My trouble tickets are not bad...!

I protest. My two female co-workers both accuse me of creating trouble tickets no one can understand. Just because if I look back on a trouble ticket I created a few months ago and even I can't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. Um, it's just unique that's all. Ya. Sure. I follow my brother's style of trouble tickets. Short, concise and to the point. I don't understand for stuff like setting up remote control or setting up outlook would I have to create such an extensive ticket. Don't you automatically assume all TSRs know how to guide a customer through on how to set up outlook?

Oh well. My co-worker was so funny today. She was getting all exasperated with a customer on the phone and she said while covering her mic up:
"Hey, does 'Pull your power plug' sound chinese to you at all?"
"Um.. no?"
"Well this customer doesn't get it. Pull the plug, pull the plug. And she's like power plug?"
We all got a good laugh out of that one. Must have been at least 5 minutes that she tried explaining what a power cord was.

Actually I had a very relaxing day. I had calls in the morning of course, then I had a meeting for almost an hour, then a project starting at 1:30 pm to the end of my shift in which I left 15 mins early anyways since I hadn't taken my last break.

The project was awesome. Got through 130 open TSR 2 tickets and got the number down to 35. Haw, they were so happy about that. They should give me more off the phone projects. So fun.

I just have to blog this about my co-worker who sits beside me. She'll get called by a supervisor every 20 minutes she's not taking calls, like if she's in work mode or break 7, can bet there'll be a call soon, whereas for me, no one ever bothers me.

Yup, when I went into break 7 to do the project for the TSR 2's, it got pretty busy, especially the Cantonese queue, but no one ever called me. It was so hilarious I wanted to laugh since my co-worker had gotten called like 3 times today prior to that and she hadn't even been in break mode as long as I had.

It's the same when I'm in work mode. I can be in work mode for like 1 hr+ and no one ever calls, whereas when she's in work mode for 10 minutes, she gets called. Hahaha. I don't know if I should take that as they're not expecting alot out of me or if it's because they expect alot out of her. It's definitely not coincidence lol. Happened on several occasions. Hilarious. Bet she doesn't think so though. :P

PS. My blog today is probably full of grammatical errors, that's cause I'm SO frigging tired. So. No complaints okay.

lu

Long in between blog time nowadays. I'll try to blog for 3 days straight since I'll be on vacation on Thursday. I meant to blog this sooner, but I was awfully pissy over the weekend. Here goes.


-----Original Message-----
From: Aran
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 3:14 PM
To: ALL my supervisors
Cc: Me
Subject: Service call booked on account 014-0185-7311 Good afternoon, Could you please follow up with tech as the service call on this account should have been booked as an 09 work order. There is no troublehshooting involved at all with this call. To add to this. We just recieved a printed copy of a service call - 983747 - for a no dial tone. This is booked today at 11:47 for today. In the SPIN she ask for us to please go between 8-10AM. This is just some of the things we have been seeing lately in dispatch. Thank you in advance for following up with these issues. Cheers! Aran


-----Original Message-----
From: H
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 1:04 PM
To: Me
Subject: Hi M, I just got handed a service call for account # 010-0024-2557 for today's date with an 8-10 timeframe that was booked by you. Is this for tomorrow? It was just booked at 1147am today saying the cx would be home until noon.

H
SDP dispatch

-----Original Message-----
From: H
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 1:38 PM
To: Me
Subject: RE: thanks I was just making sur ethat we arent supposed to go today

From: Me
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 1:28 PM
To: H
Subject: RE:
Yeah, I guess our TSR2 might have booked it wrong, it was for tomorrow 8-10am. Thanks


From: Me
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 3:19 PM
To: Aran
Subject: FW:
Fyi
By the way, I’ve been told by TSR 2’s to book sc to relocate DPT. What troubleshooting is there to be done. Please tell me.

----------------

There is no troublshooting needed to relocate a DPT. However it should be booked to a 09 work order because service techs are suppose to be for service issues requireing onsite troubleshooting that is unable to be done over the phone. If a customer's equipment - such as a DPT or a Modem needs to be relocated a TFR is used to do this because they get paid and Shaw charges the customer $19.95 - the same as an outlet install. As far as the TSR 2 who told you that this should have been booked to a service crew, that is incorrect - unless poliy has changed. Please see your supervisor if you have anymore questions about this. Thanks.Aran
Hey guys, I asked TSR 2 D about this, and he recommended I forward this to SDP TSR 2 so that we can discuss this with dispatch. I was told by a different TSR 2 near the beginning of my training for SDP that relocating a DPT should be done with a SC (100% sure), and I believe that I was also told that it would be free (not 100% sure on this) It makes no sense to have an 09 crew booked to relocate a DPT if the TFR is not trained for SDP. Just to clarify, there are two emails in this email, the one H talked to me about today about a SC which was mistakenly overbooked for today instead of tomorrow by T (in black txt), the email Aran sent to my supervisors/cc’d me (in blue txt). Can we please get a definitive on this? This kind of thing really upsets me.
Thanks,
Me

Note: I didn't even bother crossing out his name cause he's such a moron.

I'm not particularly pissed that the communication between dispatch and us is almost non-existant, I'm pissed that he had the nerve to email my sups AND CC me on it. Notice his first email to my sups sounds like he doesn't even want to talk to me, only wants to report my screw ups.

I don't know what it is. I wouldn't have taken any offense if he had sent the email to me and CC'd my sups instead. Or obviously just send the email to my sups and not CC me to let me know about it (not like anyone in my team would care anyways since they're not SDP trained.)

I was on a call where I had to test the voicemail for some woman. So I told her to let me leave a msg by not picking up and she was like ok fine. So after the 4 rings, what do I get?
"Hello?"
......wtf "Hello??! I thought I told you not to pick up."
"Hello??"
"uh...Hello?!?!?!"
"Hah, gotcha! Leave a msg at the beep."
*beep*
"..........................."
I swear to god it sounded like a real woman. Gr. Ya I'd blog that longass chinese customer I got but I'm lazy. Plus I can't seem to copy and paste the pic so maybe tomorrow. I'll probably run out of ideas to blog anyways.

Shadows at work

Apologies for the frequency of updates lately. I've had quite a few shadows (trainees listening in on my calls as part of their training) these past couple days, so I haven't been able to blog at work. Therefore, I blog less since at home, I'm a lazyass. Besides, after awhile, it's always the same.

I forgot to set my alarm clock last night, so I slept all the way to 7:18 am, and my bus comes at 7:23 am. It was damn stressful, but I somehow managed to catch the bus and go to Timmy's to get my coffee. OH YEAH JOY TO THE WORLD, THE TIMMY'S AT WATERFRONT IF FINALLY OPEN.

Oh oh, I did promise to blog a certain overloaded TSR 2 though since I love him so much. He was off, and I was heading home on Sunday. So he offered me a ride since he had driven to work that day. I accepted and everything was fine while we were heading home - until his car broke down. In the middle of the street. Ya huh, he was pretty calm about it though, I suppose cause it happens to him alot ahaha. He pushed and I steered. I wonder what would have happened if he was by himself. How to steer lol? Anyways, we still ended up taking the skytrain back, so I dunno, guess I just can't escape the pain and agony of it.

Speaking of him, poor poor guy. He was off most of last week on a pathfinding adventure, and the day he comes back, everyone swamps him. Well, mainly me I guess. Hmm, I wonder if he hates me yet. Then again, if he should hate anyone, it should be the person who made the 'new' procedure for all this. Although, I do wonder why it's always me at his desk most of the time. Well and someone else who will remain unnamed but knows whom he/she is :P. Do other people disregard new procedures and just go ahead and do what they were doing before?

Well now I'm just ranting. You're probably all waiting for the interesting stuff. Oops, not to say that our TSR 2 isn't interesting, but you know, we can't dedicate this whole blog to him haha.

Oh I had a fun call yesterday, cause in NVan, we didn't have any appointments until tomorrow. Now that was the absolute worst I've ever seen it at, a 2-day waiting period for a no dial tone service call. Anyways, this lady calls in, and this is how it went:
11:40 am
"The rep I spoke to over an hour ago said he'd give me a call back once he found out whether or not the tech could turn back today, but I didn't receive any calls."
*looks at notes, sees tech can't turn back*
"Oh so you were changing your baby and missed the calls from our tech right?"
"Yeah, the tech left a message on my home phone that isn't working."
*sees open slot for tech from 12-2pm and cheers for the stroke of good luck*
"Err, unfortunately that tech won't be able to turn back today, but apparently, we can get a tech out there this afternoon from 12-2. Will that be ok?"
"Well, I guess it'll have to do. I wish you guys had called me back telling me this though."
//end of call (only not really, cause that'd make a pretty boring story wouldn't it.)
1:00 pm
*I check my inbox and see that the call got sent back to me cause the tech won't be able to make it today and that it was MY fault since I should have checked with a TSR 2 even though it was a empty appointment in the calendar*
*I swear for a few minutes and complain to various co-workers*
1:15 pm
*Calls customer back*
"Hi, this is me calling you back to let you know that unfortunately, the tech won't be able it for that 12-2 appointment that I told you he'd be able to make today."
"..... you know I really wish you had told me sooner."
"I know, I'm sorry, they just sent it back to me."
"So when can you have a tech out here then?"
"Oh... Wednesday."
"I'm switching back to Telus."
"I know."

Hmm... another interesting one? I dunno. I can't really recall. That's why I like to blog at work. Retains in my mind better when I do it right away. But I thought it'd be kind of rude while doing it front of trainees. Kind of. Maybe. I remember my prediction 4-5 months ago when I said I'd get to slack off when they finally decided to train new people onto SDP. And I am, kind of. Er.. it's kind of like a double edged sword actually. On one hand, I'm gated only for SDP, meaning I take way less calls than normal. On the other hand, I'm gated only for SDP, meaning that all calls that come in have like a 50% chance of being irate. Yay!!! Did I mention that I can't wait for that vacation in 6 days?

On the other hand, I've had a crapload of commission calls in the past two days. And I can't resist taking them either even when someone's shadowing me. I feel kind of bad, but hey, no one messes with my commission! I think I made at least 20 bucks in commission over the past two days (that's alot considering that was my total commission in the month of July).

Oh and my co-worker was complaining to me that guys tend more often than not to ask for technical support since they're sexist and think that we couldn't possibly be in tech support. I told her to just tell them "this is technical support, got a prob?"
Get it? It's a pun! It's like got a problem with me being a girl or got a technical problem? Hehe.

I have been wondering whether or not it's coincidence that a whole bunch of people are finally being gated/trained for the SDP queue, since it only seemed to start happening after I sent in that employee survey back in the beginning of August. Now they're actually making sure that people who got the sales training portion of it are being gated for SDP. Food for thought. Speaking of food, I'm hungry.

Till later.

It only took one call to piss me enough to get off my lazy ass and blog it

Little bitch calls in, and the convo goes something like this:
"I can't call Europe."
"Ok, what's your phone number?"
"My phone number or the number from Europe?"
"Your home number."
"etc etc etc."
"Ok, and your name and address?"
"etc etc etc."
"Oh it seems that I'm looking at the wrong account then since the info doesn't match."
"What the fuck do you mean?"
"Just means I need your address."
"For fuck's sake it's etc etc etc (really fast)"
"It's etc etc etc? (off by one digit)"
"OH MY GOD I SAID ETC ETC ETC."
"Ok here it is."
"Why was it so fucking hard to get it?"
"Well your phone number here is listed as a 604 number."
"Well, YOU didn't ask me for the number my account was under you asked me for my home number."
"Sir, it really doesn't matter since I have it now. What's the phone number of the place you're trying to call?"
"WHY? What does it matter? All calls to Europe won't go through."
"No shit sherlock? *sees only one number to Europe he's tried* I mean because we need to test it on our side."
"What good is it going to do if it works on your side and it doesn't work on my side."
"That's the thing, we need to test whether or not it does."
"Are you saying some calls won't work? What kind of shitty system is this?"
"Get off the fucking PMS buddy, last time I checked, you sound male, so stop being a little bitch. I mean SIR, just give me the number and I'll try it."
"Fine."
Yeah, it wasn't even our fault. Retard.

Mmhmm that about does it for interesting calls today. I picked that one up while troubleshooting a different phone customer. I try to lessen my work time by working on two calls at a time if the first one is SDP related and something that requires alot of waiting. My work time is just way too high to wait for some customer to go take a piss and come back (literally that's what happened the other day with a different customer while I was in work time.)

I sure wouldn't want to be like someone around here who gets hunted down for her work time by a certain charmer ahahaha. :P

Payday.Yay.

For the first time yesterday, someone called in strictly to compliment us for SDP. The whole time he was talking, I was waiting for the punchline where I'd cringe from the slap in the face he was about to deal me. And so it was to my pleasant surprise that it never happened and in fact, he could not stop ranting about how happy he was switching over. I kept thinking to myself while he was going on and on about how he was gonna send an email of commendation: Poor guy, obviously he hasn't experienced the no dial tone phenomenon yet...


The wait for a SDP install in N.Van is 3 weeks. I found out the hard way. Some guy calls in and he demands to know whether or not his address will be able to get SDP or not. I look into it and long story short, a CSR messed it up and didn't do it properly. When all was said and done, I told him it'd be 72 hrs max until we could set him up on an order.
"And then a week after that for the waiting period for install right?"
"Yeah usually up to a week. Never longer."
"Okay, I'm trusting it in your good hands. Don't let me down."
"1234 is my rep number in case you need to find me."
For your entertainment, I've bolded the sentences which screwed me over. So I had to call the customer back since he had my rep number and 3 week waiting times don't usually don't bode well with our customers. Thankfully he didn't pick up, but I'll have to call him back again. We'll see what he has to say afterwards. *sigh*


Sometimes, you just have to laugh when the customer tells you something. This lady kept receiving calls in the middle of the night from this person from Michigan who could barely speak english.
"You have to stop it! It's insane, I have to wake up early for my work and this woman keeps calling me at 2 am and 5 am. It got so bad one night, I had to take my phone and stuff it under the cushion of my sofa just to shut her up!"
I laughed. Then when she realized how funny it sounded, she started laughing too.


My co-worker today had a funny call today too with a former Telus/Bell customer. She calls us in ranting about how she's been charged by both Telus/Bell for her former services including cable/tv/phone. She has switched all 3 services with us, and was 'told' by a CSR that we would cancel all her services for her. In notes, it was told that customer would have to contact Telus/Bell to cancel tv/internet since we don't do that.

Anyways, she was demanding we do something about her "phone" bill, and proceeds to fax us her internet bill from Telus. My co-worker then runs over and asks me if she's blind and seeing things, and I confirm with her that nah, it is indeed our overly intelligent customers striking again. Why oh why do our customers have to be SOOOOO SMART.

One last highlight of the day (my schedule):
Open Time 08:00 AM -10:15 AM
Break 10:15 AM -10:30 AM
Open Time 10:30 AM -01:00 PM
Lunch 01:00 PM -01:30 PM
Open Time 01:30 PM -03:45 PM
Break 03:45 PM -04:00 PM
Open Time 04:00 PM -04:30 PM

Nice last break scheduling. *sigh*

This is gonna be a bad week...

So I woke up at 8 am today, and my computer time was behind, so I ended up running to catch the bus. Then when I got to the skytrain station, I waited for a good 8 minutes before the skytrain finally decided to show up. I thought my delay was over, but nooo, at Nanaimo station, it decides to stop for another 10 minutes. At the 5 minute point of waiting, I start panicking since I know there's a good possibility that I won't be able to grab coffee. I start swearing to myself when hand slips and my brand new mp3 player almost drops on the ground. At the 10 minute point of waiting, I really start panicking cause I might not even get to work on time. I'm contemplating whether or not to call work and tell them I'll be late, but I figured there's a chance I'll still be able to make it within the 5 minute leeway that they give us.

Well guess what, I wasn't able to. I arrived at 9:06 am after sprinting from the skytrain to work. What a burn. Then I went up to the CM desk and the sup there stares at me, "We were just about to call you. Where were you? You were supposed to start at 8."
"What the hell. The schedule change never starts until Sunday. Besides, when did China gate start opening at 8 on weekends. I swear I didn't know. (which I obviously didn't)"
He shrugs, "You have to check your schedule everyday. You can make up for the lost time on the skytrain but I'll have to mark you off an hour unpaid."
What the hell, I was off for two days. :(!! Yeah, I'm sure to check my schedule at home.
Besides it's ALWAYS been the case that the schedule swap is on Sunday since it's the new week.
I'd argue the point further with my supervisor since it's technically scheduling's fault, but I don't mind boozing out an hour early today.

But that's not really work related. Sorry guys, no funny stories today, and half the day is over. If anything comes up, I'll update when I'm drunk tonight. That should be fun.

So yeah, customer calls in - has a pending order for SDP install next Saturday porting from Telus. And he's like "I'm with Rogers now so I just wanted to give you that info since you probably need it to do a proper port."
"... Why? Are you sure you're with Rogers now?"
"100% sure. It's a long story. Basically my girl was at home and some Rogers guy came and explained some packaging, and the next day Telus called me to tell me that I was disconnected with them. God my girl hadn't even signed anything."
"hehe. I mean that's funny. Have you talked to Rogers?"
"Yup, got escalated to several supervisors who can't do crap for me till it's 'completely transferred over'"
"Er, hate to break the bad news to you sir, but this will probably delay the whole process by another 2 weeks."
"#@%$#@^$#"

uhuh, too lazy to blog the last one. Plus I'm not drunk anymore so it's not fun. Ciao.

Screw you, bitch.

Fucking first customer of the day. I'm sleepy, I'm still waking up, and I've had no coffee cause the line-up at Mcdonald's was too damn long.

Calls in, we determine she needs a service call.
"*bitchy tone* okay, but I've already had two service techs out here."
"Ma'am, one appointment was cancelled and the other no one was home."
"*bitchier tone* Of course! I'm not gonna wait all day for your tech when it should be crystal clear reception. I mean this is a new TV and everything."
"Well, we can't fix it if no one is home for the tech to fix it."
"Fine whatever, when then."
"Next thursday."
"What the hell you're kidding. That's count it, how many days? I'm only available tomorrow and the day after. Get a tech here ASAP."
"We can't do that. All our customers are waiting that long. Besides this one is actually a cancellation. If someone hadn't cancelled, the appointment would be for 2 weeks away."
"...Well, what if someone cancels an appointment within the next two days?"
"Then yes, we'd be able to fit you in. However, that is not the case right now and it'd be pretty rare for someone to cancel their service call now."
"*SUPER BITCHY TONE* Are you done."
"Well, yeah, what else do you want me to say?"
"What's your name?"
""
"There's tons of . Give me your last name."
"Fuck you bitch. (wish I had said that) I mean no we don't give out last names. Here's my rep number."

The good news? Well I had two commission calls in a row for $6.50 in total. The bad news? Well, each commission call took an hour+ to end the call.

The first call the guy just called in to ask for hook up questions for his new HDTV DCT. The first thing I notice is that his account is a non digital package account, therefore he must have bought the box from a third party retail (which basically equates to commission for me vs if they purchased at Shaw retail.) So I gave him the proper education and he's like well I guess I'll call back after this is all hooked up. Then I'm like nooooooooo stay with me. I mean, it's ok since our call center is currently pretty quiet, I can help you out here so you don't have to waste your precious time calling back. Oh what a mistake. (kind of. I like commission.)

And the second guy was also activating a new DCT. After a freaking hour of troubleshooting with him, I'm told by the rep sitting beside me that our wirelinks are intermittently down,(confirmed by TSR 2.) Meaning that it was potentially our fault in the first place. Oh whatever. I got my commission so I don't care.

I am getting more and more impatient at work each day. I'm so tired of being bitched at for problems I can't solve. Total BS. I'm ready to move down to the CSR department. Totally ludicrous to get more than 3 irate calls in a day. ON A REGULAR BASIS. It's so freaking taxing on me. I thought it'd get better, and to a certain extent it has, but the core of me is still not accustomed to be desensitized to feeling bad for the customer. *sigh* Whatever.

For crying out loud.

I have been forever maimed. A SDP customer called in today and couldn't connect to VOD. Typical troubleshooting is done, that is, tell the customer to bypass the splitter. Unbeknownst to us, the line on the other splitter is going to the DPT. So when he disconnects the splitter, he also disconnects the DPT, which results in the termination of our conversation.

Of course, I realize this, and I start panicking. The customer has no other alt numbers listed on his account, and the DPT is offline. When it comes back online, it still won't ring through. Oboy.

Why am I forever maimed you may ask? Well, I'm not really. It used to happen when I was on the internet queue, when we told customers to pull the power on their router and they were using VOIP. I'm just a drama ho. But I suppose that's better than being a cheap ho. *coughs* :P

I doubt anything interesting will come up today. Thus I close off this blog now.

Ps. hm, if I don't get into BCIT in September for whatever retarded reason BCIT will give me, my consolation gift to me will be a brand new HDTV/PVR. I promise.

*** edit *** I am NOT 'honey', 'darling', 'sweetie' or 'love' mister customer. Either call me MISS or MY NAME. And no, I don't want to marry you. *rolls eyes*

"It's the solar flare that is causing the degradation of your services, Sir."

Woo, so anyways, we got alot of calls today regarding intermittent services (aka everything will cut out every 10 mins including SDP.) And what was our explanation to these paying customers?

"Sir, it's the weather. The sun is the culprit here. Please direct all inquiries and/or concerns to mother nature, thanks."

Yep, good to know that we have a weather condition to blame on every season. In September, it'll be the rain we put the blame on. Absolutely ludicrous? Not completely. Only explaining it to the customer is.

Usual escalations today, although it really got quiet around the afternoon. Was in ready mode for 5 mins at a time. It's like the calm before the storm hits in September. No pun intended.

ps. life sux.
pps. why the fuck am I stuck working on a stat tomorrow.
ppps. oh yeah, cause I'm poor.

A comedy of errors.

Yup, it all started near the end of my shift at 4:30pm or so when a certain TSR 2 was slacking *cough* I mean not really doing much. So the first call I took right after my last break was some guy who obviously sounded pissed by his tone of voice. Anyways, he eventually told me to get a certain slacker TSR 2. So I transfer the call over. Fine.

Next call I receive, some rep booked a no dial tone service call wrong, and though the customer was told there would be a tech out today, there was some miscommunication along the way and well, the tech would not be out today. Yup, so I go talk to the same TSR 2 who's still dealing with the first call I handed him. Eventually he tells me to forget about this call, and go onto my next call. Which I do.

Final call before my shift ends, a lady who just had the phone installed yesterday calls in cause of course, she's lost her dial tone. Oh how fun, so I told her we probably can't have a tech out today since it was past 5 pm. Then she freaks out on me cause she has heart conditions and was told our service was completely stable etc etc. I told her we can have an emergency cell phone sent to her while she waits for the service call tomorrow, and she's like "Oh, fine, my cell phone battery right now is dying."
"... so you do have a phone. Why can't you just charge it then for now so that you have a cell phone to use until we can have one delivered to you if you're concerned with charges on your cell phone. Plus we can give you a call when we're outside your apartment so you can come down and pick it up."
"Well no, I need to go and put my phone in the charger now, so I need an exact time of when the tech will be here so I can go downstairs when it's ready."
"... well no, we can't give an ETA of when the tech will be there with the cell phone, there's paperwork we have to go through to get this done and it could be a couple hours. Besides, even if your cell is in the charger you should still be able to hear it ring and you can answer it."
"NO, not my phone. When it's charging it has to be turned off completely. I'm sure you people make exceptions for people like me."
"... (thinks to self: she's gotta be joking me right.) okay we'll see what we can do. Please hold."
*runs to the same TSR 2 AGAIN when he's still working on the 1st and 2nd calls I handed him. Hahaha. So funny.

I wouldn't have even noticed had he not said "WHAT THE. YOU AGAIN. LOOK AT ALL THESE FOLLOW-UPS YOU GAVE ME. *points to 3 account screens*"
That's when I laugh my ass off, and decide to blog it.

Mmm, well that's it for today. Nothing else that is interesting. Off for two days now yay.

PS. Certain people say I say entertaining things, and thus want to sit beside me. Sometimes I wonder what is so funny about my off-hand remarks. *shrug*

Employee Survey?

So anyways, today was the first day to start our employee surveys. It was supposed to take half an hour but I took nearly two hours to do mine. Since I'm basically rehashing my blog with my comments (well, in a much more polite fashion of course), I thought I'd post what I wrote haha.

------------------
This will be a lengthy comment section, and it will be divided mainly into two categories, with the first being SDP related, and the second being our chinese line. Both of these issues pertain mostly to the Vancouver system.

We need a more efficient way to send technical escalations for SDP. Right now, TSRs really have no control over a situation if all troubleshooting steps are complete, and I often feel like I'm
helpless at times to help our customer no matter how much I want to try.

Our response time to get back to a customer if it becomes escalated to SOC is usually frustrating for them as an issue often becomes escalated multiple times. Our TSR 2's should be allowed to contact broadwing directly as call records only stay for 24 hours and it takes hours to escalate it to broadwing currently. Furthermore, we frequently need to inconvenience our customers - while they're on the phone with us, we try to get them to place test calls half way across the world when either the other side is sleeping, or to try at a later time which further delays a resolution to their issue.

The training program for new SDP TSRs upsets me, as many reps who are trained are not even put onto the queue, nor are they given the proper TSR related training to make them confident in doing so. The online portion of the training, at least when I had taken it in the middle of April, was terribly outdated, and not useful at all. My impression that I'm getting from other TSRs who have gone through the sales portion of the SDP training are now just shadowing with some of our TSRs for their TSR training of SDP. Although this is an effective way to learn more about the type of calls we take, it doesn't really cover all the bases or instill confidence into our TSRs. We really need some concrete documentation easily accessible to our new TSRs for SDP troubleshooting that they can read up on before jumping on the queue.

Also, one thing that really upsets me and has been bothering me for awhile is that TSR's access to the plant monitoring portion of the SDP tools was taken away due to "concerns regarding the server load." That, to me, is an inadequate explanation for an almost necessary tool for me. I used to use that tool almost everyday to assist with our customers, and it's really quite annoying and time-consuming to have to go line up to a TSR 2 to get them to check when we know how to use the tool and could have checked in two seconds.

Another huge concern I have is our flapping DPTs which cause intermittent dialtone. I hope it will be addressed immediately as our reps here on average receive 3-4 different no dialtone calls each 8 hour shift. If not, at least we should get we really need more service techs in North Van/W Van/White rock/S Surrey, as these areas seem to be prevalent areas for no dial tone service calls. Often, we cannot get a tech out on the same day for our customers in these areas, and many of them have valid safety concerns even if we can get a cell phone out to them in a few hours.

I am generally quite happy with our response time to SDP issues and concerns, such as fixes and updates like the new SDP SOC escalation form tracker that we have recently implemented. I do realize that SDP is a new product for us, and I'm excited to be part of a growing product; however, we really do need to improve our technical service procedures. It would be great if we could define our support scope like we do for our internet/cable since currently, we support everything from functions on fax machines to how to operate their answering machines.

The chinese line has been a concern for me as well.

We have had increasing amounts of upset chinese customers who wait for a long time to get through to our chinese queue, only to get a rep who cannot speak their language. (ie. Customer speaks Mandarin, but gets a Cantonese rep) We are then forced to transfer the call to a Mandarin rep, which takes another 10-15 minutes at least nowadays. This situation is vice versa for our mandarin reps as well, although we do have more cantonese reps than mandarin reps. Also, because we do not do cold transfers between the chinese queues, we again delay ourselves from taking another call by waiting for a mandarin rep to pick up.

It would be in our best interest if we could implement a better ARU system for our customers so that when they choose mandarin, they'll actually get a mandarin rep vs a cantonese one. We've had many customers complain that they did press 2 for mandarin and got me instead. It wastes our customers time and our own time as well since we cannot help.

Also, when we have a major outage, usually our ARU system is updated with this information so that customers do not have to wait to speak with one of us to get that message. This does not happen with the chinese line. On a few days, when a good chunk of vancouver where a large percentage of our chinese community went down for internet, there were non-stop calls regarding this all day from the start of my shift at 8 am all the way to 4:30.

I believe that this is a great company to work with and for the most part, we are caring towards our employees. I'm really happy how our management had addressed a major concern with an individual I had with efficiency and genuine empathy. Also, I am pleased that my strengths are utilized to the fullest at work. It makes me feel needed and appreciated at work when management trusts me to make a callback to a customer or when my opinion is asked for an issue we are experiencing. I am also happy that (company) is asking for my opinion now, and giving me time at work to type this all up.

Thanks very much for reading.
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Wow, how's that for formal eh. I was typing it in the morning though when I'm always half asleep so there's probably alot of grammatical mistakes. Anyways, I doubt anything'll be done about it, but at least I've done my rant.

Except for the annoying Macau guy calling me back. Holy cow. Refer back to http://tsr-mia.blogspot.com/2006/07/insert-catch-phrase-here.html. Note the date. JULY 12!!!

This guy has called me 4 times since then to talk to me. So freaking annoying. Everytime I talk with him, all he talks about is wanting credit for 3 months of SDP service. WTF, just cause you can't make calls to Macau doesn't mean you can't make calls anywhere else. Then he tries to come up with some sob story about how some relative in his family is being hospitalized or something. Since this was the 5th time he would give me the same story, I finally decided to get a chinese supervisor involved. Well, actually more like a couple TSR 2's, but whatever, same power. Poor TSR 2. I passed the buck to him. I better buy that guy lunch or something lol.

Geez, I'm tired of the stupid customer calling me every week to talk to me about the same damn thing to say the same damn things! He was probably lying about speaking to several reps too. And I'm annoyed that we can't fix the issue either. And I'm also annoyed that he can't just keep using a calling card since the rates are probably cheaper anyways. He pays for calls to Macau anyways with our service. So retarded.

I should stop giving out my stupid rep number to our customers. It seems like whenever they want to seek me, it's always for an issue that's outside of my department. Like this woman who I randomly gave my rep number to was looking for me to solve a problem she was having with her transfer from SDP back to Telus issue. What the hell. I'm too nice. I support everything for our customers. They can probably sense it too that's why they come find me.

Oh well, I suppose I'll just look at it as um everyone thinking I'm so smart and that's the reason why they want to speak with me only. Yup, modest as usual.

By the way, welcome back on the phones SJ haha. Hope you missed us.