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Ascension0
Does God Have A God?
join:2002-05-18
Beverly Hills, CA

Ascension0 to SlyM_

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to SlyM_

Re: Do any Rogers techs ever post here?

---somewhat of a rant---

After reading this post, I had to reply and display some of my opinions of TS call centers, because there are many misconceptions from the customers side as much as there are on the call center side.

Regarding the training and hiring tactics that companies take on a regular basis is not something to be desired, I must admit, non techs hiring / training techs is something that is an integral part of call centers and will always be because its a business and usually ran by business only oriented people and may not have the specific knowledge.

One misconception I truly hate is that consumers think that a call center agent is a shrink robot able to take the abuse and respond with an indifferent/happy voice but truth of the matter is we are human as well, doing a job, and are there to help you if you act like an adult and speak without trying to make the agent feel like he/she is a *beeping* loser out to piss you off personally, you will usually get above average help, and its too bad, that because of the tactics used by upper management that ALL agents are branded incompetent right off the bat.

I personally am an agent and know many more that go way beyond there support bounderies everyday to help you all. And yes I do know of retards in support centers too and wonder if they need sticky note to remind them how to breathe.

And yes when someone calls me with a big issue that is polite, i will listen and fix it. but when i get someone start off a call cutting me off, swearing at me... trust me i will respect that person as much as he/she respects me and will not go the extra mile to help or try to convince my superiors that we should help this consumer out.

For sure i understand where there coming from, i've seen lots of cases where i know i'd probably have blew a gasket.. but behaving like a pseudo-maniac would not go far.

My point is dont pre-judge the agent until you've spoken to him

Also its funny as i get alot of customers ask me how i do it and if i get really bad customers, and how they could never do whatever i do and this brings me to my 2nd misconception which most of us as agent think that the consumers are there to get freebies any which way they can and have no respect for you as an agent.

Generalizations is a very bad thing, but i got to say , the isp i work for has it together for tech support and training. But still has the "save money philosophy" of any other call centers.

Which brings this up, this is what forces us as techs to restrain and follow pre-approve charts because research shows that it saves money, and if go off-track we get repremanded and may eventually lead to a lay-off and then we look like idiots on the phones.

I personally dont do this, so i risk my job each day, as many others do. But if your really good and fix it fast they refrain from handing out there 2for1 acknolegdements for not fixing probs inside a certain timerframe.

Ah well.. i could write a book.. there are 3 types of agents.. the morons, the hands tied behind your back agent, and the few risk takers.

-asc-
SlyM_
join:2002-07-19
Etobicoke, ON

SlyM_

Member

I agree with Sweet And Full Of Grace, the phone tech's are people too. I always get through instantly for some reason which helps I guess. And I'm always polite and friendly. Once the girl i was talking to asked me why I was using soo much upload bandwidth, and asked me if i was "one of those IRC guys?". Cause she was never finding anything off of kazaa and she wanted a better place to go. I told her and she was cool cause i was cool with her. Heh, i hope she didn't get fired if the call was monitored though.
My friend has phoned up rogers tech support and been a prick, and got no help at all. It goes to show ya...

Krispy1
Premium Member
join:2001-12-11
the stix

Krispy1 to Ascension0

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said by Ascension:
Regarding the training and hiring tactics that companies take on a regular basis is not something to be desired, I must admit, non techs hiring / training techs is something that is an integral part of call centers and will always be because its a business and usually ran by business only oriented people and may not have the specific knowledge.
I agree that not all technical people would make great HR staff however I believe they could have a process whereby a technical person does the first interview and then a business person does the second. They could then follow up on this by using the 'buddy system' after the reps training program and team them up with experienced reps for a few weeks/days and both the experienced and new rep would write up an evaluation on each other at the end of the buddy training....this would, in part, determine whether or not they make it past the probation period.
quote:
Ah well.. i could write a book.. there are 3 types of agents.. the morons, the hands tied behind your back agent, and the few risk takers.
Absolutely agree but the problem is that this is very frustrating for customers as you never know who you're going to get and the moron vs the risk takers have wildly conflicting advice sometimes so it's very taunting to the novices calling in for assistance....who are they supposed to believe. I believe this could be somewhat resolved by technical supervisors taking an active role in the day to day activities of their reps versus sitting on the phone apologizing to customers for the previous failures of aforementioned reps and processes.

On a side rant...I believe the whole area of 'tech support' is somewhat misinterpreted (sometimes with the help of marketing and competition) to mean 'we support anything remotely resembling a computer'. In my opinion it would be much more beneficial to have a very clear line as to what is and is not supported so that the router, hub, etc are unplugged before calling in and waiting on hold only to be told to try bypassing. But of course the marketing people are afraid this would discourage subscribers and give the competition an edge and, unfortunately, in our marketing driven society they are pretty much correct.