Callcenter workers why lie?

I get around

I get around

I get around

Soldato
Joined
14 Jan 2009
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4,325
I've been having to phone a couple of call centres over the past few days.

First one, my mum needs paper forms for student loan stuff as the online system doesn't work (No surprises there) I spoke to 4 different people.
The original guy told my mum 2-5 days for the forms to come through. So today I rang them for her.
1 gave me a fake number to ring for complaints and told me the forms could take a month.
2 told me 2-3 weeks and refused to check the forms had been sent.
1 tried to fake being their manager but putting on a stupid accent.

I thought, would it not be easier to do your job?

My mum also wanted discount on a sky plus box (what new customers get basically) as a loyal customer, she tried a couple of times so I said i'd do it for her. I spoke to 7 people who said they couldn't do it until I found one who said it was a fairly commonplace request and it'd be put through right away. One of which actually gave me a fake number as well.

Seriously, I've gotta wonder if call centre workers take some perverse pleasure in lying and refusing to do their job because they're safe down the end of a phone? I was polite and all, I could understand if I was being a **** on the phone but I wasn't until forced to do so.

Anyone else find this?
 
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Sky in all honestly don't generally give discounts any more in all honesty. Well not when I worked there. Phone up and ask to speak to Turnaround would be your best bet. Or email them, it will be put through to their cares team.

Be nice about it though, and tell them the trouble you have had. 9/10 they will try to sort something out.
 
Any half decent call centre will have call recording and random spot-checks or mandatory evaluations. People who are blatantly out of line will generally be disciplined in some way.

So no, my experience from an inside perspective is different to yours. I have seen people give out incorrect information though, and it tends to be through inexperience, or getting flustered at not knowing the right answer and trying to wing it with something that sounds halfway believable.
 
Lopéz said:
Any half decent call centre will have call recording and random spot-checks or mandatory evaluations. People who are blatantly out of line will generally be disciplined in some way.

So no, my experience from an inside perspective is different to yours. I have seen people give out incorrect information though, and it tends to be through inexperience, or getting flustered at not knowing the right answer and trying to wing it with something that sounds halfway believable.
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Yep, winging it/inexperience is often to blame in these situations. You get very high turnovers of staff in call centres so you will often be dealing with people who don't know the ins and outs of the system/processes.
 
Its because they are generally people who couldnt give a **** about their jobs, and the call centres managers couldnt really give a hoot, it was like that when I worked for vodaphone anyway... it was a joke.
 
Lopéz said:
Any half decent call centre will have call recording and random spot-checks or mandatory evaluations. People who are blatantly out of line will generally be disciplined in some way.
Click to expand...

Any decent call centre treats its employees like people rather than cattle. It generates enthusiasm about the job rather than forcing company policies.

Spot-checks and mandatory evaluations are not the way forward. Call centres can be terrible places to work, I know this from experience [unfortunately]. But the best ones are the ones that let the employees care about their work through respect and development, and then this care for the work gets passed on to the callers.

That is a decent call centre, not one which is purely end-user focused.
 
Lopéz said:
Any half decent call centre will have call recording and random spot-checks or mandatory evaluations. People who are blatantly out of line will generally be disciplined in some way.

So no, my experience from an inside perspective is different to yours. I have seen people give out incorrect information though, and it tends to be through inexperience, or getting flustered at not knowing the right answer and trying to wing it with something that sounds halfway believable.
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This, worked in one for a small while and I couldn't say anything wrong without getting in trouble. The company was professional about sticking to a script and also expected you to not hard sell (was some insurance on store cards).
Still I hated it because of that and I think they shouldn't be able to lie but they were too stringent at that place.
 
Lysander said:
Any decent call centre treats its employees like people rather than cattle. It generates enthusiasm about the job rather than forcing company policies.

Spot-checks and mandatory evaluations are not the way forward. Call centres can be terrible places to work, I know this from experience [unfortunately]. But the best ones are the ones that let the employees care about their work through respect and development, and then this care for the work gets passed on to the callers.

That is a decent call centre, not one which is purely end-user focused.
Click to expand...

Well to be honest, they do do spot checks and evaluations. Well in Sky they do. They have to be done, for your reviews. My calls would be spot checked, mind you I knew when it was being done, not that it was ever a problem anyway.
 
Lysander said:
Any decent call centre treats its employees like people rather than cattle. It generates enthusiasm about the job rather than forcing company policies.

Spot-checks and mandatory evaluations are not the way forward. Call centres can be terrible places to work, I know this from experience [unfortunately]. But the best ones are the ones that let the employees care about their work through respect and development, and then this care for the work gets passed on to the callers.

That is a decent call centre, not one which is purely end-user focused.
Click to expand...
It's a very difficult balance to achieve. If you become overly customer focused you end up with a staff set that are process driven, inflexible.... if you go too far the other way then company standards and policies don't get adhered to and the end user gets an inconsistent experience.

I can't say I love the idea of call evaluations if the scoring criteria is too rigid. But as long as the guidelines allow sufficient flexibility for the employee they are a good tool for coaching and development. In almost any job your work will come under scrutiny, I don't see why a call centre should be any different.
 
majority of the student loans people are certified cretins.

im sure its where sacked call centre w staff from across the country get sent to die.

like aging native indians left out to die they are left there until they eventually make a customer so angry that the whole place is blown sky high
 
Begbie said:
Sky in all honestly don't generally give discounts any more in all honesty. Well not when I worked there. Phone up and ask to speak to Turnaround would be your best bet. Or email them, it will be put through to their cares team.

Be nice about it though, and tell them the trouble you have had. 9/10 they will try to sort something out.
Click to expand...

I got sky sorted in the end, got a sky HD box installed for £45. I could have shook the womans hand :D

SLC were just useless idiots on the phone, I couldn't speak to them any more. It really annoys me, that loan is my livelyhood and they are messing me about.
 
I work in a call centre, and I've worked in another. What I like about the centre I work in now is that in addition to the normal call times we get assessed on the number of customers we serve call back (repeat calls).

Thus it's in our interest to be efficent, honest, and complete with customer.
 
I get around said:
I got sky sorted in the end, got a sky HD box installed for £45. I could have shook the womans hand :D

SLC were just useless idiots on the phone, I couldn't speak to them any more. It really annoys me, that loan is my livelyhood and they are messing me about.
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In the last 4 days Student Loans Company have sent me 4 letters saying I owe 3 different amounts of money to them. The first letter I received said I owed £500 so I rang up to pay it off via debit card. The guy said I'd been re-evaluated and I actually owe £1,400. The day after I had a letter saying I owe £1,400 and a seperate letter stating £2,400 and now I've just had another letter through the door this morning thanking me for paying the £500 that I've not yet paid. They are useless.
 
When i first left uni i temped/worked in a call centre

Some really nice people, gorgeous women, but it was soul destroying to have the same conversation 150 times a day. For the first 50 i would be very polite and useful but by 100 i would sometimes just be a bit of a dick to amuse myself. It was only a 3 month contract, anyone that can do that full time is mental :O
 
Efour2 said:
When i first left uni i temped/worked in a call centre

Some really nice people, gorgeous women, but it was soul destroying to have the same conversation 150 times a day. For the first 50 i would be very polite and useful but by 100 i would sometimes just be a bit of a dick to amuse myself. It was only a 3 month contract, anyone that can do that full time is mental :O
Click to expand...

I used to work full time for Virgin Media, 1st line tech support and it was about 14 months of hell. :o
 
"andy" said:
majority of the student loans people are certified cretins.

im sure its where sacked call centre w staff from across the country get sent to die.

like aging native indians left out to die they are left there until they eventually make a customer so angry that the whole place is blown sky high
Click to expand...

With a sufficient grasp of English I am sure this would make sense. ;)
 
When I worked in 1st line support for a well known computer company it was all about targets. Meet them and you were rewarded.

I have to admit my department was one of the better call centers Ive heard of as we actually got very good ratings from our customers.
 
Like Begbie I also used to work for Sky. I was part of their broadband Tier3 (CST) tech support team, as has been said before it is this most utterly soul destroying job anyone can imagine. I wouldn't lie to any customer but when they've been passed through to you after full trouble shooting has been carried out by our outsourced (foreign) colleagues only to discover the ADSL signal is travelling through 75 foot of telephone extension cable and they're wondering why its so slow :mad::eek::confused:

I'd rather have my fingernails pulled out with rusty pliers than go back to working in that sort of environment :mad:
 
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