Unfiltered Story #117474

(I work in a call center. Today my tools have been difficult to work with. A customer calls, requesting to know the status of her order.)

Customer: “I need to know the status of an order I placed a week ago. By the way, is there any way to get to a live person faster? Every time I call it takes too long.”

Me: “I’m sorry about the wait, ma’am, there really is no way to get to a representative directly but I’d be happy to check on the status for you.”

(Meanwhile it appears that my computer is frozen, and I desperately try basic troubleshooting to get any response. After about a minute I’m advised to shut everything down and restart, but since it takes up to ten minutes to get everything running, I have to advise the customer to call back.)

Me: “I’m sorry about the inconvenience, ma’am, however it appears my system is updating and I’m not able to check on the status of your order at this time. Normally I would connect you to another representative but since I’m not able to transfer calls right now I have to ask you to hang up and call back.”

Customer: “That is just ridiculous, I always call here to check on my order, why can’t you do it? ”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, this is the correct number but my system will not allow me to do anything because it is updating.”

Customer: “Well you clearly just don’t know what you’re doing. Just transfer me to someone who actually knows how to do their job.”

Me: “I apologize for the inconvenience, but as I mentioned I can not even transfer calls right now. If you would prefer, you can wait for me to restart everything. However since this may take up to ten minutes I would advise you hang up and call back.”

Customer: ” That is shameful; you should at least know how to transfer people before they hire you. You know what? I’ll just call back and get someone who knows what they’re doing.”