10 Tips on Calling Customer Services, from Me a Customer Service Advisor

04 October 2009

1. Never ask to speak to a manager on the on-set of the call, it's disturbing and it won't help you. You come off instantaneously as a customer who doesn't trust the training and experience we have on call handling, and we really don't like escalating calls if possible, as it is admitting to our boss that we can't do our job anymore and we want him to take-over. Because we don't transfer you just because you asked us to transfer you, not even to other departments, we have to put notes on the account to record your concern and query, even if you're just calling for a general inquiry that we don't even need to touch your account on. Managers hate taking escalations as well, they became managers so they don't have to take in calls anymore, and with all the reports they're doing you really aren't gonna get any more help from them. They use the same system as we do anyway, so what they will be doing is something we could have done that as well with our system if only you asked us nicely about it and had a little patience with us dealing with our systems.

2. If we say we're gonna have to double check something on our systems, it means we really want to help you but don't know how to so we're either checking the proper procedure on our resources or asking other people about it. We aren't allowed to drop your calls, we HAVE to help you, its our motherfucking jobs, so don't go bugging us about what exactly what we're gonna do, we don't want to keep you on the phone even much more than you don't want to stay on the phone. We have to take as little time possible, we have metrics to meet and Average Call Handling Time is one of the major ones. So shut the fuck up and wait for a bit, because if we say we're gonna be back to you as soon as possible, it means we're not talking to you unless we're sure that what we're saying is something to help you, or is at least the one we're supposed to.

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