Not a Happy Bunny!!

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by handyman

Really I bet its a hoot in your office.

If you had any idea of the abuse csr's get from customers, I'm not surprised one of them decided to 'give a little back'

I don't know why I always react to this kind of post...as it usually ends up with a posse of ntl employees ganging up on me...but here we go...

I have worked with customers...face to face, over the phone, email, etc etc etc. My customers were important people in some of the world's largest companies. I would never dream of 'giving a little back', despite sometimes wanting to. I've been verbally abused face to face, over the phone and via email...and you have to take it on the chin and rise above it to solve the root cause of the problem.

If these people stopped for two seconds to consider why the customer was so irate they might actually figure out that it was something that they could solve. Any customer service expert (irrespective of the company they work for) knows that a customer with a problem is a potential sale. Customers know that mistakes happen and if the majority of CS staff that I have spoken to at ntl actually gave a damn and solved it rather than making it worse, they would end up with a very happy customer that ends up spening more money.

If any of my staff ever 'gave a little back' they would be removed from all contact with customers until I was happy that such an event would never happen again, via triaining and coaching. If they continued to cause problems they would removed full stop.

And here lies the problem. The managers at ntl are so ineffective that they have no acceptable recruitment procedures to select people who do give a damn, they are poor at staff motivation and poor at satisfaction and policy monitoring. Until that level is removed and replaced with decent managers then the front-line staff will continue to be largely useless.

[Wiggz]

I think the main point that people are missing is this:

A good customer services representative should seldom be abused. They should nearly always approach the manner in a positive fashion and always, at all times show that they are attempting to correct a problem that they are entirely to blame for.

It stands to reason that tempers are going to fray when it comes to such issues. However if the response to customers from Customers Services Reps when they pick up the phone is "firstly can I apologise for any fault that has occured and inform you that during the course of this phone call we will attempt to identify and rectify the root cause of said problem" rather than "Hi, I understand you have a problem" then you are always going to be onto a winner.

[2||Para]

Good news that it all got sorted in the end.Had a similar experience with CS when a guy called "Graham" Indian accent,strange name...anyway i was having major issues with staying connected to the net,i would lose all lights and net connection every 5 to 10 minutes then modem would reboot.

"Grahams" answer was "well dont use a firewall if you want to stay connected" and hung up!

Eventually got sorted but "Graham" was never found and strangely CS had no records of the 45 minute phonecall.

[rydwg]

nobody heard the conversation, 2 sides to every story and all that.

and if you worked in customer service actually providing customer service on the front line (not dictating/managing what to do, reading from the customer service skills for dummies handbook) you might realise every now and again, when people ask u a question, and u answer it, and then they tell you you are wrong, and ask it again, and so u answer it again, times this by about 8 or 9 and u start to get annoyed. Eventually saying "No you will not get 10mb or a new modem" and maybe raising his voice to put the point across better after a few times of saying it is perfectly fine. OK if he messed with your connection then thats stepping over the line, if he did it...

its not the advisors fault that NTL dont tell them **** all as far as he knew he was right.

[hairport]

Originally Posted by andygrif

I don't know why I always react to this kind of post...as it usually ends up with a posse of ntl employees ganging up on me...but here we go...

I couldn't agree more with your post. It must be a management decision that means that if NTL staff can't diagnose a problem at the time the customer rings the customer must be in the wrong!

[AbyssUnderground]

My best friend from Liverpool spoke to CS yesterday and said that HE was recording the call too because he had previously had a lot of hassle from them. He spoke to the same person that gave him the grief last time (he was lucky to get the same person) and he didnt get any arguments or anything. They were straight to the point.

Now he tells me to say you are recording the phonecall (even if you're not) and CS will treat you with a little more respect.

Seems logical really because they wouldn't want to lose their job over some argument.

Still, if you treat CS with respect, they will give you respect back