Unfiltered Story #181169

So I work in a call centre for a large provider of TV, phones, internet and mobile phones. I have a customer call in who has an issue with all calls being made to his mobile phone going straight to voicemail. I am about the sixth person he has spoken to so far. The customer is not pleased about this, because he is a plumber and relies on the phone for business.

I go through the standard troubleshooting: Turn it off and on, all that. Nothing seems to work, so I suggest he tries the sim out in another phone so we can determine whether it’s a physical hardware problem with the phone.

Me: If it turns out that it is a hardware issue, then you can bring it in to one of our stores and they should be able to take it in to get it repaired.

Customer: Repaired?! So you just expect me to be without a phone?! You give me a faulty phone, and you won’t even replace it?! You’d expect at least a loaner if they’re going to take the phone to be repaired!

Me: I’m sorry, sir. It’s policy, we can’t really give out a loaner, and we’re obligated to try and fix the problem first.

Customer: That is not acceptable! Are [Company] going to reimburse me for the loss of business that’ll cause?!

Me: Um.. no sir, I’m sorry, but that isn’t something we can do..

Customer: Is your manager there?! Surely they can do something for me!

(Note: Our policy states that supervisors should only really be asked to take calls if they have the ability to do something to help that you don’t. Customers love this policy, so so much.)

Me: I’m sorry, a supervisor wouldn’t be able to take this call, as there’s nothing they can do to help further. They’d just tell you the same thing.

This goes back and forth for a while before the customer realises he’s not getting to talk to a supervisor.

Customer: Alright, fine,YOU aren’t going to help me and I’m not getting to speak to a supervisor, fine. I’ll just leave it, then!

At this point the customer hangs up after sounding close to throwing a tantrum. I chuckle and continue on with the day.

About two hours later I stand up to go check something for another customer and a coworker stops me.

Coworker: Hey, you know [Customer]? You were talking to him earlier about all his calls going to voicemail?

Me: Yeah..?

Coworker: I’ve just been talking to him, there and I fixed his problem!

Me: Really? What was it?

Coworker: Okay, so I noticed he had [Popular model of mobile phone], which is the same one I have, so I had a hunch. I asked him to go to this settings menu here and I asked him what colour this setting was showing up as.

Me: Okay..

Coworker: So he says it’s showing up as white. I tell him to change the setting so the button shows up as grey instead. Then I called him to make sure, and it worked!

Me: Wow, nice one! What was wrong with it, then?

Coworker: He had his phone set to ‘Do Not Disturb’.

We had a good laugh about it. Turns out the customer even asked my coworker to apologise to me on his behalf for losing his temper on the earlier call!