(no subject)

[tecknow.livejournal.com]

Apparently my school is researching this software to detect angry callers with the intention of automatically elevating them to managers/higher tiers. I foresee problems with this. Now the idea that you should act angry to get what you want, and that tier 1 support can't really help you, can be algorithmically reinforced!

Comments

[tecknow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not directly topical but given the number of people here who work various flavors of phone support, and the negative behaviors that this software would feed directly into, I figured it was close enough.

[shifuimam.livejournal.com]

I dated an asshole who did this exact thing - if he called a support line and it had the voice command stuff, he'd start swearing into the phone, like "I want some fucking support right fucking now, goddammit" and insist that it got him through faster.

:rolleyes:

[cleverthylacine]

I think you're an asshole if you're rude to real people, period.

The voice command stuff where the robot asks you to talk instead of put numbers into the keypad (and then doesn't understand your accent or doesn't recognise the word you used or whatever) is COMPLETELY FUCKING EVIL and I don't think anyone is an asshole for doing whatever they think they need to do to get past it.

I will not talk to robots except to say agent, agent, agent--which is in fact the fastest way to get through it. I don't mind typing in my account number but I do not want to speak to anyone who cannot actually understand what I am saying.

[reanimated.livejournal.com]

ew. what a terrible idea. yes, let's coddle the entitled jackasses!

[tecknow.livejournal.com]

On the other hand you could set it up so "You must be at least this angry to reach tier 2." As much like a sport as that sounds, imagine getting reprimanded for escalating too many non-angry callers.

[trayce.livejournal.com]

Oh man this is a dreadful idea. I already hate people with that "squeaky wheel gets the grease" mentality - the kind who'd lodge a TIO (ombudsman) complaint without even *trying* to understand the issue. The kind who yell and abuse and ring back and whine *so often* that the company capitulates at least partly *just to shut them up*.

No no no no no noooooooooooooooooooo the world should not work this way. Calm blue ocean calm blue ocean...

[azurelunatic]

Ew.

Flagging the call when it comes in, to alert the poor rep that there's a potentially cranky one on the line, I could see that.

Flagging whoever's monitoring/supervising that there's an angry one on the line for that rep, that would be good also.

Stop playing advertisements in the hold queue when someone's mad.

Switching from a "your call is very important to us, please continue to hold" in "let me strangle you now" tones to a recording of a human saying "Calls are answered in the order they are received; please stay on the line".

All of these things, yes. That, no.

[doublefelix.livejournal.com]

This poster seems to know a lot more about how to be useful without causing a negative feedback loop than the researchers.

[azurelunatic]

I was thinking "useful things you can do with the knowledge that someone is angry", and got:

Brace for it.
But some techs enjoy playing with pissed-off customers. So if you're telling the tech the customer is pissed, you should also tell the supervisor. Plus, a call with a pissed-off customer is more likely to need a supervisor anyway (even if the tech is doing their job and playing it straight). So it's smart to alert them.

It's also smart to do things to not piss them off further. Advertisements in the hold music infuriate me when I'm already cranky. The "your call is very important to us" pisses me off too; a factual statement about how a rage-hangup is against their best interests is less likely to offend me.

Another thing guaranteed to piss me off: if I don't have connectivity for whatever reason, and the hold music tells me to check out the website. Or if I'm calling in because I can't get on the website. I can take that *once*. Having it repeat at me is rubbing salt in the wound. If I'm calling in because I'm being lazy, fair enough. But I prefer the website. I don't like talking to people. Telling me I should go do what I can't? Great way to put me in the mood to talk to your poor tech.

If I were a call center supervisor and I had an adequate phone system, I might want to figure out which of my tier 1 reps had the soft skills at dealing with a very upset person/flaming asshole (I doubt the systems are advanced enough to tell them apart) and route the upset people and flaming assholes to the techs who have shown that they can handle them vs. the techs who either melt or piss them off that much more.

I would not want to put a tech in that queue for very long, though, because that would be guaranteed to give someone a bad day.

[azurelunatic]

... and if I were designing a dream hold queue, I'd have a music/no-music option.

[amynnah.livejournal.com]

Bad idea. Bad. :(