Customer: “I’m unsatisfied with what you sent and I want to return it for a refund.”
Me: “I’m sorry about that, ma’am. I’ll be happy to help with that.”
Customer: *Yelling.* “Why are you just doing what I wanted instead of coming up with another solution on your own?! Get me your manager!”
Working with customers online can sometimes be a rollercoaster. This caller wrote the wrong address on their order and wants us to change it. It’s not possible to change it on the order itself, but we try to contact the delivery company to get them to change it. Unfortunately, we are too late, and three out of four parcels will be returned to us.
The customer becomes very angry and pretty much wants to cancel every other order and return everything. She ends the call with our favourite words, “I’ll never shop from you again!”
Not even five minutes later, I get the same customer on call again.
Customer: *Calmer, but still angry* “If I order the articles again, can you make a price match?”
What happened to the “never shop from you again” threat? I do always wish that the customers who say this would stick to their words, since this kind of customer will always be a nightmare to deal with, no matter what.
I work at a call centre as a support for users of electronic cigarettes. Customers call with questions and orders, but mostly they call when their little machine gets broken. Sometimes it’s like talking to a toddler who wants his sweets.
Customer: “Hello? My device broke! It doesn’t work! I am at my parent’s house for the weekend and don’t know what to do. I need my e-cigarette!”
Me: “Okay. Tell me, is the light on the device on or off?”
Customer: “It just doesn’t work.”
Me: “Do you have it now?”
Customer: “Yeah, just tell me how to fix it.”
Me: “Okay. Pick it up and tell me the colour of the light when you turn it on.”
Customer: “Wait, I have to go get it.”
I wait for the customer.
Customer: “Okay, I have it now. When I press it, it doesn’t do anything.”
Me: “Did you try to reset it? Do you know how to do it?”
Customer: “Yes, of course! Do you think I am stupid or what? I already told you; I pressed the button, still nothing.”
Me: “Actually, you have to press both of the buttons.”
Customer: “But there is only one button?”
Me: “What kind of device do you have?”
Customer: “Black.”
Me: “…”
We eventually try the reset with both buttons and try a different charger, but nothing works.
Me: “Hmm… Did you have it exposed outside by any chance? It doesn’t work in too low or too high temperatures.”
Customer: “No, but my brother dropped it yesterday.”
Me: “I am sorry, but it appears this is what damaged your device, and in this case, it is not covered by our guarantee.”
Customer: “What? But I am your paying customer! Last month it didn’t work, and you changed it for me with no problem.”
Me: “I understand, but in this case, it is not covered. It is possible to buy a new one with a discount, though.”
Customer: *Really angry* “What do you mean, buy a new one? I am spending my money on your product. I have already had the device changed twice from the time I bought it and this is how you treat your customer? I wanna speak to your manager!”
Me: “Unfortunately, she is not here right now.”
It is 10:00 pm.
Customer: “She has to be there. I wanna speak with her! Give her the phone right now!”
Me: “I am sorry, she is literally not here right now. If you don’t have any other questions, I am sorry but I cannot help you more.”
Customer: “I will call you tomorrow, and if you won’t fix it, I will call the newspapers! You are thieves and deserve to die!”
Me: “…”
Customer: *With a little bit of desperation in their voice* “What am I supposed to do now? I need it.”
I work in an insurance call center handling complex technical calls and taking escalated calls. Most of my calls are ho-hum technical calls. I handle escalations about billing and underwriting, which are usually a variation of “How dare you tell me that you won’t insure me for free?!” I work swing shift, so I handle more than just the Garden Variety Crazy or Demanding Entitled Brat; I handle the ones who are willing to call an insurance company at 2:00 am to yell at someone.
I get a call from a member of our online team. He’s had to escalate a chat up to me because the customer will not accept the answer he’s been giving for the last half-hour. In writing, no less. She has also made some changes to the policy while online with my rep, including deleting a driver.
When an online rep escalates to yours truly, it entails the online rep calling out to the customer first. This particular online rep is a perfectly lovely individual with a distinctive accent. Apparently, the accent got under the customer’s skin to the point where she used racial epithets on him repeatedly.
I introduce myself.
Customer: “I want to know where you are physically located, exactly.”
Her emphasis on the word “exactly” is so snotty and condescending that I am tempted to provide her with the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates just to mess with her head. But she’s not worth the time, so I give her only my state.
Customer: “You are withdrawing $300 a month from my checking account. I only agreed to $70 a month! You are committing fraud and I want $1,200 back. I worked as a court reporter and I know all about how the law works.”
I note that her current policy term has been active for a little over four months. We sent out a renewal offer back in the middle of July. The policy renewed in late August. The renewal offer included a payment schedule for $300 a month, starting with the renewal date. Along with a billing schedule is a summary of what changes have been applied, including changes to her child’s rating status. She has enrolled in online documents for everything, so I refer her to her emails.
Customer: “Oh, I got the emails, but they weren’t urgent enough for me to read. You guys need to tell me when something’s urgent so I’ll pay attention to it. And I didn’t give you c**ksuckers permission to change my kid’s status, so you did something that you weren’t supposed to do.”
Me: “We’re only obligated to send out the renewal offer to the address you’ve provided. Verification of your reading of those notices is not incumbent upon us per the Department of Insurance. And by making your initial down payment with us back on [date], you agreed to terms and conditions we’ve outlined in our policy contract. We’re merely enforcing the contract terms upon which you’ve agreed.”
Customer: “Well, that’s unethical, and we’re in the middle of a health crisis. I told your [racial slur] salesperson not to put [Child] on my policy because I can’t afford the insurance for him. Your salesman forced me to add [Child] because he lives in my household and drives my vehicle now that he has a driver’s license.”
I note that her child was just deleted from her policy.
Me: “I’m sorry you feel that adherence to a contract is unethical. Also, I will ask you to keep this call professional, or we will discontinue this conversation. Now, does [Child] still operate your vehicle or live in your household?”
Customer: “Yes, but I don’t want him on my policy because I don’t want to pay $300 a month for insurance. I should only be paying $70 per month. And are you going to be giving me $1,200 back or what?!”
Me: “[Child] needs to be added back onto your policy as a rated driver, then. Should you choose not to have me add him onto your policy, I will be referring this policy to our underwriting department, who will add him on for you. Furthermore, as you’ve admitted on a recorded line that you received the email, we will not be accommodating any request to refund you that money, as there was no error made.”
The customer then calls me a c*** and tells me I’m horrible at my job. I tell her I’m sorry she feels that way, but she has a choice to make. She hangs up on me after calling me a “F****** STUPID B****” at the top of her lungs.
Right as I’m documenting how unhinged the customer is and submitting an underwriting review, my boss messages me. It’s a string of three emojis: big eyes, whew, big eyes again.
Boss: “Are you okay? That was rough.”
Me: “I’ve been called worse by better, but can this call get me something like hazard pay?”
Boss: “Well, funny you should mention that, because I’m messaging you to go over raise information. Call me on our conference line.”
My boss had put me in for the max percentage bump this year. He was doing silent monitoring because he was completing the annual reviews for said raise. His words: “You’ve definitely earned it.”
The job can be tedious, but it’s that much better when you have a boss who recognizes how hard you work and that you’re good at your job.
When I was in Uni, I took a job answering pay queries for the UK armed forces and veterans as part of a supported launch for a self-service admin tool. The call centre was the first point of contact for all queries, but there were specialist “back office” teams that dealt with complex queries.
After a couple of months, I was made part of a review team to figure out why a high number of queries were getting bounced from the back offices. One of the most common requests was for a tax form you are meant to receive when you leave the armed forces but which tends to get lost quite a lot.
I found that a particular member of the back office team had written a boilerplate script which basically amounted to “go find it yourself.” That was bad enough, but when I found one particular email, my blood started to boil.
A fairly young vet had emailed a very detailed account of his efforts to track down this form (which, honestly, was everything in his power). He then literally begged us to help because, if he couldn’t provide this form to the local benefits office by the end of the week, he and his family — including a young baby — were in danger of losing their housing.
What did my colleague do? That’s right, he just sent his standard reply and bounced it back to us. I wrote my manager a formal complaint and escalated this to everyone I could find until it was passed on to someone else in the back office team, who reopened the case. I don’t know if the first guy ever got spoken to, but I’d have had a few words if I’d found him.
