Time — Momentary Lapse Of Sanity

via Time — Momentary Lapse Of Sanity

Troubling thoughts running through my brain (Part 2)

A little later than promised as people were still posting replies and reposting the original post last weekend so I left it another week.

I started off using option 2, and received quite a few compliments from my customers because I managed to sort out their issues on the one call. My manager was told to have words with me as I wasn’t getting my apologies in early enough and my calls were taking too long to deal with so I was told to cut down on the time given to customers and if I couldn’t resolve their issues quickly (within 4 minutes) I was to pass them off to second line who would call them back within 48 WORKING hours. As our opening hours were from 07:00 to 22:00 every day this meant that the call back could take 3 days and would often be at a time when the customer wasn’t available to answer the call or to run through the checks.

As you can imagine, when I offered my customers the choice of having me stick to the rules and pass them off for a call back or take that little bit longer but try and resolve their issues for them on the one call they would opt for that one call, or else ask me to call them back the following day at a time they would ensure they were available.

Option 1, after speaking to my friendly union rep, was the one I decided to adopt as it didn’t sound as though as I was reading from a script but still got the apology in early enough to please my boss.

Option 3 (the way an Asian colleague used it (he wasn’t any good at customer service but couldn’t get a job anywhere else) he was also guilty of using the race card several times when threatened with dismissal (for being rubbish at his job). He made it sound as though he didn’t want to talk to customers (he really didn’t) and would often ignore an incoming call from a customer to take a personal call on his mobile.

The company were guilty of discriminating against Natives in favour of foreign people since he would have been sacked the first time he was caught avoiding a call if he had been British (or even European) but it took about 5 attempts to get rid of him as he kept threatening to go to tribunal for unfair dismissal but after the second time the company kept full records of every call he refused and the reason for it. He also slipped up one day as he removed his headset to answer his mobile and when a call came through it was answered automatically and he was recorded having a conversation on his mobile and using foul language on that call. There was no second chance given on that occasion and he was dismissed straight away.