I decided to test out my theory yesterday, so I basically slept 11 hours yesterday to see if I'd still be tired today. The end result.....?
*drum roll*
I'm tired. And not just a little tired, but FRIGGING tired. I think the moral of the story here is not to waste time sleeping and just stay up all night cause it really doesn't make a damn difference if I sleep 3 hours vs 11 hours. Not that I'm bitter or anything.
Crap, chinese customer got all pissy with me today. He had called yesterday and gotten me, then I ended up booking a service call for him. Then he called back today more pissed than ever, cause his internet quit on him too. I remember talking to a TSR2 about it yesterday, and they said we hadn't collected enough examples in the area. I checked the area, and it was like 90% online, indicating that there wasn't a major issue. So I told him that there probably wasn't a problem in the area according to what we can see, and he totally freaked out on me! He was like "WTF cause I was out of internet and cable yesterday, I spent my time knocking on my neighbors houses yesterday to ask if they had services. They were all having the same bloody problem and you're telling me there's nothing wrong in our area?!" Uhh, yeah. *shrug* Again, too early in the morning to care.
But hahaha.. this one customer today called in to get TSN for the world cup, so I quoted her the install fee of 9.95 and also the 13.95 monthly charge. Then she was like "well I have 3 PPV coupons on my account cause your CSRs screwed up my account. Can I convert those into credit towards TSN?" I told her no, since it was against our policy. Then she tried to make me feel bad for her and proceeded to tell me about the previous CSR who had charged $6397.00 on her credit card vs the $63.97 she owed us. HAHAHA. Man. That did the trick for me though, and I fulfilled her request. I'd be so pissed of that happened to me. I'd demand a whole month of credit for my bill if that ever happened to me lol. 3 PPV coupons my ass lol.
Hmm...I had this pissed off customer call in who had lost his dialtone for the 3rd time in a week. Hoho, that was fun. Anyways, near the end of the call, he said,
"I had referred so many people to this service. If they're having the same problems as me I'm gonna be in bigass trouble. Oh by the way, we get a 25 dollar credit for each person we refer that signs up for digital phone right?"
"(Wanting to get off the call ASAP) Oh yeah as long as you give us all the info of the person."
So he did that and I said it'd be fine. Then when I looked into it further on our website, it turns out you can't get credit for existing SDP customers. When I looked at the two referrals he gave me, they had just signed up for SDP a couple days ago so technically the pissed off customer no longer qualified for the 25 dollar credit. (Here's where I say *shit* to myself)
So I go to a supervisor to try and get an override for this situation since I had screwed up. The supervisor agrees to it, on the condition that I call his friends to confirm that it was the pissed off customer who had referred them. Then I look at his friends accounts, and see that they've been having no dial tone/various other problems as well. (Here's where I really say "shit" out loud)
"Hi Ma'am, this is a follow up call from **insert company name here**. How's your phone service going? Oh, badly you say? Oh, okay. By the way, did anyone refer you to our phone service? Oh you're gonna go yell at him, you say? Okay, have a nice day now."
Seriously, we have GOT to define our support scope more for SDP. It's such a borderline for issues sometimes. Like how we don't support routers/broken pcs. Where is our limit for SDP? Cause currently, I'm trying to support everything, including broken phones *sigh*. And lets not even go into fax machines, cause each fax machine call I get takes around an hour at least to figure out. I had the luckiest encounters this past week when I started off with a fax machine call before 9 am each day. The fax machine issue on wednesday took me an hour and a half to figure out *cries*.
Moving on, I really hate people who argue with me when I'm trying to verify their information. (Phone #/Name/Address) Frigging hell, this guy today spent a good 3 minutes arguing with me on why he didn't need to give me his name and address since it was only technical related and not billing related.
He was like "you have my info in front of your face, I don't see a need to give it to you."
"Sir, it's procedure."
"No one else is going to call on behalf of me to try and fix my phone."
"Sir, this is the procedure we follow. Now please give me your name/address."
"This is stupid, just help me with my stupid phone."
"Sir, I'm not doing anything until you give me your name/address." ...aka ("YOU DUMBASS, GIVE ME YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS BEFORE I HANG UP ON YOUR ASS")
"Fine my name's blah, and my address is blah."
And finally, a mini continuation of yesterday's story with the TSR who transferred that internet/SDP call to me. He never did respond to my email asking which TSR2 was the one who told him to transfer to SDP queue. I have a feeling he was BSing. Bitch. I saw one of the trouble tickets he created yesterday. This was the heading: "cx wanted to install SS. Note: cx was passed to me by another tech who was not able to help him."
Ouch. The previous rep (tech as he calls it) states in his trouble ticket that he had only transferred it to this TSR because he was off his shift. (perfectly acceptable practice in our call center, to transfer a call when nearing end of shift)
Man, how would that TSR have liked it if I had put in my trouble ticket title: "TSR transferred internet call to SDP queue because he couldn't handle it." What a rudeass.
God... I sure hope that the new batch of TSRs coming in are significantly more intelligent than some of our reps. Sheesh.
One more day till the weekend *sigh*.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Another day...
I am NOT a morning person. I realize it doesn't matter how much sleep I get at night, because if I have to wake up before 10 am, I'm gonna be tired as hell. Such as now. Some people would argue with me that it's harder to go to a lecture tired. I disagree entirely. At least you don't have to talk. Frickin hell, trying to explain myself in cantonese sometimes makes me feel dumb beyond belief. You'd think my cantonese would have improved by now, but apparently, that assumption escapes my grasp. Oh whatever, it's too damn early.
My supervisor made me go into break 7 at 8:30 in the morning to get taught how to ask e-bills in chinese. The co-worker who was teaching me was like, man, you've got to be kidding right. Why is he always on your case?
Good question. I'd really like to know too. And now there's a minimum of 15 E-bills per month to be reached. Hahahaha that's insane. I'm not even on the internet queue, where the most number of people will agree to go on it. This job never gets easier. They always have to add some kind of challenge to keep us from getting bored I guess.
Geez, I had a TSR today transfer a call to me. He sounded confused. He told me,
"A TSR2 told me to transfer to the SDP queue cause you could get me a faster service call date for this customer."
".......um, okay. So this is an internet related issue then?"
"Yes, we'll probably have to book a service call for this customer. Their phone modem looks like the signal is a little high."
".... but the customer called in regarding their internet? Did they complain about their phone service?"
"Well, no."
"....... um okay pass the customer through."
So I talked to the customer, and they're not having issues with their phone at all. Yet here I am, booking them a service tech for their phone service, when the primary problem is the internet. Fantastic. I wonder who the TSR2 is that recommended that. Way to waste our limited SDP resources. *mutter* And it was only faster by 1 frigging day too. *sigh*
OMFG HAHAHA. They were giving out t-shirts today for us, (yay, they finally gave one to me in my own size, even though it's kind of nerdy looking) and when I was on my last break today, my female co-worker held up a black t-shirt to look at it. I got all excited cause I had wanted a black t-shirt versus the white one I have, and I wanted to know if the black t-shirt she had was a female size as well. So I stood up and I said "HEY! YOU GOT A BLACK ONE! HOW BIG IS IT?!" I hadn't realized what I had said, but ALLL the male co-workers sitting around me looked at me strangely and started laughing their asses off. I had no idea what was going on so when I asked my co-worker he repeated what I had said, and I started laughing too. Err, yeah. I don't have a sick mind....
Whoa, today I actually had a new recruit listen in on my calls. It was interesting... I was actually kind of shaking, but I couldn't tell if it was cause the stupid tower was so frigging cold or because I was nervous. He managed to listen in on a super hard call I couldn't figure out. Thank god the customer decided to call back since she had to go to school. It was so odd... but I won't go into it since it's all technical related. But yah, pretty cool. Except when I told the supervisor to take me off the cantonese queue since the new recruit couldn't listen to cantonese and he didn't do it. *mutter* useless *mutter*. Poor guy, listening to me troubleshoot with some customer in chinese hahaha. Eh.
Anyways, that's end of blog for me today. Except that I'm stuck on night shift again next month unless I can trade it off. *sigh*
My supervisor made me go into break 7 at 8:30 in the morning to get taught how to ask e-bills in chinese. The co-worker who was teaching me was like, man, you've got to be kidding right. Why is he always on your case?
Good question. I'd really like to know too. And now there's a minimum of 15 E-bills per month to be reached. Hahahaha that's insane. I'm not even on the internet queue, where the most number of people will agree to go on it. This job never gets easier. They always have to add some kind of challenge to keep us from getting bored I guess.
Geez, I had a TSR today transfer a call to me. He sounded confused. He told me,
"A TSR2 told me to transfer to the SDP queue cause you could get me a faster service call date for this customer."
".......um, okay. So this is an internet related issue then?"
"Yes, we'll probably have to book a service call for this customer. Their phone modem looks like the signal is a little high."
".... but the customer called in regarding their internet? Did they complain about their phone service?"
"Well, no."
"....... um okay pass the customer through."
So I talked to the customer, and they're not having issues with their phone at all. Yet here I am, booking them a service tech for their phone service, when the primary problem is the internet. Fantastic. I wonder who the TSR2 is that recommended that. Way to waste our limited SDP resources. *mutter* And it was only faster by 1 frigging day too. *sigh*
OMFG HAHAHA. They were giving out t-shirts today for us, (yay, they finally gave one to me in my own size, even though it's kind of nerdy looking) and when I was on my last break today, my female co-worker held up a black t-shirt to look at it. I got all excited cause I had wanted a black t-shirt versus the white one I have, and I wanted to know if the black t-shirt she had was a female size as well. So I stood up and I said "HEY! YOU GOT A BLACK ONE! HOW BIG IS IT?!" I hadn't realized what I had said, but ALLL the male co-workers sitting around me looked at me strangely and started laughing their asses off. I had no idea what was going on so when I asked my co-worker he repeated what I had said, and I started laughing too. Err, yeah. I don't have a sick mind....
Whoa, today I actually had a new recruit listen in on my calls. It was interesting... I was actually kind of shaking, but I couldn't tell if it was cause the stupid tower was so frigging cold or because I was nervous. He managed to listen in on a super hard call I couldn't figure out. Thank god the customer decided to call back since she had to go to school. It was so odd... but I won't go into it since it's all technical related. But yah, pretty cool. Except when I told the supervisor to take me off the cantonese queue since the new recruit couldn't listen to cantonese and he didn't do it. *mutter* useless *mutter*. Poor guy, listening to me troubleshoot with some customer in chinese hahaha. Eh.
Anyways, that's end of blog for me today. Except that I'm stuck on night shift again next month unless I can trade it off. *sigh*
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Lock me out!
Man, I got locked out of my computer today. I had decided to log out of my computer cause all the programs were being screwy, and when I tried to log back in, it said I had been locked out. Then I ran all over the floor to get help from a supervisor, but they kept directing me to someone else. Eventually, a supervisor gave me the extension to phone and talk to someone in the IT department. The guy was like yep, you're all good to go. Then when I tried to log back in, it said I had the wrong password. Then I tried again, and got locked out again *sigh*. Oh well at least that whole thing took like 11 minutes off the phones.
I hate people who treat me condescendingly and who say I don't know anything. It annoys the hell out of me. Then I tend to get clouded with anger and can't troubleshoot properly. Old fart called in, and couldn't get channel 36. It took me 5 mins to diagnose the problem as he had a heavy accent and wasn't really explaining the problem. Anyways, by that time, I was already so pissed cause he was like you don't know what you're talking about yadda yadda. When I zapped his frigging DCT, for some weirdass reason, his TV no longer stayed on for more than 5 seconds. Geezuz. Naturally he blamed us, since I was the last one who had touched his DCT. *sigh*
I want to go home now :(
I hate people who treat me condescendingly and who say I don't know anything. It annoys the hell out of me. Then I tend to get clouded with anger and can't troubleshoot properly. Old fart called in, and couldn't get channel 36. It took me 5 mins to diagnose the problem as he had a heavy accent and wasn't really explaining the problem. Anyways, by that time, I was already so pissed cause he was like you don't know what you're talking about yadda yadda. When I zapped his frigging DCT, for some weirdass reason, his TV no longer stayed on for more than 5 seconds. Geezuz. Naturally he blamed us, since I was the last one who had touched his DCT. *sigh*
I want to go home now :(
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
I'm not the only one who can speak Cantonese!
Man, why does every rep who needs a cantonese speaker come to me first? THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE ON SHIFT BESIDES ME. Someone today passed me a cantonese fax machine call that took me an hour and a half to resolve *sigh*. Good thing that customer was somewhat smart. I'd hate to have done it with a grandma *SIGH*.
Speaking of which. Frickin Hell. They're taking away our break 7's?! I hold on to those like a teddy bear at night. Oh, break 7's are basically a mode where we don't take calls, we only make callbacks. It's very important to SDP reps because we do alot of callbacks, and work time affects our stats since we're only alotted a certain amount of work mode (aka 2 minutes). Now they expect us to make SDP callbacks allllll in work mode. Well I guess they can expect my work time to jump up 1000x. Yummy, average 1500 second work time. What the hell is that? Ouch 25 min work time hahaha. Oh my poor stats. Oh well I guess customer service will have to suffer.
"Well sir, I'd normally call you back after refreshing your phone service since you'll be losing dial tone, but instead, you'll have to call us back. Want to take it up with a supervisor??! PLEASE SAY YES." *pulls hair out*
So today in our team meeting, we played "Who wants to be a millionaire?" Hahaha I think our department is so nerdy sometimes... they were all like, "are these [insert name of my company] related questions?" Hahaha. Eh. By the way, a US scrabble board contains 100 blocks of letters. Fascinating tidbit for you isn't it.
God what is it with customers and associating us with their computer crap. You think we can magically push a button and everything comes back a-ok?!? Screw you. I had this customer who totally freaked out on me cause I couldn't recover her "long" email that she wrote and lost in a computer crash. Illegal operation ahaha.
"Lady, seriously, Win98 sucks, I'd tell you call Microsoft for further help, but even THEY'VE stopped supporting their own product."
"F***ING YOU GUYS ARE USELESS. DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?? YOU CAN RECOVER IT YOU'RE LYING. I CAN'T RETYPE THIS EMAIL AGAIN, I NEED TO SEND IT NOW."
"I F***ING CARE, NOW SHOVE IT." (I wish)
Man I'm hostile today hahaha.
Oooh yeah, I wanted to report that I've finally found a CSR I like. And it only took 7 months hahaha. She's a cantonese speaking rep too, and she called me two times today to ask for my help to look up stuff. The reason I like her is cause she didn't throw her shitty calls on me even though I offered to take over the call since it was technical related and not really having to do CSRs at all. She said "Nah I can handle it. Besides if I wanted to pass it onto technical service, I'd hang up with you and call back to get a guy. It's better for a guy to take the damage rather than a girl!" Hahaha that made me laugh.
I just thought of something funny. Well probably not funny to any of you guys, but funny to me. Sometimes, when I'm transferring, I'm on hold for years waiting for a mandarin rep to take over a mandarin call. I get the feeling during those times that the cantonese queue and the mandarin queue are transferring each others respective languages to each other, thus effectively halting our operation at a standstill. What's that mean? I dunno, too tired to get it.
Man, two and a half hours of sleep really kills me. I can't believe I actually woke up. I didn't even get a good two and a half hrs of sleep too cause I was so hot and my allergies were going. Boohoo. I can barely open my eyes. And yet here I am, typing away. Kudos to me.
Crap, I better ask for at least one E-Bill this month, or my supervisor's gonna get on my case again. Good night all *yawn.*
Speaking of which. Frickin Hell. They're taking away our break 7's?! I hold on to those like a teddy bear at night. Oh, break 7's are basically a mode where we don't take calls, we only make callbacks. It's very important to SDP reps because we do alot of callbacks, and work time affects our stats since we're only alotted a certain amount of work mode (aka 2 minutes). Now they expect us to make SDP callbacks allllll in work mode. Well I guess they can expect my work time to jump up 1000x. Yummy, average 1500 second work time. What the hell is that? Ouch 25 min work time hahaha. Oh my poor stats. Oh well I guess customer service will have to suffer.
"Well sir, I'd normally call you back after refreshing your phone service since you'll be losing dial tone, but instead, you'll have to call us back. Want to take it up with a supervisor??! PLEASE SAY YES." *pulls hair out*
So today in our team meeting, we played "Who wants to be a millionaire?" Hahaha I think our department is so nerdy sometimes... they were all like, "are these [insert name of my company] related questions?" Hahaha. Eh. By the way, a US scrabble board contains 100 blocks of letters. Fascinating tidbit for you isn't it.
God what is it with customers and associating us with their computer crap. You think we can magically push a button and everything comes back a-ok?!? Screw you. I had this customer who totally freaked out on me cause I couldn't recover her "long" email that she wrote and lost in a computer crash. Illegal operation ahaha.
"Lady, seriously, Win98 sucks, I'd tell you call Microsoft for further help, but even THEY'VE stopped supporting their own product."
"F***ING YOU GUYS ARE USELESS. DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?? YOU CAN RECOVER IT YOU'RE LYING. I CAN'T RETYPE THIS EMAIL AGAIN, I NEED TO SEND IT NOW."
"I F***ING CARE, NOW SHOVE IT." (I wish)
Man I'm hostile today hahaha.
Oooh yeah, I wanted to report that I've finally found a CSR I like. And it only took 7 months hahaha. She's a cantonese speaking rep too, and she called me two times today to ask for my help to look up stuff. The reason I like her is cause she didn't throw her shitty calls on me even though I offered to take over the call since it was technical related and not really having to do CSRs at all. She said "Nah I can handle it. Besides if I wanted to pass it onto technical service, I'd hang up with you and call back to get a guy. It's better for a guy to take the damage rather than a girl!" Hahaha that made me laugh.
I just thought of something funny. Well probably not funny to any of you guys, but funny to me. Sometimes, when I'm transferring, I'm on hold for years waiting for a mandarin rep to take over a mandarin call. I get the feeling during those times that the cantonese queue and the mandarin queue are transferring each others respective languages to each other, thus effectively halting our operation at a standstill. What's that mean? I dunno, too tired to get it.
Man, two and a half hours of sleep really kills me. I can't believe I actually woke up. I didn't even get a good two and a half hrs of sleep too cause I was so hot and my allergies were going. Boohoo. I can barely open my eyes. And yet here I am, typing away. Kudos to me.
Crap, I better ask for at least one E-Bill this month, or my supervisor's gonna get on my case again. Good night all *yawn.*
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Someone slap the pun out of me.
Relatively uneventful day again, except that they jumped me on alllll 6 queues. Yep, Cable/Internet/PPV/HDTV/Cantonese/SDP. All they needed to do was jump me on the mandarin queue to complete the funness. Yay. The reason?
Oh, I arrived to work today at 8, but I totally forgot that I start at 9 on weekends. So I was 2 mins late too (which is fine, they give you a 5 minute window to be "late" and you still get paid for it), and I hurried and logged in the phone when I got in. Then I looked around my table, and I was like man, where is everyone? So I sat in work mode to open all the programs and stuff I needed, then opened my schedule last - finally noticing "Start time - 9:00am". !@$#%^. Good thing a supervisor let me start an hour early, or I'd be so pissed waiting at work for an hour like an idiot. The flip side was that they said I had to go on internet queue or they couldn't let me start early today. Oh well.
OMG, some chinese customer actually complimented me on my elite cantonese skills. That must be the first ever. He was like "yeah, I can tell you're not from China/Hong Kong, but your cantonese is very good." What a funny compliment, considering my Cantonese sucks haha. Anyways I just thought I'd share cause yeah, that's weird.
Oooh, yeah I thought of a seemingly funny pun yesterday.
I was on work mode (a mode on the phones where they give you time to document a call or go to the washroom or whatever, meaning no calls come through whatsoever) after a call one day, and I forgot to get out of it. So I was sitting there for 25 minutes or so reading my book, wondering why no calls were coming through when finally someone from CM desk called me up and asked me what's going on. I had no clue I was being an idiot though, so I apologized profusely and got back to work.
Then I thought to myself, I should have said "I'm sorry, I was on a novel project." Hehe... man I'm getting lame. I guess that's what happens when I hang around too much with bad influencing peers. *cough*
Oh oh oh I just thought of another pun. This SDP customer who couldn't call austria was calling us everyday to find out why. It had been escalated to our operations center 4 frigging times already, and I promised a call back in 24 hrs. I hadn't received a reply back from ops today, so I decided to phone the pissed off customer back to inform him of the fantastic news that it'd be another day until we could "resolve" the problem. Then when he picked up, and he's like "fantastic guys, it's finally working! Thanks alot!" I was like PHEW, I'm off the hook!!! GET IT GET IT?! Phone? Off the hook? :(
Haha, today actually passed by very fast. Well, faster than usual. Weird. Yay for my weekend now.
Oh, I arrived to work today at 8, but I totally forgot that I start at 9 on weekends. So I was 2 mins late too (which is fine, they give you a 5 minute window to be "late" and you still get paid for it), and I hurried and logged in the phone when I got in. Then I looked around my table, and I was like man, where is everyone? So I sat in work mode to open all the programs and stuff I needed, then opened my schedule last - finally noticing "Start time - 9:00am". !@$#%^. Good thing a supervisor let me start an hour early, or I'd be so pissed waiting at work for an hour like an idiot. The flip side was that they said I had to go on internet queue or they couldn't let me start early today. Oh well.
OMG, some chinese customer actually complimented me on my elite cantonese skills. That must be the first ever. He was like "yeah, I can tell you're not from China/Hong Kong, but your cantonese is very good." What a funny compliment, considering my Cantonese sucks haha. Anyways I just thought I'd share cause yeah, that's weird.
Oooh, yeah I thought of a seemingly funny pun yesterday.
I was on work mode (a mode on the phones where they give you time to document a call or go to the washroom or whatever, meaning no calls come through whatsoever) after a call one day, and I forgot to get out of it. So I was sitting there for 25 minutes or so reading my book, wondering why no calls were coming through when finally someone from CM desk called me up and asked me what's going on. I had no clue I was being an idiot though, so I apologized profusely and got back to work.
Then I thought to myself, I should have said "I'm sorry, I was on a novel project." Hehe... man I'm getting lame. I guess that's what happens when I hang around too much with bad influencing peers. *cough*
Oh oh oh I just thought of another pun. This SDP customer who couldn't call austria was calling us everyday to find out why. It had been escalated to our operations center 4 frigging times already, and I promised a call back in 24 hrs. I hadn't received a reply back from ops today, so I decided to phone the pissed off customer back to inform him of the fantastic news that it'd be another day until we could "resolve" the problem. Then when he picked up, and he's like "fantastic guys, it's finally working! Thanks alot!" I was like PHEW, I'm off the hook!!! GET IT GET IT?! Phone? Off the hook? :(
Haha, today actually passed by very fast. Well, faster than usual. Weird. Yay for my weekend now.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
The new hot topic - TFRs
Surprisingly enough, I haven't been receiving many escalations due CSRs. Not to say that they've improved of course, but one can only hope eh? Lately, I've had an increase in the number of upset customers over SDP installs.
Yesterday, I had a cantonese customer who was telling me that a technician told her it was perfectly normal when picking up her phone, that she'd get the dialtone... and a radio voice on top of that! She was saying: "Man, I was ready to recommend this service to my friends, and you're telling me that's normal??" So while you're talking on the phone with your friend, you have Mariah Carey or whatever singing in the background on the phone. Ahahaha. Yes ma'am, it's a free added feature to our service!
And then today, I had a customer who had an alarm system. Her alarm thing started beeping when our tech was about to leave, and when our customer tried to confront him, he shrugged his shoulders and got in the car to leave. Then she had take time off work today, pay a technician from the alarm company to fix that beeping, and then call me. Yeah, she wasn't a happy camper.
The very first call I received this morning RIGHTTT at 8 am was an irate customer. I didn't even get to finish my intro. I was like "Thank you for... "
"KLJKLASJFIJKLSDF FIX MY F***ING BOX ITS FROZEN AGAIN."
Good thing I'm particularly insensitive in the morning and really don't give a damn haha.
Mmm, more stories on TFRs later.
Yesterday, I had a cantonese customer who was telling me that a technician told her it was perfectly normal when picking up her phone, that she'd get the dialtone... and a radio voice on top of that! She was saying: "Man, I was ready to recommend this service to my friends, and you're telling me that's normal??" So while you're talking on the phone with your friend, you have Mariah Carey or whatever singing in the background on the phone. Ahahaha. Yes ma'am, it's a free added feature to our service!
And then today, I had a customer who had an alarm system. Her alarm thing started beeping when our tech was about to leave, and when our customer tried to confront him, he shrugged his shoulders and got in the car to leave. Then she had take time off work today, pay a technician from the alarm company to fix that beeping, and then call me. Yeah, she wasn't a happy camper.
The very first call I received this morning RIGHTTT at 8 am was an irate customer. I didn't even get to finish my intro. I was like "Thank you for... "
"KLJKLASJFIJKLSDF FIX MY F***ING BOX ITS FROZEN AGAIN."
Good thing I'm particularly insensitive in the morning and really don't give a damn haha.
Mmm, more stories on TFRs later.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
DON'T 'TELL US'
Man, I'm getting badly influenced by Tracy. I find that pissed off customers really like to compare us with Telus.
"Oh Telus would have a tech out here for us RIGHT NOW."
Okay, but it'd be 120 bucks per hour thanks.
"Oh Telus reception was never like this."
... well can't really argue that.
"Oh well my phone worked with Telus."
... now it's just getting sad.
Haha I can't believe someone actually lives on a street that's called "Connaught Dr"!!
"What's your address, sir?"
"9999 Cannot Drive" I almost laughed out loud. It was early in the morning too, and I find alot of things funny in the morning.
Man, I'm so not used to morning shifts. From 8am-10am, my mind is literally asleep and I don't even feel bad at all when a customer is yelling at me. Well, I guess that's a good thing. This female customer was calling in asking for help with her tv that's hooked up to a DCT. She was getting poor reception after her kids had touched it, so I zapped the box (meaning we reset it) and the picture came back even worse. Then she started screaming at me cause our next service call was next week sometime. She didn't even have her TV remote control. I bet it was just because she wasn't on channel 3 even though she insisted she was.
*shrug*
"Oh Telus would have a tech out here for us RIGHT NOW."
Okay, but it'd be 120 bucks per hour thanks.
"Oh Telus reception was never like this."
... well can't really argue that.
"Oh well my phone worked with Telus."
... now it's just getting sad.
Haha I can't believe someone actually lives on a street that's called "Connaught Dr"!!
"What's your address, sir?"
"9999 Cannot Drive" I almost laughed out loud. It was early in the morning too, and I find alot of things funny in the morning.
Man, I'm so not used to morning shifts. From 8am-10am, my mind is literally asleep and I don't even feel bad at all when a customer is yelling at me. Well, I guess that's a good thing. This female customer was calling in asking for help with her tv that's hooked up to a DCT. She was getting poor reception after her kids had touched it, so I zapped the box (meaning we reset it) and the picture came back even worse. Then she started screaming at me cause our next service call was next week sometime. She didn't even have her TV remote control. I bet it was just because she wasn't on channel 3 even though she insisted she was.
*shrug*
Saturday, June 17, 2006
I hate working on weekends.
**** edit ****
Since Rachel's so insistent on this... two SDP calls that are in cantonese are a rarity, since I rarely even get one per week.
It's the worst, cause I'm usually the only SDP Cantonese rep on the floor. Man, I had a whopping two cantonese SDP calls today. The first one was a nightmare *sigh*. P.S. THANKS S.J.!!!!!!!!!!! The cantonese customer couldn't speak any english at all, and I couldn't even say "cordless" cause yeah I'm just that good. The customer was kind of rude, well I guess typical for people from china, but yeah. I hate richmond customers. They're so obnoxious.
I'm waiting for this SDP caller that everyone in the call center is talking about. He's crazy and he thinks the CIA and us are monitoring his every call. Apparently, it started with his ex-girlfriend who pranked him and decided to set up his SDP so that every call forwarded to her cell phone number. So he thinks the whole world is against him now and calls us, going berserk on us and make accusations. Can't wait. Our department isn't that big.
Other than that, relatively uneventful day. Well except for the 70 odd calls on wait. Stupid email. I hate you.
Since Rachel's so insistent on this... two SDP calls that are in cantonese are a rarity, since I rarely even get one per week.
It's the worst, cause I'm usually the only SDP Cantonese rep on the floor. Man, I had a whopping two cantonese SDP calls today. The first one was a nightmare *sigh*. P.S. THANKS S.J.!!!!!!!!!!! The cantonese customer couldn't speak any english at all, and I couldn't even say "cordless" cause yeah I'm just that good. The customer was kind of rude, well I guess typical for people from china, but yeah. I hate richmond customers. They're so obnoxious.
I'm waiting for this SDP caller that everyone in the call center is talking about. He's crazy and he thinks the CIA and us are monitoring his every call. Apparently, it started with his ex-girlfriend who pranked him and decided to set up his SDP so that every call forwarded to her cell phone number. So he thinks the whole world is against him now and calls us, going berserk on us and make accusations. Can't wait. Our department isn't that big.
Other than that, relatively uneventful day. Well except for the 70 odd calls on wait. Stupid email. I hate you.
Friday, June 16, 2006
HDTV - WHY MUST YOU HAUNT ME.
GEEZ. I know more about HDTV than I'd really care to know, and customers care too much to want to know. I guess it makes sense though, since they'd spend 800 bucks on the digital box, another 2-3 grand on a HDTV and 500 on cables. Each HDTV customer that calls in is so freaking inquisitive. Takes me a long time to explain as well since it gets complicated. Oh, my poor talk time! Crap, I gotta get out of that queue now. Half my calls today were HDTV related bah.
That's not to say I wouldn't want one of course. How about a donation to a worthy cause people? *cough*. HEY YOU SHOULDN'T BE GETTING ALL THESE FUNNY STORIES FOR FREE. IT TAKES WORK TO RANT.
Haha, it's so funny whenever it becomes 8 and all the china gate members log out of the phones. Basically, all chinese calls that call into the china gate are then transferred to our english gate. So as I'm walking to the elevator to go home, I hear my co-workers saying "No, chinese line is now closed.... THEY'RE NOW CLOSED, DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ENGLISH?!"
Man, at one of our team meetings, I was the only China gate member, and then some guy brought up the concern of the china gate closing so early. Alot of my other team members were in complete agreement! They were all like "Yeah, what the hell are we supposed to do with those customers when they just can't communicate in english well enough to troubleshoot? Make the china gate have longer hours past 8! It's not fair that they should go home so early." I felt so attacked. *boohoo.*
I was thinking to myself, man it's SO fair. We take so many more calls than people on the regular line. It really is amazing how many chinese people there are here in Van.
Anyways, the pissed SDP call today was as follows:
"Hi M, I'm having a problem with my phone service again. It's not a no dial tone problem this time. I'm getting a fast busy signal from all my phones right now when I pick up."
"Oh, *thinks to self - WTF?* okay, so can you make calls?"
"No, I can't receive calls either."
"Uh, okay. Well let me refresh your telephone service. I'll call you back on your cell phone in 2-5 minutes okay?"
"Alright."
By the way, our troubleshooting consists basically only of that. "Refreshing," as I call it, really, it's just resetting our modem that's at the customers house put in place for SDP.
"Hi ma'am. Is it still happening right now?"
"Yes, it is."
"Oh, well um, I tried to confer with a senior technician on this issue, but unfortunately it looks like they're all in a meeting right now. (I ran around 5 minutes in the call center trying to look for help with this issue since it's pretty much unheard of) I'll have to call you back within the half hour there when they come back."
"OMG, YOUR SERVICE SUCKS. I DONT MEAN TO BE RUDE BUT THIS SERVICE IS SO UNRELIABLE AND THIS MUST BE THE 4TH TIME WHERE MY SERVICE CUT OFF. BLAH BLAH BLAH TELUS, BLAH BLAH BLAH SUCKS. WHAT IF I HAD TO CALL 911???"
Yeah that sure would be a bummer wouldn't it lady? I mean "Oh yes, we understand it's an essential service and we do apologize for the inconvenience. We promise we'll get back to you within the half hour there regarding this situation."
Oh yeah, so I conferred with our TSR2's when they returned, and they had no clue what was going on either haha. Sweet.
Yep, fun. I think I'm getting used to it now though. I mean people being angry. I still feel bad, but it's doesn't last as long anymore. Oh well, I'm out.
That's not to say I wouldn't want one of course. How about a donation to a worthy cause people? *cough*. HEY YOU SHOULDN'T BE GETTING ALL THESE FUNNY STORIES FOR FREE. IT TAKES WORK TO RANT.
Haha, it's so funny whenever it becomes 8 and all the china gate members log out of the phones. Basically, all chinese calls that call into the china gate are then transferred to our english gate. So as I'm walking to the elevator to go home, I hear my co-workers saying "No, chinese line is now closed.... THEY'RE NOW CLOSED, DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ENGLISH?!"
Man, at one of our team meetings, I was the only China gate member, and then some guy brought up the concern of the china gate closing so early. Alot of my other team members were in complete agreement! They were all like "Yeah, what the hell are we supposed to do with those customers when they just can't communicate in english well enough to troubleshoot? Make the china gate have longer hours past 8! It's not fair that they should go home so early." I felt so attacked. *boohoo.*
I was thinking to myself, man it's SO fair. We take so many more calls than people on the regular line. It really is amazing how many chinese people there are here in Van.
Anyways, the pissed SDP call today was as follows:
"Hi M, I'm having a problem with my phone service again. It's not a no dial tone problem this time. I'm getting a fast busy signal from all my phones right now when I pick up."
"Oh, *thinks to self - WTF?* okay, so can you make calls?"
"No, I can't receive calls either."
"Uh, okay. Well let me refresh your telephone service. I'll call you back on your cell phone in 2-5 minutes okay?"
"Alright."
By the way, our troubleshooting consists basically only of that. "Refreshing," as I call it, really, it's just resetting our modem that's at the customers house put in place for SDP.
"Hi ma'am. Is it still happening right now?"
"Yes, it is."
"Oh, well um, I tried to confer with a senior technician on this issue, but unfortunately it looks like they're all in a meeting right now. (I ran around 5 minutes in the call center trying to look for help with this issue since it's pretty much unheard of) I'll have to call you back within the half hour there when they come back."
"OMG, YOUR SERVICE SUCKS. I DONT MEAN TO BE RUDE BUT THIS SERVICE IS SO UNRELIABLE AND THIS MUST BE THE 4TH TIME WHERE MY SERVICE CUT OFF. BLAH BLAH BLAH TELUS, BLAH BLAH BLAH SUCKS. WHAT IF I HAD TO CALL 911???"
Yeah that sure would be a bummer wouldn't it lady? I mean "Oh yes, we understand it's an essential service and we do apologize for the inconvenience. We promise we'll get back to you within the half hour there regarding this situation."
Oh yeah, so I conferred with our TSR2's when they returned, and they had no clue what was going on either haha. Sweet.
Yep, fun. I think I'm getting used to it now though. I mean people being angry. I still feel bad, but it's doesn't last as long anymore. Oh well, I'm out.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Back and Bitchin'
Miss me? Or at least my stories? Good. Yeah, restless, I mean restful vacation alright. But who cares about that! Onto the good stuff.
Lets see, this customer today called in today to gripe about missing the world cup.
"Sir, for some reason, it looks like the technician was supposed to have gone out and added Tier 1 for you. If it hasn't been done, you'll have to wait for our emergency tech to check that for you."
"Miss, I've already missed today's game!!!! Plus one of your techs yesterday said this 'emergency' tech should have the work completed by this morning. IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE TO GIVE ME A CHANNEL THAT I'M PAYING FOR. NOW IF YOU DON'T GET ME A DEFINITIVE ON WHEN THE TECHNICIAN WILL FIX IT, GET ME A SUPERVISOR. I'm going to switch providers if this issue isn't resolved."
"...Okay, I'm waiting for a reply from our department (dispatch) that deals with our technicians. They would be the ones to give me a better time frame for you. Can I call you back when I get that response from them?"
"NO, I'm waiting right here until I get a definitive. Your stupid rep previously told me that she'd give me a call back and she never did. So either you get on it now, or get me a supervisor who will."
"... alright then, we might be waiting for a while though."
"That's fine, I have all day since I missed the game."
And thus follows:
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i287/tsr-mia/b14f6416.jpg
A little background: We have two types of technicians. A TFR is a technical field representative, and they install stuff for our customers. A service technician checks signal/wire problems that make our customers stuff stop working.
Yeah, so basically what happened was the first request to our dispatch team was made at 11:38am, and then 10 mins later, even though the number is a service call number, he replies back saying tfr not on route. Well of course he's not on route because it's not a tfr that would be going out there, it would be a service tech. So I wait on the phone with the customer for almost 20 mins, and then get the same friggin response from the same person too!! That third reply was great too, "dont have tfr routed for today." Repeat of the previous posts. Yeah the supe took care of that one.
Another funny event we had a few days ago was when we had a Pay-Per-View (PPV) event for wrestling on channel 151. Our TSR2s were telling us to tune to channel 150 to check the signal strength for 151. Apparently, no one had checked the content on 150, because it turned out to have adult content. Haha, I could totally see a family with kids in the background tuning to 150 and finding that nice shocker out, cause they definitely sent out that email to stop us prrrretty quick.
OMG AND THAT CUSTOMER COMPLAINING ABOUT KVOS. She phoned in initially to complain about KVOS cutting off again a movie she was watching. So then I proceeded to give her the definitive in that we don't deal with the programming, we only show it. So I gave her the phone number for KVOS within 5 minutes of the call, and I thought that was that and we'd end the call. But no! She decided to rant for another 25 minutes on the history of KVOS and more crap than I'd ever need to know. By the 5 minute point into her rant, I had zoned out. The most I had caught was her knowing the former management, and how she had gotten the guy in the control room one night fired because he was drunk and was showing some adult movie. I must admit that was pretty funny.
Last funny story that I can remember for today was this lady who called in, inquiring about her bill. Her bill looked something like this:
Cable Services
FCS - $47.95
Telephone Services
Promotion - $-25.05
SDP - $55.00
So she called in to tech support to ask a question about billing. I didn't transfer her back to the CSRs cause she was complaining about being hung up on 3 times prior to getting me. But that's besides the point. So she said something like,"I don't understand why I'm getting charged an extra $47.95 when you guys told me initially that it was a flat monthly rate of $55."
"Okay, ma'am when we say SDP is a flat rate, it's the phone service alone with all its features for one monthly flat rate. Your television is a separate service with us, and that's $47.95."
"Oh okay, they're different services... I think I get it. Now I thought I was on a promotion for the first three months for $29.95 for SDP. Why does it say $55?"
"That's to remind you that $55.00 is our regular rate. The credit amount of $-25.05 is the promotion discount to bring your phone service price to 29.95."
"Oh... *thinks for a full minute* Okay, so it's $47.95 - $25.05, and then +$55?"
"Well, no ma'am that's a confusing way of looking at it. It might be easier if you see it as $55-$25.05 for your phone service so that you see the promotional price of $29.95 that you're getting for the phone."
"Oh... okay, so it'd be $47.95-$25.05..."
"Ma'am! They're in two different sections. One is cable services and the other is phone services."
OMG I HAD TO REPEAT THAT 4 TIMES BEFORE SHE GOT IT.
I don't understand people sometimes.
Oh well, I'm out. Till later.
Lets see, this customer today called in today to gripe about missing the world cup.
"Sir, for some reason, it looks like the technician was supposed to have gone out and added Tier 1 for you. If it hasn't been done, you'll have to wait for our emergency tech to check that for you."
"Miss, I've already missed today's game!!!! Plus one of your techs yesterday said this 'emergency' tech should have the work completed by this morning. IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE TO GIVE ME A CHANNEL THAT I'M PAYING FOR. NOW IF YOU DON'T GET ME A DEFINITIVE ON WHEN THE TECHNICIAN WILL FIX IT, GET ME A SUPERVISOR. I'm going to switch providers if this issue isn't resolved."
"...Okay, I'm waiting for a reply from our department (dispatch) that deals with our technicians. They would be the ones to give me a better time frame for you. Can I call you back when I get that response from them?"
"NO, I'm waiting right here until I get a definitive. Your stupid rep previously told me that she'd give me a call back and she never did. So either you get on it now, or get me a supervisor who will."
"... alright then, we might be waiting for a while though."
"That's fine, I have all day since I missed the game."
And thus follows:
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i287/tsr-mia/b14f6416.jpg
A little background: We have two types of technicians. A TFR is a technical field representative, and they install stuff for our customers. A service technician checks signal/wire problems that make our customers stuff stop working.
Yeah, so basically what happened was the first request to our dispatch team was made at 11:38am, and then 10 mins later, even though the number is a service call number, he replies back saying tfr not on route. Well of course he's not on route because it's not a tfr that would be going out there, it would be a service tech. So I wait on the phone with the customer for almost 20 mins, and then get the same friggin response from the same person too!! That third reply was great too, "dont have tfr routed for today." Repeat of the previous posts. Yeah the supe took care of that one.
Another funny event we had a few days ago was when we had a Pay-Per-View (PPV) event for wrestling on channel 151. Our TSR2s were telling us to tune to channel 150 to check the signal strength for 151. Apparently, no one had checked the content on 150, because it turned out to have adult content. Haha, I could totally see a family with kids in the background tuning to 150 and finding that nice shocker out, cause they definitely sent out that email to stop us prrrretty quick.
OMG AND THAT CUSTOMER COMPLAINING ABOUT KVOS. She phoned in initially to complain about KVOS cutting off again a movie she was watching. So then I proceeded to give her the definitive in that we don't deal with the programming, we only show it. So I gave her the phone number for KVOS within 5 minutes of the call, and I thought that was that and we'd end the call. But no! She decided to rant for another 25 minutes on the history of KVOS and more crap than I'd ever need to know. By the 5 minute point into her rant, I had zoned out. The most I had caught was her knowing the former management, and how she had gotten the guy in the control room one night fired because he was drunk and was showing some adult movie. I must admit that was pretty funny.
Last funny story that I can remember for today was this lady who called in, inquiring about her bill. Her bill looked something like this:
Cable Services
FCS - $47.95
Telephone Services
Promotion - $-25.05
SDP - $55.00
So she called in to tech support to ask a question about billing. I didn't transfer her back to the CSRs cause she was complaining about being hung up on 3 times prior to getting me. But that's besides the point. So she said something like,"I don't understand why I'm getting charged an extra $47.95 when you guys told me initially that it was a flat monthly rate of $55."
"Okay, ma'am when we say SDP is a flat rate, it's the phone service alone with all its features for one monthly flat rate. Your television is a separate service with us, and that's $47.95."
"Oh okay, they're different services... I think I get it. Now I thought I was on a promotion for the first three months for $29.95 for SDP. Why does it say $55?"
"That's to remind you that $55.00 is our regular rate. The credit amount of $-25.05 is the promotion discount to bring your phone service price to 29.95."
"Oh... *thinks for a full minute* Okay, so it's $47.95 - $25.05, and then +$55?"
"Well, no ma'am that's a confusing way of looking at it. It might be easier if you see it as $55-$25.05 for your phone service so that you see the promotional price of $29.95 that you're getting for the phone."
"Oh... okay, so it'd be $47.95-$25.05..."
"Ma'am! They're in two different sections. One is cable services and the other is phone services."
OMG I HAD TO REPEAT THAT 4 TIMES BEFORE SHE GOT IT.
I don't understand people sometimes.
Oh well, I'm out. Till later.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
VACATION AT LAST!!!
YES, finally! Today seemed like it would never end. Why do so many angry people talk to me?
Hehe, this SDP customer called in today and was like,
"How come your rep didn't call me back? He promised me a callback."
"Hold on sir, let me check the notes and see what's going on. How long ago did you speak to this rep?"
"Five minutes ago?"
"..."
*Looks at account notes, sees my brother's name, chuckles*
"Why are you laughing?"
"Oh, it's nothing my co-worker just showed me something funny. Hold on, I'll go see if I can go find that rep for you."
So I walk over to my brother's desk and he starts telling me,
"Yeah, I was waiting for a supervisor to get back cause the guy is asking for a month's credit when he was only out of service for a few days."
"Why? That's unreasonable."
"I dunno, he said he missed a doctor's appointment because of us, and it was his birthday yesterday and he was all lonely and stuff awww..."
"Hahaha, that's hilarious. I'll go find a supervisor, you call the customer back though."
Anyways, eventually even when we offered two weeks credit to the customer, he demanded a month credit or else he would cancel. It eventually got escalated up to a supervisor/TSR2, who looked into the technical details of it by calling the numbers who had supposedly called him in the past two days since there was no record of it in our call records.
So he called his sister, who said "No, I didn't call him in the past two days." LOL
And then he called his mother, who said
"Yeah, I called him, but I got some asian woman sounding answering machine..."
"Are you sure you dialed the right number?"
"Well... maybe, I'll go home and check later."
Then he asked why the customer hadn't called the doctor's office back to see why there was no call since the customer WAS able to dial out. The customer didn't know why.
So, TSR2 says, "I hate to say it sir, but I don't think anyone's called you in the past couple days..."
Yeah, that's about as much as I got out of my conversation with him hahaha.
Oh yeah, I should post that funny story yesterday about this chinese customer. Oh god, I was so frustrated!!! So he calls in, and tells me he can't connect to the internet. I check his modem, it's fine. Most likely he's on a router and it needs to be rebooted to work. So I do my normal troubleshooting, unplug power plug for modem/router, yadda yadda. He's a seemingly semi-knowledgable guy about computers.
Then when we've done that and he still can't connect, I'm like "well okay, I guess we'll have to check your computer settings. Can you click on the start button please?"
"Uh, I don't see it."
"Are you using chinese windows or english windows?"
"English windows."
"Okay, it's most likely in the bottom left corner, do you see it now?"
"Oh, yes."
"What color is the start button?"
"Black."
"Sir, there is no black start buttons. It's either green or grey."
"Oh, it's grey."
"... Okay, can you click on it then?"
"I don't see it."
"You just said it was grey!!!"
"Oh wait my mouse won't move."
"........... Can you check to see if it's plugged in properly at the back of your computer?"
"I don't know."
That's when I ended that call. Good stuff. -_-.
Oh well, no more funny stories for a week. Hope you guys can last. Heh?
Hehe, this SDP customer called in today and was like,
"How come your rep didn't call me back? He promised me a callback."
"Hold on sir, let me check the notes and see what's going on. How long ago did you speak to this rep?"
"Five minutes ago?"
"..."
*Looks at account notes, sees my brother's name, chuckles*
"Why are you laughing?"
"Oh, it's nothing my co-worker just showed me something funny. Hold on, I'll go see if I can go find that rep for you."
So I walk over to my brother's desk and he starts telling me,
"Yeah, I was waiting for a supervisor to get back cause the guy is asking for a month's credit when he was only out of service for a few days."
"Why? That's unreasonable."
"I dunno, he said he missed a doctor's appointment because of us, and it was his birthday yesterday and he was all lonely and stuff awww..."
"Hahaha, that's hilarious. I'll go find a supervisor, you call the customer back though."
Anyways, eventually even when we offered two weeks credit to the customer, he demanded a month credit or else he would cancel. It eventually got escalated up to a supervisor/TSR2, who looked into the technical details of it by calling the numbers who had supposedly called him in the past two days since there was no record of it in our call records.
So he called his sister, who said "No, I didn't call him in the past two days." LOL
And then he called his mother, who said
"Yeah, I called him, but I got some asian woman sounding answering machine..."
"Are you sure you dialed the right number?"
"Well... maybe, I'll go home and check later."
Then he asked why the customer hadn't called the doctor's office back to see why there was no call since the customer WAS able to dial out. The customer didn't know why.
So, TSR2 says, "I hate to say it sir, but I don't think anyone's called you in the past couple days..."
Yeah, that's about as much as I got out of my conversation with him hahaha.
Oh yeah, I should post that funny story yesterday about this chinese customer. Oh god, I was so frustrated!!! So he calls in, and tells me he can't connect to the internet. I check his modem, it's fine. Most likely he's on a router and it needs to be rebooted to work. So I do my normal troubleshooting, unplug power plug for modem/router, yadda yadda. He's a seemingly semi-knowledgable guy about computers.
Then when we've done that and he still can't connect, I'm like "well okay, I guess we'll have to check your computer settings. Can you click on the start button please?"
"Uh, I don't see it."
"Are you using chinese windows or english windows?"
"English windows."
"Okay, it's most likely in the bottom left corner, do you see it now?"
"Oh, yes."
"What color is the start button?"
"Black."
"Sir, there is no black start buttons. It's either green or grey."
"Oh, it's grey."
"... Okay, can you click on it then?"
"I don't see it."
"You just said it was grey!!!"
"Oh wait my mouse won't move."
"........... Can you check to see if it's plugged in properly at the back of your computer?"
"I don't know."
That's when I ended that call. Good stuff. -_-.
Oh well, no more funny stories for a week. Hope you guys can last. Heh?
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