What is your absolute worst experience in dealing with a call center?

Question

I'm working on a training piece for my company. Care to help me?

Sorry I should've clarified. I'm looking for customer service experiences.

Answer 1

This is from a customer standponit. I called my cable company because they had not applied my payment to my bill. The first call, I informed that I made a payment. They said they would look into it. We hung up. The following month, they cut my cable. I called again, I sent proof of payment, they cut it again. This went on for FIVE months. The last time I called, I admit I probably wasn't in such a great mood. I asked for a manager (which I know they just hand the phone to someone else...not a boss). Anyway, this woman asks me to fax proof. I had already done that at least three times! So she proceeds to tell me that she'll give me a "courtesy credit". I said "Oh no you don't. You'll credit me for what I PAID, and it better be marked as a payment, not a courtesy because you're not giving me diddly!". She said "Please hold" but she apparently didn't do it right. She went on a profanity laced binge about what a witch (the other word) I was while I was listening right there with her.

I understand that perhaps I was being difficult with HER, however, is it too much to ask that they do their jobs, do it properly and do so professionally? If they had done that, I wouldn't have been difficult. I didn't start off that way. THEY made me that way!

/rant Gee I feel better. This is like therapy!

Answer 2

I call a company to order a guitar for my husband. I was told when I order that my check card when be billed twice. At the time we did not have a lot of money so that help me out a lot. However when my bill came there was only one charge for the full amount. Thankfully I could cover the total cost but it upset be because I was told I would be able to make two payments. So I called the company to complain. The first person I spoke to was rude and told me that it is company policy to only bill once for item under $1000. I told him fine let me speak to you supervisor. The supervisor then gets on the phone and I explain the problem again. He too do not seem to care about my problem and started reading the company policy to me. I stopped him in the middle of his sentence and said, "That if fine I will just take my business to another company" I guess that was the magic word because as soon as I said that I was then given a in-store credit of $100. My husband sent the $100 but we have not shopped with them since then.

Answer 3

I had ordered a product from a company and what they shipped me was not what I had ordered. I tried several times to contact the company for a return. Everything I called I was told that I would be put in contact with customer service and I’d end up on hold for three to fifteen minutes, then the phone would disconnect. After several calls later I asked to speak to a manager and the same thing happened, wait, wait, wait, click buzzzzzz. So I said screw it and called my credit card company explained what was going on and asked them to stop payment. Four weeks later I get a nastygram threatening to contact a collection service unless I paid for the product. Fortunately I had already filed a report with the National Fraud Information Center so I sent in a follow up report. About four weeks later I get a call from the company saying they understand that I was unhappy with the product they had provided me with and they were wondering is there was anything that they could do to rectify the situation.

Needless to say they were not thrilled with my suggestions.

Interestingly enough the company is no longer in business.

Answer 4

I was trying to buy a new power cord for my laptop. It was an emergency since I was leaving the country in less than five days and really needed a replacement.

I called the HP call center and was transfered I swear at least 10 times back and forth between two different departments where I gave each person the SAME information about my computer and what I wanted!! Finally I got a sweet-sounding guy who I explained (politely!) to that I was tired of being tossed back and forth and that I just wanted a gosh-darn power cord and I needed one as soon as possible! He was able to do what the 10 other people couldn't do and I had my cord the next day.

Oh, and these were not Indians either, they were Americans! Sheesh.

Answer 5

I call up the general customer service number one afternoon, and get transferrred to someone else after I explain the issue. I wait on hold. The second person can't help me and so they transfer me to somebody else. I wait on hold for a few minutes. I explain my issue to the new person and they say, "Oh, you called the wrong department. Let me transfer you." Before I can get a word in edgewise, I've been transferred again. This goes on for several more transfers until eventually the call gets dropped because I get transferred to a department that is closed. Well that was a big waste of half an hour of my life.

Edited to add: No, wait, I just thought of the WORST one. I cancelled an account with my ISP because I was moving. They came and took the cable modem away and I paid my bill for the final month, and assumed that was that. Two months later, a collection agency started harrassing me out of the blue about a bill for the cable modem I supposedly never returned. I told them they were mistaken and to please leave me alone. They said they would not leave me alone unless the company I had the account with called them and told them to stop calling.

I called my ISP and they kept saying it was taken care of, but then the collection agency would call again. Then the people at my ISP started claiming that they never referred me to a collection agency so there was nothing they could do, while the collection agency stepped up their threats and kept telling me it was impossible to stop harrassing me unless my ISP did something about it. Finally I demanded to speak to a manager at the ISP call center and freaked out on him and made threats and finally got it settled.

Answer 6

Dealing with the telephone company for repairs. It is on an automated system now, and the friendly recording takes your phone number and tells you that a technician will be at your house before (insert date). If the problem is in your wiring or house there will be a charge of $75.00 if we want them to fix it.
The guy comes while no one is home. Leaves a message on my cell that the problem is mine and have a nice day. Meanwhile my husband also reports it. The tech comes back and tells my husband that the issue is ours. My hisband shows him the broken wire on "their" side. The tech argues (who actually still argues with customers?) and calls us crazy people which leads to more defensive words. The tech then tells us that since he has come out here twice there is a charge of $150.00 and leaves. There was still no darn phone, We had to fix the wire ourselves. Soon plan to drop the land phone and use cable for ISP.

Answer 7

I once called a local phone/Internet company to help me with configuring my software because it wasn't hooking up. The tech support guy insisted it was *my* hardware (modem) that was the problem. I gently explained to him that wasn't the case because I could easily hook up to AOL. He responded, "Well, you could hook a toaster up to AOL." Turned out I didn't have something turned on in the software setup and I ended up fixing it myself by accidentally stumbling across it while he was arguing with me (that it was my fault I couldn't hook up) and trying to get me off the phone. So I guess I'd have to say I hate dealing with call centers where the people answering the phone have less experience than the person calling for help, which ultimately renders a customer service call center worthless.

I had another problem with the same phone company two years later where I was without phone service for 2 months because they kept insisting and telling me my phone was working when it clearly wasn't. Then they tried to blame my phones. (Turned out it was their box outside the house and up the street that were the problem and it took me screaming for 2 months before they finally checked it out and figured out why I didn't have phone service.) So that, "Not my problem - it's not our equipment/software/product - it's your equipment/software/you that's the problem" attitude is a big no-no in customer service.

I won't use that phone company EVER again and I share my story about their poor customer service with whoever will listen (at least several hundred people so far). (The company rhymes with west.) I'll pay $1000 a month for phone service (out of principle) before going back to them and giving them the privilege of my business no matter how much better their prices are.

Answer 8

Well, when I was talking to Sprint and the Indian guy started by mispronouncing his own American name, that set the tone for the rest of the call.

Sprint had overcharged my account and he didn't seem to know what "overcharge" meant -- he thought Sprint had put money into my bank account or something. So to correct the problem, he apparently doubled the overcharged and directly drafted my credit card for it.

Then I lost the call before I could explain the problem because (GUESS WHAT), I was using a Sprint cell phone that lost its connection.

Answer 9

I would have to agree with others about being bounced around from one department to another. I would much rather the person listen completely to my situation, then if they cannot help me, ask me if they can put me on hold and then they call the departments until they find someone who can help and then conference me in to that person, as long as they don't leave me on hold for too long, check back and give me progress reports on how they are finding a solution to the problem.

Answer 10

I never really had a nightmare job yet. I'm only 24. Some say working at a pizza place or as a paper boy might be horrible, but they weren't bad. It's just I got fired from being a pizza boy.