Call centre staff suffer abuse from customers

if you people knew what you was doing then people here would not get annoyed !!!

yes it is true that sometimes the protocol says to transfer you have to transfer the call there is no other go , some people who sit in fat chairs and pass comments which I have read above have no clue how hectic and tiresome these jobs are and that too working in nights , lucky that we dont have gun culture in India .

Here's a little tip - if asked whether it's a sales call, just be honest and say that it is. Calling it 'research' or just jumping into the actual sales script is only going to infuriate the people on the end of the phone. Also, why do all of these calls always have to come through between 6.30pm and 8pm? Have you ever heard of kids? If yes, what time do you think we're trying to put them to bed? Show some consideration and you'll get the same in return. I'm sure you're a really nice person and just doing your job, but these things need to be managed or regulated better.

you call centre staff are just puppets
you are told what to say what to do
how to cheat
how to manipulate decent customers regardless of how much it costs
us,so you are as bad as your bosses
just LIARS AND CHEATS

"How about you considering the fact that if we get angry with you it's the fault of your employers and not their customers?"

Good point and on the mercifully rare occasions when I have to call these monstrous companies and I get through to a call centre, I ask to speak to someone in charge so that I can vent my dissatisfaction on someone high enough up the food chain to be paid to deal with a complaint. Usually this works, at least if not the employee knows I'm annoyed with the employer, not the person.

Many of the call centres employees are not employed by the company itself, they are contracted out and just going through a script, they often have no knowledge of the procedures or products of the company.

"Instead of getting angry with someone who is probably not getting much above minimum wage and may well be taking their 100th call that day, why not think about the companies who employ them?"

I see your point Gemma, but how do we communicate our anger to the company other than through the call centre? It's usually the only way we can contact them at all; call center staff are the face of the company and when we have complaints what else are we supposed to do?

How about you considering the fact that if we get angry with you it's the fault of your employers and not their customers?

Holly's comments are too true - until you have worked in a call centre I don't think anyone has a clue just how hard the job is. Unbearably repetitive, unnerving at times (what type of call am I going to get next? Will it be someone angry? Rude? etc) and I think in no other industry are you measured to the nth degree on your availability, your performance, questioned on why you were away for 5 minutes here (so even bathroom breaks have to be justified). Because you are 'plugged into' the phone with your personal log on, absolutely everything can - and is - monitored and calls are listened to by managers and often picked apart for even tiny digressions from script.
It's no coincidence that there's a high turnover of staff, people just get burn-out after 6 months to a year - it genuinely does drive you a bit mad. Instead of getting angry with someone who is probably not getting much above minimum wage and may well be taking their 100th call that day, why not think about the companies who employ them? It's about time they understand it's not a long term tenable job unless you build in more flexibility, treat staff like adults, give the role credit and acclaim and give staff variety - for example why can't teams all be multi-ski11ed so they can spend half a day on the phone and half a day off the phone doing admin? I know this break would make a huge difference to many and chances are, as a customer you will be getting much better service from someone who has the energy and patience to deal with your call properly.

Seven years ago, I took a temporary job at a large utility company. I thought this was one of the worst jobs I'd had but being desparate for a job I stuck at it. My manager had a serious inferiority complex. The software we used was confusing and very cumbersome to navigate, no way to double check things, and the help system must have been designed by dedicated Comic Sans MS font fans. Most customers were pretty good and they're the ones who made the day go quicker. I had the odd few who were not pleasant, but I had more grief from my immediate manager. Verbally chastised for not making 'enough' sales one morning, I decided that I'd take the manager into one of the meeting rooms after lunch and give him an absolute b******ing for making my life a working hell. Thankfully I didn't need to because another job offer came in. Last thing my manager said on hearing of my intended departure, 'That means I cannot sack you'.

Six months later, I took a call centre job with another company (as a second job). Completely different story as the manager was so helpful, very pleasant, and although the money was crap, I had no work related stress. Being treated like an adult instead of a child helped hugely.

The 3 call centre in India take some beating for unhelpful, inept and stress-inducing. I pity anyone who has genuinely experienced an even worse standard.

I firmly believe the talktalk call centre staff deliberately wind up customers for some sort of enjoyment, knowing the customer has no power to make them do anything. Yes, you can threaten to cancel your contract but they will not be bothered, even if it has time to run. They tell you they have resolved the issue and it was down to a glitch in their computers and your line will be active in 48 hours, cannot promise less even though it is their fault. Then they end the call and instantly forget to do what they promised resulting in the service still not working for days. Or they connect you to the person you need to speak to, only to find it is a voicemail or a customer survey. They seem to be in competition with bt to see who can be the worst for customer services.

As I said, if the company is just using the call centre to fob dissatisfied customers off with excuses instead of genuinely trying to sort out their problems, then yes, it goes with the job. Can you honestly say that this doesn't happen?

So people are expected to sit and be called horrible names as part of the job? If you did it to the staff in asda or anywhere where it's face to face then security might remove you from the store, same as hanging up on this abusive callers I suppose ........

Exactly Michael. Staff in a call centre must know whether they are there to genuinely help customers or fob them off with excuses. If it's the latter they must expect abuse as part of the job.

If they find themselves being abused regularly they should blame the company they work for, not the customers, and pass the grief up the line. They should write down the compaints they can't deal with properly and explain to a supervisor that they haven't been given enough training or information to deal with this type of complaint, and ask to be told what to do next time. Put the supervisors on the spot!

Maybe if you gave the customers the information they asked for and didn't send them all over the place for no reason and then CUT THEM OFF, you just might get somewhere with less abuse.

A good start would be to LEARN about the job instead of reading from a script.

One customer was that abusive to myself and several of my collegues that a manager actually rang her back and told her they would terminate her account and stop her ordering if she ever did it again. Het complaint was genuin and as usual we did our best to help and set the wheels in motion to fix her problem but she wanted it done NOW like many of you customers do. It started when I calmly asked her to stop swearing and omg she lost it, called me some rude abusive name and hung up. She then rang back only to be told the same information again and she flipped her lid at several other advisors. She was crazy!
I never take rudeness towards myself that seriously but it does sometimes wind me up when the customers are so rude even when the problem is there own fault. I often think I bet you wouldn't he this mouthy if it wad face to face....Now some folk are gna message back and say but the company messes things up for me wah wah wah but please note, the staff are there to fix things not to listen to abuse.

I have received a second letter about service cancellation,giving different dates! I have already arranged for the collection of your set box on Oct 19 so I will ignore the second letter dated Sept 24 code UI8KB9U819

wake up holly if you waork for a company hiding behind govt payouts and ripping the british people off every day then you deserve abuse espcially if you work for the most hated company (by 100% of polls ) sky or should it be sly tv

I totally agree and working in technical support for a large manufacturer this is doubly true, the abuse people think they can give call centre workers is unbelievable. There was even an occasion where a senior person in a large retailer contacted a colleague of mine for assistance but said "I'm going to come unload both barrells of shotgun on you lot!" There was no sign of a joke or hint of insincerity. This was dealt with severley and thankfully the company I work for actually withdraw support completely when customers are continually abusive.

When a customer gives me abuse I react by staying calm and asking what they do for a living, then ask them if I can call them at work. This generally confuses them at which stage - with a wry smile - I explain I will call them at work and give the kind of personal abuse and aggression I have just received and we'll see how helpful they feel like being.

Point taken and apology received!

The call I got from SKY was a little different than most gripes, because I did not want to pay for warranty on my goods it was me thar got the abuse. I was phoned back instantly and told that I would have dog do put through my letterbox and that I waould be petrol bombed. I think you will find that this is not funny. Being an ex-serviceman.

I could not agree more, I too work in a call centre and it is not just rudeness but verbal abuse bordering on (and sometimes all the way to) threatening behaviour!