It’s so easy to lose it at customers, but sometimes it’s the other members of the team that make you want to clock out early for a strong drink.
So here’s the thing, stores and regular customer service agents can be just as much of a hopeless donkey than the customer at times! My department’s role is transferring existing customer’s lines to another account. Think parent kicking kid off the cell phone plan or couples consolidating into one – that sort of stuff.
Wish my call queue was just transfers of service instead of being mixed with care overflow, but what are you gonna do? Anyway, for actual transfer requests, you have to do one thing before my department gets involved and holy shit do people fail this simple thing 9 times out of 10.
What is that one thing? You NEED permission to take a line from someone. Those of you reading might be going duh in how that makes sense, but common sense isn’t so common. The reason is obvious: If anyone can just call in to make a major change on your account unchecked, that is massive violation of security.
Permission to take over a line or lines is pretty simple. You either have the account owner release the number(s) online or call customer service to fill an authorization form which functions as a consent form. Basically if Bob wants his number from Jill’s account, Jill calls in to have a rep release Bob’s number before Bob can work on that new account.
Make sense? Good. Wish the stores and customer service only agents weren’t this dense. I’ve lost track of the many cold transfers from care or a store rep calling in only to pass me to a lost customer.
Literally, I can’t do ANYTHING if I have this account pop up and the person on the other line isn’t an authorized user. If you’re the owner or manager, we ask for the PIN to verify the account so we can access it. Blindly passing along a customer who’s neither authorized nor had a release form done for them is hella awkward for both of us!
The best part is when the customer responds with they were given a number to call to take their line and that was it. At least customer service agents have the ability to do a release form before transferring, store reps don’t even bother doing the basics of explaining WHO has to call in to release the phone number. They’re too busy ripping off old people with “free” tablets without disclosing that shiny 2 year contract.
This results in having to make outbound calls and those don’t always work out when the owner ignores the 800 number calling. Most of the time this kills my handle time, but we get the owner on the line to release the number. For those other times, I get a pissy customer that can’t do anything because no one bothered to explain the basics before shoving a number on them to call.
Failed a survey like this before which was total BS because even if a call was disputable due to non authorized caller, the call itself wasn’t perfect enough. Been doing this long enough that sometimes I flat out don’t answer calls when the number is clearly from a store / customer service.
To any store reps reading, stop being a shady AF donkey and tell customers to get the owner to call us first instead of dumping the customer on my department. Likewise to care only reps, fill out the release form first instead of dumping the customer off. It’s not hard, Jesus.
submitted by /u/D0nkeyTamer
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