Minor Annoyance

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

Paco: "Thanks for calling your internal support line, I'm Paco. What's up, yo?"
Tech: "Customer is supposed to have DSL and doesn't have DSL and the order was set to complete yesterday and onoz it's not complete and omg what do we do?"
Paco: "Chill. Give the customer to me and I'll call our provisioning department to see what's going on. Introduce me as Paco, a Network Tech."
Tech: *click* "Paco, Customer. Customer, Paco." *click*
Paco: "Hello sir, as he told you I am Paco, a network tech. Your order isn't complete, and in order to find out why I must call our provisioning depar-"
Customer: "Hey, if you guys can't tell me why you can't give me DSL, I'll go cable. Why can't you guys do this?"
Paco: "Well, like I said, I must call the provisioning department to see what they're doing, as the automated order system hasn't updated to show us what's going on."
Customer: "Well, let me tell you the history of this thing. We ordered this thing back in..."
Paco: "Sir, the last tech alrea-"
Customer: "Wait, let me finish."
Paco: *Attempts not to punch hole in brand new cube wall.*
Customer: *Blah blah blah for 5 minutes about the History of the Order as Seen by the Customer.*
Paco: "Right, so, as I originally said, in order to find out the current status of it, I have to call this provisioning depart-"
Customer: "Why don't you know!?"
Paco: "Because you won't even let me finish a sentence!"
Customer: "... oh."
Paco: "Now, while I'm calling this department, do you want me to keep you on hold or call you back?"
Customer: "I'm at work and very busy, call me back at blah!"
Paco: "Cool, thanks for calling."

---

Dearest customers:
The last thing I ever want to hear is the history of how your order has gone. I have a much more comprehensive and accurate history at my disposal, and if you ever SHUT UP long enough, I can call others who do NOTHING but try to get you ingrates online.

X-posted wherever I bloody well feel like.

Comments

[zig-mover.livejournal.com]

if it makes you feel better, it's worse to have to _ask_ the customer for the order history, because you work with incompetent people who don't leave adequate notes. :(

[spacebird.livejournal.com]

No kidding. Our provisioning dept's notes (if there are any) are usually logged with a generic login (WTF) and consist entirely of abbreviations and codes that are not standard or in the code list (WTF) about what happened, at best, two days ago (WTF).

So usually I end up telling the customer, after they shut up with the damn history of their lives, "hold on while I call provisioning." I get through to a tech, who answers the phone (I'm not kidding) "yeah?" I ask him what's going on with the number. He says there's a maintenance ticket open. I wonder why it's not in the notes. He then transfers me to maintenance without any warning. Maintenance picks up. "Yeah?" I ask what's going on. "Oh, this ticket got closed, it's a provisioning issue, their due date isn't even 'til next week." Next week? It was supposed to be two days ago. Get customer back on the line, tell him it will be just another couple minutes. He whines some more, I send him back to our cheesey jazz. Call provisioning. "Yeah?" Explain it to them. "Oh yeah, we moved the due date. Something about his lines not handling it. We'll have it checked out in a week or two, but sometimes these issues can take months to work out. The customer will just have to wait." I thank the agent, mute the phone, scream, and bring the customer on.

"Sir, call billing and cancel your damn account. I hear Charter has some good deals in your area."

[xforge.livejournal.com]

In his defense, and I ain't sayin' your DSL hookup procedure is like this, but when I tried to get BellSuck er, BellSouth DSL (all five times actually), NONE of the first four people I spoke to on any ONE phone call even had the first clue what the hell they were doing, much less how to help ME. So, huzzah for you for actually trying to help the guy, and stuff.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Don't know how your place is, but not every tech has access to a full, comprehensive account history. I have that at my workplace only if a) I access three different systems to piece it all together and b) my co-workers have bothered to write anything in the customer notes and didn't just handle everything while talking on the phone.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

I like it when a customer calls up and goes into a 5 minute monologue. I just lean back and start surfing the web or somesuch. Once they finally wind down, I ask for their name, account info, ect. and then what the problem is. Helps puncture a lot of self important balloons.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I've found that if I'm going to interrupt someone, it's best to do it in their first sentence, before they get some momentum going.

I can sit back and listen to the blither until they run down, but then again I don't have a maximum call time average to adhere to.

[harmer.livejournal.com]

I hate the "I'll go cable/DSL."
I work for a cable company and so it's always a DSL threat. I wish customers realized we just don't care and in fact, would be happier knowing their whiny ass won't be calling back if they switch.

[brownizs.livejournal.com]

Wait a minute, and let me get this straight. You had a call from a Idiot/customer, who had a tech on the line, but was at work, which is not the place that the DSL was going to be provisioned at. Am I correct to assume this?

Let me guess who the idiot is on this one, and it was not Paco.