The CSR Files

My new “favorite” conversation between myself and customers…

Me: What’s the name on the card?
Customer: Bank of America.
Me: No… The name on the card.
Customer: Oh… Visa.
Me: Whose name is on the credit card?
Customer: Um…
Me: Thank you!

Okay… so…

Apparently, the Customer Support line, here at work has become confused with an escort service. We just had a guy call in… drunk off his arse, to request that we send him strippers…

…

WTF?!?!

Me: What version of our software are you using?
Customer: The $16.95 version.

…

………

Why do I even bother?

Yes, yes… Calling about problems with your friend’s account (and your’s) works so well, when you 1) don’t have your account information, 2) the email addresses you give me are nowhere in our database, 3) you don’t have the credit card number that’s being charged, if this is a billing issue and 4) you’re no where near a computer. Please try to be more prepared when you call me, dumbass.

Oh, and threatening to possibly take us to court over an issue I can’t help you with, because I can’t find your account does so much good…

An oldie, but a goodie…

Me: Ma’am we can’t call your bank, because we’re not their customer.
Woman on phone: Yes you can, people do it all the time. You can call them and get an approval.
Me: We already tried to call the charge in, Ma’am. We called Visa directly and it was declined.
Woman: So you called my bank all ready.
Me: No, we called Visa.
Woman: Well, you need to call my bank and get an approval code from them.
Me (to myself): Yes, because that’s going to work…
Me (to her): Okay, give me the information…

She does… I put her on hold and call her bank… Just to prove a point…

Me: Yes, one of your members is insisting that I call you, to get a charge approved.
Bank: Is the customer on the phone?
Me: She’s on the other line.
Bank: Can you patch her into this call.
Me: No, I really can’t (NOTE: everytime I’ve tried this, it’s ended in disaster).
Bank: What’s the account number?
Me: It’s 4XXXXXXXXXXXX
Bank: Name?
Me: Customer’s name
Bank: Well, we can’t discuss why the charge is declining with you. You’ll need to tell her to call us.
Me (to myself): HA!!!
Me (to the bank): Okay, thanks! ::click::

Back to the customer…

Me: Okay, I just got off the phone with your bank and they won’t tell me why the charge is declining. They want you to call them, to discuss it.
Woman: Okay, I’ll have to do that, then… ::click::
Me: I told you so…

When I moved to my current position, my exposure to the basic stupidity of humanity was severely limited…or so I thought.

Conversations like the one I just had over IM for the last hour should not still be happening after someone’s worked here for several months.

Without going into too much proprietary detail, our primary service involves phone numbers. So, most of our trouble tickets involve testing blocks of these numbers. This is what I do. When a rep finds that a customer has a legitimate technical issue that is beyond the rep’s ability to fix, it comes to my team. We’ll test the account, the number, if necessary the block of surrounding numbers. This is standard procedure. Our most common issues involve blocks of numbers not working. When this happens, we report the issue to the teams responsible for maintaining the affected systems and include the block(s) of numbers affected, our test results, and the method used to test. Standard procedure.

So, this morning, an issue comes to us with the way a block of numbers is entered in the database. It’s an odd case, but there are still standard procedures. I should not have to explain THIS after telling him how to find the correct block of affected numbers:

Him: okay, what is that going to do?
Me: searching for the [block of numbers]? It will give you the full range affected.
Me: It’s not just this number.
Him: yes okay, but what do I do with it once I have it

Hello? How about include it in the report so that the entire block can be fixed?

And my favorite? After spending an HOUR explaining how to handle the issue (we should haveit reported and under investigation in under 30 minutes), I get this message in IM:

Him: my brain feels a bit dead

Ya think?

This isn’t really a case number, per say… More like a list of customers who should be banned from emailing customer support:

1. Can’t or don’t know how to set the word wrap on their email programs
2. Use pink or other painfully bright fonts when writing to support
3. Use pink or other painfully bright background colors when writing to support
4. Use annoyingly busy email stationary
5. Insist on arguing about why screen shots are needed

I must really be tired, if I can’t think of any more right now… Hmm….

So after dealing with the guy who handles all of the customer service issues that are filtered down from upper management, a (now former) customer of ours insists that he had to call four additional times to get his refund processed… We have record of none of these calls…

Not only that, but the man INSISTS that on his last call, he had someone in our first level support crew personally walk his refund over to our billing department…

That’s funny… I didn’t know that Jesus worked for my company… How else would someone in INDIA be able to WALK a refund request all the way to California?

This is a new one…

This man writes in, sometime in the last week (we’re behind on emails again…) In order to PROVE that the company I work for is charging his credit card, he sent us a VIDEO (yes, you read that right) of him logging into his bank account online and pulling up the charges from our company…

Only one problem… The web site he logged into doesn’t list his credit card number and he didn’t give us anything we could use to look up his account…

All that effort wasted…

One of the reps, here on the night shift, just got off the phone with a customer who wanted a $3,000 credit… for a price increase that happened over two years ago…

Despite the fact that, at the time, he was given a THREE MONTH credit. I think that’s more than pleanty, don’t you?