January 12, 2016

Call Center Reference

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Alright, so I've been working as a smartphone specialist at a small, local cellular provider for a while now. That's a glorified title for a call center worker. I like my job, quite a lot actually, but man I get some absolute morons. I'm going to be writing some of the calls I've gotten, whether funny or rage-inducing, that I or my coworkers have had. I'll be writing them all from my perspective, for simplicity's sake.

These are 100% real to the best of my knowledge.

Customer: I'm being hacked, I need your help.
Me: Ok, why do you think you're being hacked?
Customer: I was visiting a prison and one of the inmates told me he could hack anything, and he's hacking my phone. I need it erased.

Customer: Why is my bill so high? This is outrageous, you guys are trying to cheat me.
Me: It appears your bill is that high due to using nearly 700 gigabytes of data on your 16gb plan.

Customer: I want a warranty replacement on my phone, they advertised it was indestructible and it's not.
Me: Ok, what type of phone do you have?
Customer: It's the CAT B15 [a fairly rugged smartphone, but not advertised as indestructible]
Me: What happened to the phone?
Customer: I accidentally backed over it with my semi-truck and the screen shattered. It also is very dusty. Can I talk with your supervisor?

I spent nearly five entire minutes trying to explain to an older lady how to press the home button on the iPhone. She simply couldn't comprehend “press the only physical button on the front of your device, it's round and just below the screen.” Once she managed to press it, I directed her to go to the Settings app and she broke into tears.

I have a lot more. Some pre-typed, some not.
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Customer: What are these overages about on my bill? I've never had overages before.
Me: [after examining bill] It seems you used 17 gigabytes of data, and your plan is only for 1 gigabyte.
Customer: But all I did during the month was watch YouTube, some Netflix, tethered it to my Xbox, and downloaded a movie on it. A gigabyte should handle that, right?
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Me: Ok, you should now see two options on your screen, one named 'internet' and one named 'MMS'. Do you see those?
Customer: I only see MMS.
Me: So you don't see the internet option?
Customer: Nope, only MMS.
Me: [guide them through the process of adding the internet option] Ok, so what options do you see now?
Customer: I see internet, MMS, and another internet.
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Ok, I promise I'm not making this up. It may be hard to believe, but it's true.

Customer: My husband's android isn't working right.
Me: Ok, what seems to be the problem?
Customer: It's not working right.
Me: Is it able to make phone calls or send text messages?
Customer: What's a phone call?
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My department sits within easy earshot of the credit department, who are responsible to tracking down those who haven't paid their bills on time and whatnot. I heard one of the ladies over there actually say "No I'm sorry, we can't take cash over the phone"
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Customer: Hi, I'm having issues with my Google Comcast.
Me: Google Comcast? Those are two different companies, what exactly are you having issues with?
Customer: It's my Google Comcast stick, I know you guys don't sell them so I don't expect you to know what it is, but it won't connect to your internet service.
Me: Could you describe the device that won't connect? [thinking it may be a Chromecast]
Customer: It's like a flash drive, and the box says G-O-O-G-L-E C-H-R-O-M-E-C-A-S-T. Google Comcast.
Me: I believe that's the Chromecast.
>>
The lack of green text makes me feel like I'm looking at something from reddit.
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Customer: Hey, I think I have malware on my phone, or some sort of tracking bug.
Me: Ok, why do you think that?
Customer: I got arrested a couple days ago for having cocaine, weed, and ecstasy on me, and I think the police put a virus on my iPhone in that time. They're watching me, man.


Oh and it's worth mentioning, before you can be directed to a human, you get a message saying your call is being recorded. Druggies, man.
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>>662862042
I couldn't think of a good way to have a 2 way dialogue in greentext.
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I feel You OP. I used to work at a call center for diretv. I talked to some of this coolest, and some of the stupidest people of my life in that time. Was a good experience
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Sometimes it's the unnecessary details that the customer feels like imparting that make my day. Such as...

Customer: My internet isn't working on my phone, I can't watch my FOX news broadcast.
Me: Alright, give me just a moment to look over your account...
Customer: With all this stuff happening in Paris, you have to keep up with the news. I need the internets for this.
Me: That's understandable.
Customer: Gotta be prepared in case those damn ISIS people attack us. They hit Paris, which is the third biggest city in the world. They could hit LA next, or New York, which are the next two biggest cities.
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>>662863034
Also what the hell is Captcha's deal today, it fails me about half the time even though it says I got it right at first.

This is attempt 7. Getting fucking pissed.
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Monitoring. I feel for you OP
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>>662863324
Thanks. Captcha is really slowing me down. Give me some time
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please label them as different calls op or green text
> like this
< put the right arrow > pointing this way infront of your text
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>>662863421
dealing with the public has it's points. good read
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>>662863456
I'll try it.

>Customer: Why the fuck isn't my internet working? I pay way too much god damn money for my internet to not be working. Your service is terrible.
>Me: Ok, well we can definitely see if we can find what the issue is. Let's go through your settings. 
[long story short, go through settings and find he accidentally turned off his own internet]
>Me: Well, it looks like we got that fixed. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
>Customer: Why is your service turning the data off on my phone? Shouldn't that be illegal? I want to speak with your manager.

The setting that was off was one that only a user could turn off, the cell phone company couldn't.

Also it's taken me 20+ god damn captcha tries, what the hell is going on. This is fucking impossible
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Bump
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>>662861206 (OP)
Conversation with me and OP

Me: My cell keeps crashing.
OP: Did you try turning it off and back on again?
Me: Yes.
OP: Well, there's nothing more I can do, because I'm a retarded bitch, and have no real knowledge.
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Just keeping it alive i hope.
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Bump
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>>662863975
Wow there buddy. Did you have a bad experience with customer service? Its oke to vent dude no worries.
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>>662861206 (OP)
>I spent nearly five entire minutes trying to explain to an older lady how to press the home button on the iPhone. She simply couldn't comprehend “press the only physical button on the front of your device, it's round and just below the screen.”
i used to work wifi support for comcast and i had an older woman that couldnt get it for 30 whole minutes. exact same wording as you, i swear man. some people. i feel your pain and sometimes it's great when people are friendly, but when they're jumping down your throat, makes you want to facepunch a baby.

and yea, i seem to be having the same issue with captcha not working, either on private mode, or nonprivate, i figured it might be private mode, then i read everyone else was having issues here.
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>>662863708
>Customer: So everything on my phone works fine, except for my dating apps. Do you think you could help me get them working?
>Me: I can try, although it's probable that the issue is a programming issue with the developers. 
>Customer: Ok, good. Those apps are very important to me. One of them let's be talk to girls in China. Can you imagine that? I can talk with girls from the middle of communist China, right on my phone!

He sounded like a very airy 40-50 year old man. Had a "Betty" on the account with the same last name as an authorized agent, I could only assume a wife.
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CALL CENTER PEONS UNITE!

I work for a rather large cell company though. Tier 1 technical support and customer care.

Had a guy REFUSE to power cycle his phone, stated it wouldn't fix the issue and I was lying to him.
>iphone
>made him reset network settings
>LOL HE WAS ON THE PHONE HE WAS CALLING ABOUT
>oops

called him back 2 miutes later (enough timee for the phone to power back on)

"YOU TRICKED ME"
>yeah but it worked, didn't it?
"Oh yeah you're right. my bad"
click.
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>>662864226
As a heads up, RSA means Retail Store Associate, AKA the morons who work in our physical stores. Their only incentive to work is to sell new plans, or they get fired. So after they make the sale, they frankly don't give a flying fuck and most of them are idiots.

>RSA: I have a router I need to do a warranty on.
>Me: What's the issue?
>RSA: It won't connect to the internet, and the orange light on type won't turn green.
>Me: Ok, so what have you done for troubleshooting?
>RSA: Oh I've done everything, the light on top just won't turn green.
>Me: Have you tried connecting to it?
>RSA: No, the light won't turn green.
>Me: But did you TRY connecting to it?
>RSA: No.
>Me: Try it.
[RSA tries, and as how the router has always worked, the light turns green once you connect a device to it]
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>>662864694
See I was about to criticize you for resetting network settings on the phone you were calling on, but it's a sneaky plot to get him to powercycle. Not bad. Though you did remove all his wifi passwords to do so.
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Remark-style:

ccia int'l plans// adv cust domestic plan will work in canada, but not Guatemala// adv int'l options// cust states she was adv when she set up service her plan would work anywhere coast to coast// adv domestic plan only works in USA// cust stated she would go to another carrier that supported intl usage in guatemala// reccom she do research for a prepaid guatemala sim card, but that i could not guarantee she would not also be billed by domestic carrier if service was not suspended for the trip// cust inq what sim card is, adv card that goes in phone; iphone, adv right side under pwr button// call dropped, no call back attempted// no changes made
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>>662865131
Was gonna tell him to manually reconnect to wifi, but then he hung up on me, no call back attempted, no changes made, cust ok
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>>662864985
Half of my department's responsibility is troubleshooting the damned home internet units. They're glorified hotspots, and suck ass.

>Customer: I can't get my home internet to work
>Me: Ok, so when you open an internet browser, what message do you get?
>Customer: A what?
>Me: A browser, like internet explorer or google chrome or firefox
>Customer: What?
>Me: Uh, do you see a blue 'E' with a loop around it at the bottom of your screen?
>Customer: Yes, what does it do?

>This mother fuckin customer didn't know what an internet browser was, and yet paid $45/mo for internet service
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>>662865551
I work for a cell phone company and that shit is nearly unreadable.

Also, nice missed quads.
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>>662861206 (OP)
Can't believe I never thought to share this, but here goes

I worked for an insurance company and handled claims. A woman called asking why on her accident claim we had denied her appliance benefit. an appliance would be having to get wheelchar,crutches, backbrace etc from an E.R.

THIS BITCH SENT US A RECEIPT FOR A DRYER SHE BOUGHT FROM SEARS

I fucking lost my shit had to slam the mute button as fast as I could because I could not control my laughter. People from all over heard my manic fucking fit of laughter, supervisors, assistant supervisors, people on breaks and lunch all came to see what the laughing was about as the word spread you could hear laughter spread through out the building riding a tide of disbelief that echo'd up and down the building until the sun set late in the afternoon. The women never realized the uproar she had caused or the lives she had enriched, but we all knew, we all knew deep down she had lost the game.
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>>662865885
you faggot, i was winning till now.
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OtherPeon, Not OP

>"They told me this tablet was free"
<It was, with a 2 yr contract for service, sir. We are able to provide you with discounted devices only if you agree to a 2 yr term. This tablet line is only $10 per month, maybe we could find a discount or promotion that would offset the costs?
>I dont care about the cost, i dont wanna be in a contract with yall ever again
Customer has 4 other smartphone lines, all renewed agreements on the same day as the tablet.
>Well they told me all i would have to pay is the access fee, they'd waive the activation
...
sir your $40 activation fee was waived... and the LINE ACCESS charge is $10 per month
>Lookie here ya lil bimbo i dont appreciate you insinuating im stupid, lemme talk to your supervisor
wut?
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>>662865876
short hand man. that handle time matters more than anything else.
plus enter bar doesnt work on remarks, slashes are my way of breaking shit up
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>>662865719
So I work in Colorado, though our main audience is Nebraska.

>Customer: So, hey man, where are you at?
>Me: We're located in [town] Colorado.
>Customer: Heh, heeehehehehe, you guys have EXTRA PRIVILEGES there, hehe. 

In case you didn't already, picture them with highschool boy stoner voices.
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>>662866786
I guess I'm a fast enough typer to use periods, spaces, and decent spelling in my notes. We get up to a minute and a half after calls to do notes.
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>>662866390
haha my bad, but it was a true story, hurt my sides just remembering it.
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>>662866994
fuck, comcast wants 0 seconds of aftercall to type notes, they dont understand that sometimes when you're fucking fixing the problem, and talking to the cx to figure out the issue, you still have to magically type out notes while talking and with one hand on the mouse to click on windows that make the text box lose focus. yea, right.
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>>662866994
I guess your center isn't constantly AHOD, bub.

GOOD FOR YOU with your minute and a half note-time.
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>>662867419
And that's why comcast has the worst customer service ever. We're not the best in existence, but we do genuinely try hard. Probably helps that we're never *crazy* busy. I've had anywhere from 3-8 people in my department, and I've never seen more than 8 calls in queue. Usually it's 1-2 in queue.
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>>662866788
>Customer: Hi, I'm having issues with my Google Comcast.
>Me: Google Comcast? Those are two different companies, what exactly are you having issues with?
>Customer: It's my Google Comcast stick, I know you guys don't sell them so I don't expect you to know what it is, but it won't connect to your internet service.
>Me: Could you describe the device that won't connect? [thinking it may be a Chromecast]
>Customer: It's like a flash drive, and the box says G-O-O-G-L-E C-H-R-O-M-E-C-A-S-T. Google Comcast.
>Me: I believe that's the Chromecast.

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