posted
As a corellary, if you work in a call center and eat on the phone while talking to me, you're an unprofessional jerk.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
What? You can’t understand me in between bites of my super sized thick burger? I thought my point was totally clear……..
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I suspect some people wouldn't be eating if their lunch wasn't the only time that the call centers were open that they could call, and they weren't put on hold for half an hour at a time...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Yeah, but you can stop eating when the person picks up. "Oh, excuse me, I just took a bite. . . there, I'm sorry, now I'm calling to. . ."
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Of course. Unless your lunch is over in 2 minutes, you've been waiting for 50, and you've finally given up and decided that you need to eat rather than not get lunch. In which case you probably should have eaten earlier, but you know how it goes. And if you're just taking bites while the other person is talking, it shouldn't be that much of a problem, right?
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
You don't understand. We're not on crappy little phones. We're on multi-million dollar phone systems. Our employers drop that kind of cash so that whatever we say will be as clear as possible (unless the csr is stupid and has the mic in their mouth or behind their ear). So it works both ways. If you chew, I can hear every single smack and squishy little sound. It's worse because I have a binaurial headset that covers both ears, so I get it in stereo.
Now, if you think that it's somehow my fault that everyone waits until either the last minute or their lunch break to call and clog up the lines, then you need to seriously rethink your importance in the grand scheme of the universe. I don't work here just so you can take your petty revenge out on me by eating and slurping on the other end of the line.
It's not my fault that you should have realized that calling during peak times will probably necessitate a long hold so you should probably use that down time to get through your lunch so you're not crabby at me because you had to wait to eat.
Seriously, it's gross and it makes you a jerk.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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PC, I'm just saying that if more call centers were open during times people weren't at work, it might not happen as much. I'm not saying they're not stupid or jerks. But contact with the phone-eaters might be reduced by being open when people weren't at work. For instance, my husband is gone from about 7 to 7 every day. If places aren't open at 6 or until 8 or something, he has to call during lunch.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
And what people would work in these call centers? Do you realize what a small labour pool you'd be dealing with? What few people, with intelligence and education, would work late into the night in a call center? I know a few, but they're the exception.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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quote:And what people would work in these call centers?
Well, I know lots of students who have done it. I have a friend who does for a living, and has since he was 18. There are many of us who have internal "clocks" that would better accomodate an alternate than a traditional work schedule. My sister-in-law, while not in that exact line of work, does take customer calls and works an alternate shift with her husband so they can have their daughter in daycare for the smallest amount of time possible. And I think about 2/3 of the companies we end up needing to call now actually have hours that can accomodate people who work. The ones that don't, well, they are starting to look bad in comparison.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I hate taking customer calls, that's one reason why I'm pursuing a profession where I won't be on the phone all day. Oh, I know I'll have to talk to parents on the phone at times and such, but I won't be chained to a desk taking call after call.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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My call center tried staying open 'til 9:00 PM to accomadate customer's schedules, and we didn't get enough calls to make it worth it. We were paying people to sit there and do nothing, not to mention keeping the lights and HVAC on for the whole floor when there were half a dozen people there. We went back to 7 - 7. We are open Saturdays, though, so there's another option if it can wait 'til the weekend.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Yeah, we have a couple of government plans that insisted on having saturday hours. The reps that work those hours pretty much surf the internet their entire shift and maybe get 2-3 calls all day. I'd totally volunteer (as I am a consumate work bum), but that's only in the Denver office.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Primal Curve: And what people would work in these call centers? Do you realize what a small labour pool you'd be dealing with? What few people, with intelligence and education, would work late into the night in a call center? I know a few, but they're the exception.
I work in a call center. We're open 24/7/365 without exception. We support a dozen languages. (Actually we support all languages, but often we have to call a translator for the lesser-spoken ones). Most of our CSRs are intelligent* and some of them are way more educated than the job requires but for various reasons are unemployed in their chosen field.
*Unfortunately it seems that the less intelligent ones get moved into management or "support" functions, notably our 1st tier internal tech support. Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
If your calling on your cell phone for for an auto insurance quote, don't do while you are driving.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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To be precise, I work in the network support department of a large call center. I don't take call center calls anymore. However, I used to and have worked both the evening and night shifts. I knew a lot of highly intelligent night shift call center workers. Most of them did eventually move on to other careers, but night-shift call center work can be ideal for some students.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
I worked in a call center for 5 years before I had kids. We were open 8-8; but being on the East Coast, if the left-coasters wanted to talk to us outside work hours they had to get up REALLY early.
I still agree with PC, phone ettiquette applies. I've eaten while on hold before, but once you're talking to someone, stop eating (or at least hold the receiver away from your mouth!).
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I'm sorry guys but with all the incredibly horrible experiences I've had with call centers (I'm looking at YOU SBC! But not JUST you!) I have problems feeling much sympathy.
There are actually 2 call centers I need to call sometime soon and I'm so dreading them I've been putting them off for a week.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
The mute button has it's uses. I eat while on the phone all the time. I doubt anyone knows, because it's muted while I have food in my mouth.
Posts: 1132 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I LOVE calling the call centers in India! The folk on the phone are so eager to please. And I get to ask them about what time it is over there, and what the weather is like, and have they ever been to New Jersey (Typical answer to that one, "No, but it is a dream of mine to be able to do so someday.") And it turns out that some of the people that I've called have friends or family who live in my town or the next town over. Which leads to a lot of "Do-you-knows". When I was on the phone with the Linksys people, I asked where they were, and they told me Bangalore. I told them that I work with a guy named Ramesh who was in Bangalore right now, and did he know him. I was informed that Ramesh is a very very common name in Bangalore. But when I told him Ramesh's last name and that he was a nurse in New Jersey, it turns out that the guy really did know him. I told him to send my regards and tell him that Esther said hello. When Ramesh got back from his trip, he told me that he got a message from me!
posted
I'm fortunate to work in a place where I don't have to put up with that sort of thing. If you call me and smacking drooling gobs of food are tumbling out of your mouth because your parents were such ignorant slobs that they never taught you how to chew with your mouth closed, I tell you to call back when you're done eating, and I hang up.
You couldn't pay me enough to take a job where I couldn't do that. What the heck has gone so wrong my country that simple manners are an "above and beyond" expectation?
Posts: 196 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tante Shvester: I LOVE calling the call centers in India! The folk on the phone are so eager to please. And I get to ask them about what time it is over there, and what the weather is like, and have they ever been to New Jersey (Typical answer to that one, "No, but it is a dream of mine to be able to do so someday.") And it turns out that some of the people that I've called have friends or family who live in my town or the next town over. Which leads to a lot of "Do-you-knows". When I was on the phone with the Linksys people, I asked where they were, and they told me Bangalore. I told them that I work with a guy named Ramesh who was in Bangalore right now, and did he know him. I was informed that Ramesh is a very very common name in Bangalore. But when I told him Ramesh's last name and that he was a nurse in New Jersey, it turns out that the guy really did know him. I told him to send my regards and tell him that Esther said hello. When Ramesh got back from his trip, he told me that he got a message from me!
quote:Originally posted by Palliard: You couldn't pay me enough to take a job where I couldn't do that. What the heck has gone so wrong my country that simple manners are an "above and beyond" expectation?
We developed a collective, overly-inflated sense of entitlement.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
I would much rather hear them eating than I would hearing the toliet flush, which has happened on occassion.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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