I’m probably in danger of over explaining the joke, but this actually does happen. The best part about this is people will actually contact support for online stores and just say that they found an item. No concern, no questions, just hi I found this. There are people that will do this every week, for years.
New customer service agents will go through the steps, how can I help you with it? Were you looking for a different item? Etc etc. And the conversation will go absolutely nowhere because no one knows why the hell people like this do these things and the customer will never provide any information. Eventually you give up and just say that’s great! You can go ahead and buy it!
And the customer will say “ok thx” and disappear until next time. Most of the time these people never even place any orders.
Sometimes people are just lonely, I got this too in helpdesk. A little old lady kept calling in with problems in her emails, there were no problems she just wanted to talk for a while.
Oh definitely, I’ve had a few like that. Those are kinda nice, you relax for a minute and they’re usually fine when you let them know you have other people.
And you get to make one of those cute “Resolved; for record keeping” tickets to fill out your day :) This is why I actually give out my direct line. If anyone gets upset at not being able to reach me, I can just say tons of people have that same number and are trying to reach me, and I’m never bored from 8-5
Usually when a customer talks to a customer service agent, that’s the only customer service agent they’re going to interact with that week. So they treat the customer service agent as though the converse is true, that they are the only customer the customer service agent will interact with that week, forgetting that they are actually the 10,000th.
I don’t know whether that would help as much as you think it will. I just got out of the military, and there are definitely certain people who started out taking a lot of shit from people just like you did at that rank, but their motivation to rank up was because they couldn’t wait to become the people giving people shit.
I’ve been working in customer support for three years and I absolutely despise people in that job that don’t try their best to help. This is their job, and if it’s so bad they can’t be assed to do it right they should work at another place. Sure, many customers are clueless assholes. But if I come up to them with all the respect and try to lay down my issue I don’t want to get treated like shit, no matter how hard their day was.
If anything, my experience in this job made me less tolerant towards incompetent or disrespectful people.
We’d put them into cust-supp after they’ve done their mandatory gap-year service. Waiting tables or trying to hear bubba over the dimestore drive-thru[sic] gear and his argl-bargle diesel F350 garage queen will DEFINITELY work the stick out from where it got lodged.
I never worked in one of these positions, but I respect the hell out of people who do. I did do a house cleaning job for a bit that was pretty bad and maybe that’s where it’s from, but I think I’ve always had that. I just respect people who do things for others, no matter what it is. I don’t think it needs to be required, but maybe have a system to report people and enough reports forces you to do “community service” in one of these positions.
I used to try to be empathetic, but then I realized I’m just taking up even more of their time. The best strategy imo is to just get to the point as quickly as possible so both you and the rep can get on with things.
However, if the call is going to be long regardless, I do banter a bit.
The closest I had to that job was as an IT help desk person at a university working with faculty. I only had to actually interact with 3-4 people in a given day, so I don’t know if it really counts.
I used to work in a Walmart deli and multiple people would come in every week asking for corn beef or swagger and when we tell them no we don’t have that, they will say they were here last week and bought it
Like no you weren’t chief we haven’t had that in years
I had a seller on Amazon give my info to another party who then mailed me unrelated erotic marketing materials with my name and info on it, weeks after my order. I told customer support, and they instantly went “we’ll handle it, have a nice day” before I could even tell them who the seller was. I knew who the seller was because despite my info being in the digital order form on the website, they somehow managed multiple typos and mistakes, which the unsolicited mail also had.
It’s all pre-scripted bullshit to prevent customers from doing anything about legitimate issues.
I sometimes get IT support calls where people will just saying something is asking for a password or giving them a notification. I usually just tell them to login and everything is ok, or just to read it back to me. Its never anything unusual that would throw up red flags security wise that I would think would sketch out a user. Its like there just surprised by the popup. More often than not, they didn’t need any help. I still can’t figure this one out, but I still “fix” it I guess.
I’m probably in danger of over explaining the joke, but this actually does happen. The best part about this is people will actually contact support for online stores and just say that they found an item. No concern, no questions, just hi I found this. There are people that will do this every week, for years.
New customer service agents will go through the steps, how can I help you with it? Were you looking for a different item? Etc etc. And the conversation will go absolutely nowhere because no one knows why the hell people like this do these things and the customer will never provide any information. Eventually you give up and just say that’s great! You can go ahead and buy it!
And the customer will say “ok thx” and disappear until next time. Most of the time these people never even place any orders.
Sometimes people are just lonely, I got this too in helpdesk. A little old lady kept calling in with problems in her emails, there were no problems she just wanted to talk for a while.
Oh definitely, I’ve had a few like that. Those are kinda nice, you relax for a minute and they’re usually fine when you let them know you have other people.
And you get to make one of those cute “Resolved; for record keeping” tickets to fill out your day :) This is why I actually give out my direct line. If anyone gets upset at not being able to reach me, I can just say tons of people have that same number and are trying to reach me, and I’m never bored from 8-5
Usually when a customer talks to a customer service agent, that’s the only customer service agent they’re going to interact with that week. So they treat the customer service agent as though the converse is true, that they are the only customer the customer service agent will interact with that week, forgetting that they are actually the 10,000th.
And that’s why mandatory customer service or retail job should be required for every 18 year old for like 6 months.
It really doesn’t take long working as a waiter, cashier, phone operator to learn respect for the role.
I don’t know whether that would help as much as you think it will. I just got out of the military, and there are definitely certain people who started out taking a lot of shit from people just like you did at that rank, but their motivation to rank up was because they couldn’t wait to become the people giving people shit.
Hardest part about being a leader is being better than the shit leadership you had
Nah, common decency isn’t that hard, it just requires not wanting to be a leader.
If the leadership you had was shitty shouldn’t the easy part be being better than them?
Why would being a good leader be easy?
I’ve been working in customer support for three years and I absolutely despise people in that job that don’t try their best to help. This is their job, and if it’s so bad they can’t be assed to do it right they should work at another place. Sure, many customers are clueless assholes. But if I come up to them with all the respect and try to lay down my issue I don’t want to get treated like shit, no matter how hard their day was.
If anything, my experience in this job made me less tolerant towards incompetent or disrespectful people.
We’d put them into cust-supp after they’ve done their mandatory gap-year service. Waiting tables or trying to hear bubba over the dimestore drive-thru[sic] gear and his argl-bargle diesel F350 garage queen will DEFINITELY work the stick out from where it got lodged.
Are you me? Because I say that all of the time.
Doesn’t everyone? That sentiment is kind of meme level these days
Or, you know, some common sense
I never worked in one of these positions, but I respect the hell out of people who do. I did do a house cleaning job for a bit that was pretty bad and maybe that’s where it’s from, but I think I’ve always had that. I just respect people who do things for others, no matter what it is. I don’t think it needs to be required, but maybe have a system to report people and enough reports forces you to do “community service” in one of these positions.
Okay but does it count if dairy queen fires you before 6 months, asking for a friend
I used to try to be empathetic, but then I realized I’m just taking up even more of their time. The best strategy imo is to just get to the point as quickly as possible so both you and the rep can get on with things.
However, if the call is going to be long regardless, I do banter a bit.
The closest I had to that job was as an IT help desk person at a university working with faculty. I only had to actually interact with 3-4 people in a given day, so I don’t know if it really counts.
I swear people are no different then bots
I used to work in a Walmart deli and multiple people would come in every week asking for corn beef or swagger and when we tell them no we don’t have that, they will say they were here last week and bought it
Like no you weren’t chief we haven’t had that in years
Than*
I have given up on this battle. I commend you.
WTF is swagger?
An arrogant walking style. It can be purchased in cans but the best stuff is freshly picked.
Can it be pickled or corned?
Rule 34
I had a seller on Amazon give my info to another party who then mailed me unrelated erotic marketing materials with my name and info on it, weeks after my order. I told customer support, and they instantly went “we’ll handle it, have a nice day” before I could even tell them who the seller was. I knew who the seller was because despite my info being in the digital order form on the website, they somehow managed multiple typos and mistakes, which the unsolicited mail also had.
It’s all pre-scripted bullshit to prevent customers from doing anything about legitimate issues.
I sometimes get IT support calls where people will just saying something is asking for a password or giving them a notification. I usually just tell them to login and everything is ok, or just to read it back to me. Its never anything unusual that would throw up red flags security wise that I would think would sketch out a user. Its like there just surprised by the popup. More often than not, they didn’t need any help. I still can’t figure this one out, but I still “fix” it I guess.