Call Centres / Con Centres

[Mark Connolly]

24 minutes ago, Herc said:

I've never understood the mentality behind trying to take the piss or belittling these people,

While I agree with this in general, there is also a vast difference between the people who are working a shite job for shite pay, and the people who are working a shite job for shite pay for a company that is trying to shaft old folk out of their life savings.

The former - a polite "no, thank you"

The latter - fair game

[Shotgun]

4 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Quick question for the ex-sales people. In my old job we were told of one salesman who made so much money he drove about in a sports car and had a lovely big house. 

Every training session they spoke about him. I'm just not sure if he was ever real. 

Has such a line been trotted out elsewhere?

Oh, he's real. At least I think he is. I've never met him, but I've heard of him often.

My first job as an immigrant  expat was at an inbound call centre taking reservations for a self-drive moving truck company. We were required to make 2 reservations for every hour worked. Easy enough, right? Well, except 1/2 my work week was on Sunday (5am to 5pm, 15 minutes lunch) and hardly anybody made reservations on Sunday. On Sunday, they called to complain that the truck they ordered wasn't at the pickup location. Or it had a flat tyre. Or it was a manual and they only knew how to drive automatic. Or the location was closed on Sundays. Or...or...or. And because the company didn't bother with fancy schmancy things like a Customer Service department, their calls came to the reservations team.

I've worked in some form of customer facing position all my live and I have never experienced abuse like I got in that job. Call after call, hour after hour. It was soul crushing. During the week, my schedule was allegedly 5am to 9am but if calls were quiet (they always were at that time of day), you got sent home without pay. I was often back before Mrs Shotgun had left for work and was lucky if I made 3 or 4 sales a week. The ones who did get the reservations? They simply lied to the callers and told them whatever they wanted to hear in order to close the deal. And when the customer didn't get what they expected? Yep. They phoned the call center on Sunday to vent their hatred at me, who had literally no way to make things right.

I'm amazed looking back, but I lasted almost 4 months before walking out mid-shift.

[Shotgun]

4 hours ago, Mark Connolly said:

While I agree with this in general, there is also a vast difference between the people who are working a shite job for shite pay, and the people who are working a shite job for shite pay for a company that is trying to shaft old folk out of their life savings.

The former - a polite "no, thank you"

The latter - fair game

And there it is. My wife's grandmother was conned out of literally thousands by these vermin. f**k every last one of them.

[Ron Aldo]

I answered a call from one of those places offering to sort compensation for my "accident". 

You could hear the surprise in the woman's voice when I told her I had been in an accident (I hadn't). I then made up this elaborate story about what had happened before she butted in to tell me how I could be done for fraud . 

[Salt n Vinegar]

Pal of mine answers all calls from "unknown" phone numbers in Gaelic. Seems to work as the calls rarely last long. His other tactic used to be to put on a really babyish voice and start asking daft questions. Never tried these myself (not fluent enough in Gaelic yet) but similar approaches might be fun.

[UsedToGoToCentralPark]

Telling the person on the other end of the phone that Sachin Tendulkar was a cheat tends to elicit a fantastic amount if abuse 

[milton75]

Mrs Milton gets annoyed by how happy scam calls make me. We have a landline that comes with the cable service and that we don't want or use. No-one has the number, so on the rare occasions that the phone rings it's always some idiot scammer. I've been involved in many many car accidents, and when they excitedly transfer my to the "legal expert" I tend to be delighted but surprised that they'd already heard of the accident, being as it only happened a few days previously.

Sometimes the accident turns out to be me driving into a queue of schoolkids at a bus stop, sometimes it was a gang of youths who crashed into my car before dragging me from the vehicle and raping me. Often I was killed in the accident, and on one occasion I was speaking to the caller from the afterlife, where I was now at peace but still wanted compensation.

I also have a lot of issues with my internet that involve helpful people trying to get me to type cmd prompts into my laptop to resolve the issue. I tend to need a lot of guidance to get this right, especially when it comes to typing them correctly and reading what comes up. Often what comes up is quite insulting, sadly.

 

[MEADOWXI]

On 29/06/2023 at 21:00, milton75 said:

Mrs Milton gets annoyed by how happy scam calls make me. We have a landline that comes with the cable service and that we don't want or use. No-one has the number, so on the rare occasions that the phone rings it's always some idiot scammer. I've been involved in many many car accidents, and when they excitedly transfer my to the "legal expert" I tend to be delighted but surprised that they'd already heard of the accident, being as it only happened a few days previously.

Sometimes the accident turns out to be me driving into a queue of schoolkids at a bus stop, sometimes it was a gang of youths who crashed into my car before dragging me from the vehicle and raping me. Often I was killed in the accident, and on one occasion I was speaking to the caller from the afterlife, where I was now at peace but still wanted compensation.

I also have a lot of issues with my internet that involve helpful people trying to get me to type cmd prompts into my laptop to resolve the issue. I tend to need a lot of guidance to get this right, especially when it comes to typing them correctly and reading what comes up. Often what comes up is quite insulting, sadly.

 

I have explained that I was decapitated, he got very excited as it sounded very serious and put me through to his manager, he just swore at me and hung up as his grasp of the word decapitated was better the first guys.

[Bert Raccoon]

I always get scousers calling from a Glasgow number asking me about my recent car accident. As a non driver I suppose it's more likely I'll cause a horrific accident whilst in control of a car 

[Duszek]

I got a call today from a market research company.

"Sorry, I'm working just now."

"This IS work."

 

Decent effort.

 

 

[welshbairn]

On 28/06/2023 at 20:46, Ron Aldo said:

I answered a call from one of those places offering to sort compensation for my "accident". 

You could hear the surprise in the woman's voice when I told her I had been in an accident (I hadn't). I then made up this elaborate story about what had happened before she butted in to tell me how I could be done for fraud . 

I interrupted them once to say 'Oh thank God, is the ambulance on it's way?' They hang up, probably get it all the time.. 

[BigBo10]

Got a call from a Nottingham number I didn’t know but answered anyway. Someone from India representing some green energy company (I think. I’m on holiday and a few beers in by this point). He starts his script so after a minute I interrupt and say “look let’s cut to the chase. Bring me the contract and we can have a few pints, a bite to eat and shake on the deal.” He starts his script again so I repeat with the addition of “I’m an old fashioned guy. Shake hands, pay cash and have a drink together.” He hung up. 

[Hedgecutter]

I had a CR Smith sales guy around recently and I could see a lot of my previous door-to-door sales 'training' in action.  It was a naw for me.

I fell hook line and sinker for a cold-calling door-to-door sales job in the US (selling school books) that was advertised to me when I was an impressionable 1st year at uni, at risk of being homeless over the summer.

Ended up flying to Nashville for a week-long training course, at my own expense of course (moron).  There we were impressed by the 'millionaire' 40 year old who'd supposedly been good at this.  We were encouraged to go door to door to find somewhere to actually live once in our designated town (taking advantage of post people being strongly Christian), not dodgy at all in a country full of crackpots. It was very cult like, but everyone (all around 19-20yo) was being brainwashed with the carrot of making thousands of $s.

I ended up with a lad from Paisley in some middle-aged women's basement.  He was adamant we each put a dollar bill in the shower every night to be won by the first person to react to their 6am alarm and grab them, this being something we were told to do at training at Nashville.  This was to go out and catch people at home before going to work whilst sussing out the demographics of the area (parents with school-age kids being the target).

Long story short, I wasn't very good at it, partly because I didn't have the motivation, but largely because I had a conscience.  Made a loss over the summer, but it was a valuable life lesson.  More valuable in the long run than working behind a till at some shop back home anyway.  I opted to work in a cave the next two summers instead.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Hedgecutter

[Hedgecutter]

Word of warning:  More recently, I decided to answer a withheld number in a grumpy state with something along the lines of "this had better be bloody good". Turned out to be a nice Welsh lady from the DVLA asking if I had received the forms which I had yet to send back.

[Mark Connolly]

32 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

I had a CR Smith sales guy around recently and I could see a lot of my previous door-to-door sales 'training' in action.  It was a naw for me.

I fell hook line and sinker for a cold-calling door-to-door sales job in the US (selling school books) that was advertised to me when I was an impressionable 1st year at uni, at risk of being homeless over the summer.

Ended up flying to Nashville for a week-long training course, at my own expense of course (moron).  There we were impressed by the 'millionaire' 40 year old who'd supposedly been good at this.  We were encouraged to go door to door to find somewhere to actually live once in our designated town (taking advantage of post people being strongly Christian), not dodgy at all in a country full of crackpots. It was very cult like, but everyone (all around 19-20yo) was being brainwashed with the carrot of making thousands of $s.

I ended up with a lad from Paisley in some middle-aged women's basement.  He was adamant we each put a dollar bill in the shower every night to be won by the first person to react to their 6am alarm and grab them, this being something we were told to do at training at Nashville.  This was to go out and catch people at home before going to work whilst sussing out the demographics of the area (parents with school-age kids being the target).

Long story short, I wasn't very good at it, partly because I didn't have the motivation, but largely because I had a conscience.  Made a loss over the summer, but it was a valuable life lesson.  More valuable in the long run than working behind a till at some shop back home anyway.  I opted to work in a cave the next two summers instead.

The moral of this story?

People from Paisley are worse than Americans