The customer is calling because they have gotten a dunning — like a bill — with post.
Me: “May I have the order number, so I can find you in our system?”
Customer: “AAAAAAAAAHH! Oh, it’s right here on the letter.”
The rest of the call was normal. Thank you for the yell in the early morning.
I work in a call center for a big financial institution in the resolution group. I have to call this guy because his check is too low. He’s very frustrated by the unsolicited call. I give him my usual spiel to call back through the main customer service line and ask for me. Per his account, he’s elderly, and per my short interaction, likely a little hard of hearing.
He gets back through and screams at me for a while. No big deal — I’m used to that. I let him get it out.
Me: “Okay, sir, here’s why I’m calling. Your check is too short.”
I explain what could happen if he doesn’t remedy the situation.
Me: “We just need an extra [amount]. It needs to be a new check for the entire amount. We’ll return your first check.”
This results in a bunch of nonsensical yelling. He also can’t hear me well. Finally:
Customer: “I can’t write that small! Look, I tried to write the full amount, but I can’t write that small anymore!”
Okay, now we were at the root of the problem. Poor guy.
We discussed options. Could he get to the bank to have a check printed? Yup! Okay, let’s do that.
He got to the bank later that week and called me in a panic. There was a bank fee to have the check printed and he’s on a fixed income. I told him we’d cover it; he just had to save and send in proof of the fee.
He sent the check to my group’s mailing address which auto-sorted it to our specialty processing group. It was picked up by my favorite ol’ reliable processor and the bank fee was reimbursed.
In our group, we handled cases from beginning to end, so he could call me whenever he wanted. Obviously, he was very concerned about tax implications, so he called me maybe three times in the week it took to receive the check and process it. He was a nice old man — quite pleasant, actually.
That Christmas, my boss walked up with a silly grin. He had an envelope in his hand. In the envelope was a Christmas card with a developed photo of a pretty flower and a note from my favorite client wishing me a merry Christmas. He wanted to show me the flower in his garden. It’s been eight years since that interaction, and I’ll never throw that card and photo out. It meant a lot.
I am part of a group that does volunteer work. We had an event coming up, and for the first time, I was calling members to ask them to help out. It went really well until I tried to call this one guy. A woman picks up the phone.
Woman: “Hello?”
Me: “Hi. I am [My Name] from [Volunteer Group]. May I please speak with [Man]?”
Woman: “What?”
Me: *Slightly louder* “Umm, hello! I am [My Name] from [Volunteer Group]. May I please speak with [Man]?”
Woman: *Calling out LOUDLY* “[Man]! Someone’s on the phone for you!”
Man: *Distant but still loud* “WHAT?!”
Woman: “Someone’s on the phone!”
Man: “WHAT?!”
Woman: “THE PHONE!”
Man: “WHO IS IT?”
Woman: “It’s someone from [Volunteer Group]!”
Man: “WHAT?!”
Woman: “PUT YOUR HEARING AIDS IN!”
Man: “THEY ARE IN! WHAT IS IT?”
Woman: “Come answer the phone!”
Man: “WHAT?!”
They went back and forth like this for several more minutes, getting louder and louder, arguing among other things about HER needing hearing aids, too. I finally just gave up and moved on to the next volunteer.
I mentioned this at our next meeting and everyone acknowledged this couple are both quite hard of hearing and don’t like to admit it.
The bank I work for is always attempting to cut costs and implementing strange new policies to catch people out. Every year around bonus and pay evaluation time, a slew of people are always “let go” due to infractions. We are always led to believe that the infractions are so serious that legal and the police are involved.
Rumblings are starting around our department of staff having to have meetings about their behaviour and stats while on calls. I’ve seen the best of our call center in tears as he was absolutely cut down by a team from human resources for referring to someone as “Ms.” instead of “Mrs.”
As we are a bank, security questions are essential, BUT all answers are input by human beings, and sometimes things are just wrong.
One fateful day, I am called into a meeting with three managers and two human resources people to answer for my indiscretion.
Human Resources: “On Monday [date] you had [Customer] call in, and you had to ask him the identity questions. He answered three questions correctly and the last one incorrectly, and yet you granted him access to his account details. Can you tell us why?”
Me: “Can I review the call transcript?”
This is provided to me, and I can see that the last question I asked him was to verify his email address. When entering it in person, someone had transposed two letters in the domain of the email address.
Me: “It’s an obvious spelling mistake.”
Manager: “Yes, but you can’t prove that”
Me: “Well, I can, and I did by using the notes. The previous calls all note that there was a spelling error in the email address. The branch had been notified of the issue, too, and I left my own notes and details to the branch to fix it.”
Manager: “Well, it’s not good enough. This is reason enough for us to terminate you, on top of your excessive sick leave.”
Me: “Wait, what? What excessive sick leave? And why is this being brought up in front of managers who are not my direct reports?”
The human resources people blanch and provide me with the documents… where I have one day more than my entitlement, after the head manager’s kids came in with pinkeye and gave it to 75% of the staff, including me.
Me: “This looks like a blatant attempt to get rid of me. Can I have a break for five minutes?”
Human Resources: “It won’t help you, but go ahead.”
Unfortunately for them, the union rep is on my team and is able to come back into the meeting with me in under two minutes flat. I bring the union rep up to date in front of the managers and human resources. He is getting angrier and angrier as the details are provided to him and the managers and human resources are becoming more and more concerned.
Human Resources: “Look, why don’t you two discuss this while we have a meeting for five minutes and discuss our options?”
All the managers and human resources skedaddle, and the union rep is livid. It’s the tenth meeting in a fortnight he’s been brought into. After ten minutes, only the human resources reps come back, the managers having something else to do very suddenly.
Human Resources: “Well, we’ve decided that we’ll let you stay only if you forfeit your yearly bonus for the next two to five years and attend vigorous retraining at a 25% pay decrease.”
I looked at the rep and walked out. I quit immediately. The rep was so incensed that he and the union brought action against the bank, but by that stage, I was so over it I didn’t care!
I was helping an elderly customer making their first customer account on our website. They did try from the website on a tablet and then the app on said tablet; they didn’t have a computer. After thirty minutes of it not working:
Customer: “Would it work on the app from a phone?”
Me: “Yes, that should work, but it might be difficult now since you’re talking with me.”
Customer: “The phone is around here somewhere, but it’s been hard to find all day.”
I assumed they maybe had two phones for different purposes, so I just waited… until the customer realised that they were using said phone to talk with me.
After a forty-minute phone call without them being able to make an account, they would now try on their own and call back the day after. I ended up staying until well after closing because of the call.
At least the customer was nice to talk to and joked about their own mistake, so that was not as bad as it could have been.
