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Thread ID: 110382	2010-06-14 20:37:00	Experts and Call Centres	pctek (84)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1110269	2010-06-14 20:37:00	I had to ring Vodafone last week as my Caller ID wasn't working. This showed as being active on my account, however I noticed it wasn't working after a few days. (being on an exchange incapable of it for 4 years, it took me a while.....) I called and explained the situation and the Vodafone call centre twit immediately started telling me I needed to disconnect all devices from jackpoints, remove my filter from the phone etc. We had a bit of an argument over that, I had pointed out caller ID didn't work from day one, when I had been using the phone without a filter at all (it was still in the moving truck). Then he said Henderson exchange was not able to provide me with caller ID because I already had Voicemail and having both enabled causes caller ID to not work. This was apparently because the exchange is a 6E. At which point I told him to stop talking and log it as a fault. He then insisted I would be charged for a problem at my end. When the Chorus guys turned up here they wondered why on earth they had been sent to my address and phoned in to get the caller ID enabled at the exchange like it should have been. Later that day Caller ID was now sorted. It's not the problem - it's the call centre people. I know better, for one thing my husband had originally installed that exchange, and various of it's upgrades. We had also been off that exchange previously and had these phone features enabled. I knew better, but loads of people ringing in with these sort of issues would believe them and go away thinking they couldn't have the service. Really, they should have a few clues before being employed, and if they really don't know something, check with someone who does before giving this sort of info to customers. Also my friend has just been employed by Trustpower. Or Kinect. She thought she'd be answering queries about power, and she will be but she didn't know that she will also being doing helpdesk for phone and internet as well. Not too worry, she's learned a lot from me over the years, but the other new people have no IT experience at all. She's noticed one or two, during training, not paying attention to the lessons, and playing on the PC in general. She says she can see why customers get irate sometimes when they call. On a side note, she doesn't get free or even discounted anything from them, not power, phone or internet of any kind. Rather tight of them.......	pctek (84)
1110270	2010-06-14 21:13:00	I worked for EDS for a while (Now HP), and they would by and large just hire any monkey who told them they could answer a phone. The documentation there was horrifically out of date, with the exception of the doco I was re-writing as I went along because I was so fed up with having a useless knowledge base. After a while they noticed I was doing that and gave me the unofficial role of updating it. Then we get into process improvement, and fact of the matter is half the processes on that account were poor, not to mention they were rarely followed. It's why I despise helpdesks, and regularly get pissed off at whoever answers the phone if they try and muck me around like that happened with you, though I do feel sorry for people who aren't quite as technically minded about these things and wouldn't know they were being given the runaround... Either way, make a complaint to the Team Leader there. If the Team Leader isn't told things aren't going well, they rarely know. :-/	Chilling_Silence (9)
1110271	2010-06-14 21:20:00	Sad to say it, but if you pay peanuts you get monkeys; you also get people who don't like/aren't able to think for themselves. The fact is, most helpdesk roles are essentially just script reading, so if your issue doesn't run perfectly along their nicely laminated flow chart, you're better off just asking (firmly insisting) for level 2 support.	nofam (9009)
1110272	2010-06-14 21:22:00	Also due to the nature of call centre roles. Many are temp staff, some orgs choose to trial out temps then select the few on for permanent. Some may be employed under a fixed time when they know they have more traffic and then lay them off. Training for some industries might be just a month long then they go live with a few active instructors. 1 or 2 weeks of that they go live on the "real floor" with less support. You could be a uni student part time. For us they had to pay temp staff more than perm just to attract them. Back in 2004, $14/hr was the norm, while perm was paid maybe $12/hr (but with job security). B/c they are temping via a employment agent, they don't have access to a union. They also lose the perks that the perm staff get. For us anyway, if you are longer on the phone call someone would race over to your desk, if you are offline doing some admin work longer than necessary they do the same and on an occasion it was fruitless putting my side to it (we had a caller who threatened to go to his MP), the same person who sat with me doing the admin work later came back said it should of taken that long, so I got my pay deducted. Call centre job answering phones is not a fantastic job. Low pay, for many no job security, front line so you get the abuse.. Some OE's get call centre cos they might be seen easy jobs to get and they get an income while they are holidaying here ... Some of them don't need experience, they might at at time take up 50s or 100s of staff train them up within that month and in 3 months let them go ... then maybe retain 25 staff as perm for those who choose to apply in. At the time we had a 45yr old colleague (a she) and she chose not to apply back, she had a mortgage to pay and chose to work at Countdown instead :D AFAIK the same for those in Manila - they have a high turnover as well. But then again they are paid even less than us here.	Nomad (952)
1110273	2010-06-14 21:54:00	Then he said Henderson exchange was not able to provide me with caller ID because I already had Voicemail and having both enabled causes caller ID to not work . This was apparently because the exchange is a 6E . That is definitely wrong as the only reason I knew that I could get caller id was we got shifted to a 61E (after years of being told it would take a number change) and the message waiting light started to work .	PaulD (232)
1110274	2010-06-14 23:16:00	Oxymoron - Experts and Call Centres ... didn't think they could be used in the same sentence :)	SP8's (9836)
1110275	2010-06-15 00:48:00	My TC cable was down yesterday. Took only ten minutes to get a knowledgeable friendly woman on the phone. Excellent service.	KarameaDave (15222)
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