinking about seeing my medical doctor for some time off and therapy .. this was the first time I experiencing this while working for the fed government

This has to do mostly with Brinks call center but a little bit of AT&T Fiber if any of you are on here. My area has been having a lot of road work done lately as a main road is being widened so underground infrastructure has to be pushed back. My mom's(early 50s) house finally has fiber internet after years of telling her that it was better. What got her to finally do it? It was like $8 cheaper than her previous provider(so like 60 something instead of 70 something lol). Since then, the road work has increased and they hit the internet lines multiple times. Every time the internet goes out, she gets pissed, blames it on AT&T, calls them up and yells on the phone until they send someone out here to fix it. Since the Wi-FI went out, the brinks security cameras that also run on wi-fi went out and got disconnected. So she also had to call out brinks to come fix her security system. They charged her $70, which I thought was kinda weird, and I was surprised it was going to take someone coming out to fix it. I was out of town the first time it happened and didn't really understand what was going on.

The next time, I was in town it happened and she was pissed and yelling at AT&T on the phone until they agreed to comp her service and bring her a new router/modem. This meant the cameras got disconnected again and we had to connect it to the new wi-fi address. This time I was actually here to witness the entire interaction. She got on the phone with AT&T, yelled at them, blaming them, threatening to switch services because the wifi keeps going out and it's costing her money to have to reconnect the cameras every time they go out and is blaming me because I got her to switch to fiber and that I have to put in the time to get her switched back.

This whole time, ever since the first outage, I was telling her that every provider in the area reported outages specifically on this section of that main road because that's where they were doing road work and they kept hitting the lines and that AT&T nor any other provider, including the one she was going to switch back to, could do anything about it. So now that the wifi is back on, she's calling brinks and yelling at them because she's going to have to pay them $70 to set her cameras up again. So the operator, albeit with a thick indian accent she isn't used to, was very patient and helping her set it up and that's where I started to really appreciate you guys.

She's berating him on the phone expecting him to see it her way, I take the phone and start talking to him and it turns out she just doesn't know what she's fucking doing and connecting it to the wrong wifi network. Well, not wrong, but the previous name that we had for the wifi network before she got the new modem for whatever reason so she was just selecting that instead of the scan for new networks option. So I figured it out and let the guy on the phone talk me through the instructions while my mom is still trying to get words in, I kinda just wanted her to go back inside so I could have some silence while I listen to this guy tell me how to fix her shit. She was also pissed because you have to press the reset button on the camera and the one on the garage is set up too high to reach on foot and she doesn't have a ladder, not that that's their problem but she was making it their problem. I even said, why not just go buy a ladder, and she told me to go spend $120 on a ladder that could reach it which is fucking beyond me because she was about to spend another $70 for a total of $140 JUST for a guy to come out here with a ladder and do what I accomplished by parking my truck bed right next to the camera.

The craziest part about this is that the main menu of the brinks app has a page that is labeled ADD NEW DEVICE that walks you through the setup with very clear instructions and high quality glyphs that show you the colors and frequency at which the light is supposed to flash and what you are supposed to to when it starts flashing in a certain way. Very clear instructions and a very straightforward app. I was literally at a loss for words at how my mom was acting on the phone when it was her fault that she couldn't get it to work properly. I had her phone in my hand while I was backing my truck in and I seriously felt the need to apologize to the guy about her because he was being so extremely fucking patient and she was yelling at him like he was the one directly causing her cameras to go out. So that's exactly what I did because I felt embarrassed that she was treating him like that over something SHE didn't understand.

Halfway through this process while I was setting up her back yard camera, I put him on mute and let her know that none of this was necessary and that if she just followed the instructions in the app instead of jumping straight on the phone and yelling that she could have done this on her own. I literally could have hung up on that guy and finished it myself but I let him finish his job over the next 20 mins or so and deal with someone(me) who isn't gonna give him a shit time before he has to jump on the next call with an upset, technologically challenged, middle aged homeowner who thinks they know everything.

I was born in 1999, I knew childhood before and after everybody had a phone in their hands and I was part of the generation that had to learn how to use this stuff and become familiar with new technology every other year growing up, so this wasn't a challenge for me and I've always been confused as to #1 why people ever even need to call customer support for anything that isn't literally a damaged package or not what you ordered. So I was always wondering who the hell call center guys are actually talking to all day and it turns out it's entitled gen x and boomers who think they know everything but probably couldn't finish a college degree these days because of the extent to which you have to use a computer to complete a 4 year program.

So yeah, I wanted to issue a blanket apology because if this is what you guys are dealing with all day, y'all are some soldiers for real. My mom's not a bad person, and she normally doesn't get like this with anything else, but once I figured out why she was yelling so much I felt so embarrassed and disappointed in my mom, and felt so bad for the guy on the other end who carried himself with the utmost professionalism and patience while he sat there and got absolutely annihilated for something that wasn't his company's fault, wasn't the internet provider's fault, but was really on my mom for her lack of technological skills but surplus of arrogance. She really wouldn't have had to even pay $70 or even make the phone call the first time if she just followed the fucking instructions. It's been like 45 mins and I'm still in disbelief at how rude my mom was on the phone like the guy was purposefully trying to keep her from getting her cameras back working. I swear she's never like this otherwise, so if the guy on the other end is reading this by any chance, our fault bro. I'll make sure I'm around next time she has issues because this shouldn't have been as big of an issue as it was and she stressed you and herself out for literally no reason.

I hope this is ok to post here. This is a rant too because it is so dumb.

I just started with Foundever and today is equipment setup day and I believe I was sent faulty equipment. When I tried to sign in, I got the error "we are unable to connect right now. Please try again later". The host of the room got me over to IT and they did the usual, restart computer, router, etc and none of that worked. The IT woman asked my internet speeds which my internet package is 400 download, 10 upload. She said that is a major problem because the upload speeds are way too low compared to the download speeds. She actually made me call my ISP about the speeds even though I tried to assure her the speeds were normal and more than enough. She had me leave the room to go back to the original room to talk to the host about what to do. The host told me to just keep trying to get signed in on my own and if I can't get signed in today, I will be termed. I've done everything there is to do and it won't let me in. I'm positive this is on their end.

I just received a follow up email, will copy and paste here:

I wanted to follow up on our discussion during your setup session today regarding your connectivity issue. As we discussed, IT determined that the issue preventing you from successfully connecting to the work systems was due to low internet speed, rather than a faulty computer.You mentioned that you have a 400/10 Mbps connection and do not believe the issue is with your internet. However, since IT has advised that the problem is related to your service provider, I recommend reaching out to your ISP to investigate further. Ensuring a stable and sufficient internet connection will be necessary for you to continue with the position.Please let me know if you have any updates after speaking with your ISP or if you need any further assistance.

All of this time my laptop is connected to the internet and working just fine. What would you do in this situation?

I work in customer service for a company that helps set up catering orders. Organizations pay us, we pay the vendors, and the vendors handle the food. Most of the time, everything runs smoothly. Most of the time.

Today wasn’t one of those days. A customer called, saying their catering order never arrived. So, I checked with the vendor, some times the vendors have driver shortages so they outsource in this case they told me the order had gone out through DoorDash. No problem, I figured I’d just get proof of delivery and sort it out.

I reached out to DoorDash with the Caterer, and instead of a standard delivery confirmation, they sent me a picture of the driver eating the food. Just sitting there, enjoying what was supposed to be the customer’s meal like he had ordered it for himself.

The vendor was hysterical let's just say they weren’t happy, to say the least. When I asked DoorDash what was going to happen, they said the driver would likely be deactivated. As for why he took the food? His golden response:

"I don’t get paid enough, and this looked mad delish. Consider this my resignation."

This wasn’t some small order either—it was worth several hundred dollars. There was no tip on it since the university does not allow them (some kinda contract yadda yadda ) but even if there had been, I doubt it would have made a difference. DoorDash covered the cost, all I can say is I hope he enjoyed his meal for 50 and the vendors learned their lesson.

April 21, 1998. I was just out of training pod at Dish Network. Got myself comfortable at my new desk, logged into my apps, and got my notebook from training out and ready to reference.

Now, before I go any further, I want to set the scene a little bit. People were still adjusting to satellite TV, and were used to the relative“stability” of over-the-air TV and cable. So when satellite providers would do programming changes (just adding and removing channels from the lineup. Something that happened frequently with satellite TV in the early days) customers were less than thrilled. One such programming change happened while I was in training. This changed removed some local television channels.

Back to day one of taking calls. I hit “Auto In”, waited for the beep, then prepared to deliver my intro. Before I could even get to “Hello, my name is…” out of this woman’s mouth came a solid minute of heavy breath cussing at me and the entire company. Finally she tells me that we took away Jerry Springer from her. Yes, this woman was affected by the aforementioned programming change. There wasn’t anything in my training to prepare me for this vitriol. No knowledge base that had a step by step of handling abuse like this. Before the call was done she actually threatened my life. When I said I had to end the call she screamed JERRY SPRINGER and hung up.

I almost quit after that call. But instead I ended up staying in call centers until 2013.

This isn’t the first time and I’m certain it won’t be the last. Here I present to you fine people of TFCC, why I’m not surprised a certain generation falls victim to fraud ALL. THE. TIME.

Be me, a humble, work-a-day, government CSR acting as a human switchboard handling overflow from the IVR when I had this interaction drop in:

Me: Welcome to [Government Department] you’re speaking with u/Absurd-n-Nihilistic, how can I help you today?

Cx: This is Mr [full name] of [full address] born [full dob] and my drivers licence number is [full licence number]. Oh I should ask, are you the right person to speak to about XYZ?

I have no idea why people volunteer personal ID like this before knowing they are speaking to the right person. This guy (and others like him) are prime ID theft candidates.

....I took a call for a perfectly simple very standard request.

Me: Hello and thank you for calling, how may I help?

Caller: Hi yeah I just need to update my details and confirm my status.

TV in background: [THAT sound effect, absolutely unmistakeable laboured mechanical breathing noise]

Me: Sure, can I take an account number?

Caller: Yes it's 1234567890.

TV in background: [I tell you, this station will be operational as planned]

Me: Thank you and can I confirm the name on the account and first line of the address?

Caller: Namey McNameface, Streety Street.

TV in background: [The Emperor does not share your optimistic appraisal of the situation]

Me: And what is it you need to update?

Caller: Just to confirm I'm still a student.

TV in background: [But he asks the impossible. I need more men]

Me: Ok I can see we had you registered up to this year, and you're continuing education?

Caller: Yes that's right

TV in background: [Then perhaps you can tell him when he arrives]

Me: Just like last time then, we only need a letter from your institution to confirm the start and end dates of your course.

Caller: Ok brilliant, will do thank you.

TV in background: [The Emperor's coming here?]

Me: Thank you for calling, enjoy the rest of Return of the Jedi.

Caller: WHAT THE FU... omg I'm so sorry for swearing! But HOW???

TV in background: [That is correct, Commander, and he is most displeased with your apparent lack of progress]

Me: I can hear it in the background.

Caller: You can tell what I'm watching from one minute over the phone?

TV in background: [We shall double our efforts]

Me: I mean I could tell it was Star Wars in the first five seconds from Vader's breathing, I've not watched it in years but he's inspecting the second Death Star right?

Caller: Incredible. I'm impressed! Thanks again for your time.

TV in background: [I hope so, Commander, for your sake. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am]

Me: Thank you, take care.

TV in background: [DUN DUN DUN DUNNNN DUN DUH-DUN DUNNNN DUN DUH-DUN]

Caller comes on the line, I do my greeting and ask for their name.

Immediately this old dude just goes "UGH you already know who you're talking to" so I know this is going to be a rough one.

I tell him "No sir I do not and even if I did know you I need to verify your name before I enter your account"

He's already authenticated, this is literally all I need him to tell me is his fucking name.

Dude finally gives me his name after wasting my time but clearly he wasn't done feeling like a victim of having to say his first and last name and proceeds to, without any prompt to give me his full name, social security number, birthdate, policy number, all the cars make and model on his policy, spouses name, spouses birth date, full address, both phone numbers on file, email and approximate year he bought his first policy. (none of these things are verifiers for when they call in btw)

I took of my headset off about halfway through so I might have missed any other unprompted bit of personal information this dude wanted to give me.

After he's done I ask him how can I help him, he's having issues with his app and is now audibly winded and pissed off after giving me his entire life worth of information.

I do not handle problems with the app so I transfer him to the correct department where they will ask him for his name again 😄

so, ive worked at my center for about three years. i actually enjoy my job, unlike other call centers this is a very non-toxic environment. the thing is our qa doesnt do her job right. every.single.month i have to dispute a call she graded, and each time i do im correct and it gets rescored with a 100. its just starting to get annoying. im a home agent too, so its harder to dispute stuff when im not physically in the office aside from once a month. i love the fact that if i dispute it im listened to and both our ops mgr and my own mgr will listen and agree with me instead of not even making effort to actually dispute it. although it gets resolved in the end, its getting annoying always having to essentially do my qa’s job because she doesnt get anything right the first time. i dont want to leave, but i dont get paid enough for that, and to stay wfh i need to keep my stats where they are which is difficult when im having to dispute a call every single time its graded. any advice? ive brought this up with my ops mgr, but since i wfh i dont hear any updates. from what i understand too, im really the only agent this happens to.

I've noticed that whenever I have a customer that tends to be rude and keeps being rude even when I call them out it's usually boomer men. I tell my dad about some of the calls and I remind him that it's the reason I do all the calling around because I know what he's like.

I had one lady and she wasn't happy. So I firmly said something like "look, I'm a human too. I'm just trying to help you" and she took a few seconds, calmed down and apologised. Boomer men? I had a guy having a massive go at me and when I said I didn't appreciate his attitude his response was "but I'm not swearing at you!" Like sir, yes you are not swearing at me but that doesn't mean you're not being abusive.

And they'll never admit they're in the wrong. I have no doubt these little blokes wouldn't be like this if I were 1) a man or 2) closer to their age.

Anyways, that's my rant lol.

When that’s the first thing I hear when they call in I automatically know the call is going to be draining.

I work for an escalation dept and I get routed all the escalated calls from offshore agents that the customer refused to speak with them because they’re not in America…. These people are so crazy.

So Mr customer calls in and immediately states the above… you better have thick skin. Then goes on and on about how we shouldn’t have calls routed to offshore agents and how this is America. He starts chanting Trump, Trump, Trump… (this weirdly happens often with these customers) so I say sir.. in order for me to help you, you’re going to need to refrain from yelling. Customer goes on for another 10 min ranting on about the “ imbeciles from other countries” these calls are a daily occurrence.

I am unallowed to hang up on the customers but dear lord I fear one day I may snap.

There was also a guy who lived in Hawaii who called us multiple times a day for 2 months straight talking about how he’s going to be the mayor and how he’s going to put us on his TV show because our company hires non Americans workers.

So we get our calls monitored a few days a week in a row. So let’s say you get graded on a Friday at 9am they will grade five calls after that first call. So you have to be perfect.

Everything was fine a few years we would have a tiff here or there but then I guess they introduced this new bonus system and now my grades that were 💯 in compliance are getting 80s or even auto fails.

Suddenly things I never got dinged on now I am being digned. I’ve been with the company for 7 years and now I lean about changes I was never told about and even. When we fight 90% of the time we lose.

It’s gotten so bad that if I don’t use a simple word like “the” I will be scored badly on. Which I can’t fight. Anyone else have this problem?

Just to set some background information the insurance company I work for does not charge you for drivers with a learners permit, they still have to show on your policy and we will ask for that information if you call but they will be covered at no cost as long as its just a learners. When it comes to updating this information honestly we are pretty lax, if you call us and it comes up we need to update it and in some states we might get a heads up from the DMV but other than that, if you do not update it, we might find out YEARS after the fact and will not do charge backs or void coverage or anything like that.

I regularly have people call that their child got a regular license a YEAR ago and are just now calling to update. Good for them! The surcharge is for drivers that have less than 3 years of experience so they've effectively avoided paying a third of the high premium and since it gradually does down as well they also managed to avoid the worst part of the surcharge.

With all this laid out, I got a call today, caller is f u r i o u s that he just now found out that his daughter is "not being covered by his policy" according to him. I get his information and pull up his policy and she is right there on the first page of the policy listed so I just tell him that yes, she is covered and has been covered, now I did notice that she showed on his policy has having a learners permit and asked him if that's still correct to which the tells me (after giving me shit for 5 minutes) she's had a regular license for about 2 years and a half.

So I just tell him ok no biggie give me your daughters license number and we'll get this updated for you right away and again, no lapse of coverage since this dude is under the false impression that due to the out of date license his daughter had zero coverage this whole time she was driving his car.

I don't know if he just didn't listen to me or just had this whole bullshit play out in his head before he called but he starts going off like I didn't just tell him that there is no lapse of coverage even if the license was out of date. I even told him that the surcharge applies for 3 years but since its been over 2 years he's only going to get the tail end of the surcharge.

Every.Single.Question I asked him to get this fixed for him had some smart ass rude come back like "hey we have students discounts is your daughter away from home over 100 miles away? (this is an extra discount mostly for colleges students but she showed as a student so I have to ask this) to which he loses it again and says "she's a high school student dude are you paying attention?!".

This whole time I am bracing for what this asshole is going to say the second the premium populates on my end since she's still considered a young operator for another 8 months or so and he went ahead and put her on the newest vehicle on the policy (2024 Chrysler). And again the entire time we're going through this change which should take 5 minutes this dude is fighting me for every goddamned answer. FINALLY we're at the premium page and yep, premium increased by $1100 over 6 months.

Now I am not saying he should be happy about this increase but for the past 45 fucking minutes this dude has been giving me shit about how does our company not coordinate with the DMV to update the license and how ridiculous this all is (he is still saying his daughter was not covered even after telling him that this is not correct for 45 minutes). But you would THINK he would expect to be paying for his daughter at the end of this call.

Call escalates to escalations team after correcting this information since dude insisted on a manager even after fixing the policy and to quote the escalations team person, "So you fixed the license? Why is the call escalating then?" To which I said "because he said so, I am assuming he wants to complain at you too about his non-existing lapse".

I worked in a technical call centre, fixing technical issues for customers. Believe me I've had my fair share of "bad customers", but on this day, it just couldn't be helped for what I said.
Caller when into full blown ass ripping about his product not working/functioning and how this happened and that happened, yelling and screaming about the company, literally yelling enough that I had to pull my headset away from my ears. He went on like this for a good solid 10 minutes. All of which I said nothing, I just let him rant and rave and scream and holler.... when the caller finally went silent, I said to him in a very calm soft toned voice.... "are you through?" (knee jerk response!)
I got qualified on that call and got into trouble for saying that to him. But seriously? If you're gonna go on whinging like a big baby, I'm gonna tap into my mother mode and ask them if they're finished.