Technically, An Impossible Demand

I work in a call center for an Internet company. I am not technically trained, nor am I trained for billing. I have basic customer service training with our programs, so if someone’s out of service, I have my quick pre-checks to decide whether or not to send them over to tech.

This is more toward the end of a call.

Me: “All right, sir, I’m all set to get you over to our technical support. It is about a five-minute wait, but it shouldn’t be any longer than that.”

Customer: “Would you like me to hang up and call technical support?”

Me: “Oh, are you not on location or not able to stay on the phone any longer?”

Customer: “No, I just don’t want you to have to use one of your transfers.”

Me: “One of my transfers?”

Customer: “Yeah, one of your transfers. To a different department? I don’t want you to be penalized for that.”

Me: “They… They’re not going to penalize me for doing a transfer, sir. I don’t have any technical training; I can’t help you anymore besides getting you to our tech support.”

Customer: “Really? The call center I used to work at would penalize you if you had too many transfers. I was customer service, and transferring someone who was having technical issues over to tech support wasn’t good if you did it too many times. It was to the point that we were telling customers to hang up and call back.”

That is the dumbest policy I have heard in my life. Some of my coworkers have technical training, but if they’re acting as a customer service representative, they have to transfer. We’re not even allowed to tell customers to reboot devices or unplug and plug something back in — which is its own issue, honestly — but to tell your employees that if they transfer too many customers they will be penalized? If I was told that by an agent, I would be confused and angry, like I can assume most were, especially if you’ve been waiting on hold for a while.

Needless to say, the customer was quite surprised and grateful that he didn’t need to call back even with the low wait time. I still cannot get over that type of policy. What is even the point of it? If you don’t train your employees for technical support, don’t expect them to not transfer.