I promise I am not accusing you of lying.

This is a long one but it’s also my first post to this group! I started a new job for the Customer Care department of a large retail company last month. I had only ever worked in store previously and this is my first job handling calls. I’ve been live for about three weeks now and things are going fine, most calls a neutral, some not so nice and some ever so lovely. That was until the other day when I took a horrible call…

So I will be ‘me’ and the stuck up bitch will just be ‘caller’.

Me: “Hello, Customer Care, (my name) speaking, how can I help?”

Caller: “Hello, I am calling as I returned my item to store at the beginning of the month but I have not received a refund yet.”

Me: “I am sorry to hear about that, I am happy to look into this for you. Do you have an order number at all?”

Caller: “Yes, it’s (gives order number).”

Me: “Thank you, I can’t see any information on your account to say that you’ve been refunded but it’s not allowing me to create one either. Would you mind if I put you on hold whilst I check this with my colleague?”

Caller: “alright, if you must.”

At this point I can tell by the customer’s tone that she is annoyed. She is very well spoken but comes across as quite entitled. The situation is one I had never dealt with before so I had to ask my colleague what to do.

Me: “Hi Caller, thank you so much for holding. So what I need to do is make an enquiry to our Card Services department and ask them to check and see whether or not the refund has gone through, to do th-“

Caller: “Well I just told you it has not gone through. Are you accusing me of lying?”

Me: “I can assure you I am not accusing you of lying, it’s just part of our policy I need to make sure whether it has been processed correctly.” (I should have said from the beginning that I was checking to see if it was processed correctly and not whether or not it had been processed at all, but I was only going by what my colleague advised me).

Caller: “I am telling you I have not received a refund. Why must you put in a query?”

Me: “So, I need to make a query to see whether there is a mistake our end or with your bank. I just need to make sure it was processed correctly.”

Caller: “Stop accusing me of lying. I’m not lying, I have not received a refund.”

I understand that she hasn’t received a refund but unfortunately I can’t take her word for it otherwise anyone could call up and do the same thing. She didn’t understand this.

Me: “I am aware that you have not received a refund, but I-“

Caller: “Oh. You’re AWARE are you?”

Me: “….”

Me: “I am sorry, I just need to put you on hold once more whilst I check this with my colleague, okay?”

Caller: “No, this is not okay.”

So I put her on hold and at this point I just feel very flustered and am struggling as she is being so passive aggressive. I discuss a few more things with my colleague, making sure I have all the information correct that I need to ask/tell the customer.

Me: “Hi Caller, thank you once again for holding for me. So there are ju-“.

Caller: “why did you put me on hold again?!”

Me: “I’m sorry I just needed to discuss something with my colleague regarding the card query.”

Caller: “but I was still talking, you completely cut me off! This is terrible customer service, you should apologise to me right away.”

Me: “I do sincerely apologised, I did not hear you talking and if I did I would never have put you on hold.”

In all honesty I did not hear her talking so I was surprised she was so upset, I only had her on hold for a short while as well.

Me: “Okay, so-“.

Caller: “no, it’s not okay.”

Me: “uh.. so I just need to take some details from you to send to the card query and then someone will get back to you within two days with the results.”

Caller: “gives me details I asked for.”

Me: “Thank you so much, I can process this for you now, okay?”

Caller: “no, it is not okay!”

Me: “….”

Caller: “oh my goodness your customer service is terrible! You need more training, and please stop staying okay!!! It’s clearly not okay!”

I had never encountered this problem before and I was adding okay to the end of my sentences without even realising. For some reason I didn’t tell her I was new and still training and I didn’t pass her to someone else to deal with.

Caller: “also who is going to pay for this call? God knows how much I’m being charged. It’s completely unfair as you put my on hold twice!”

Me: “I’m sorry but as as far as I’m aware there are no extra charges for calling this number as it’s just a landline.”

Caller: “So what! I could still get charged and I refuse to pay!!”

Me: “Well I can certainly speak to someone about it but I can’t guarantee anything. I can see we have been on the line now for 13 minutes, so I will make a note of that.”

I was pretty sure we would not pay for the call as we don’t charge anything extra anyway, it’s all dependant on her phone provider but I really just wanted to get her off the call.

Me: “So I will put this query through for you now, okay? ….. Oh uh sorry… I didn’t mean to say okay again…”

At this point I was shaking and felt awful because I really didn’t mean to say okay again.

Caller: “goodbye.”

The lady then hung up on me. I was relieved but also just felt like utter shit. I almost broke down in tears but managed not to. I turned to my colleague who helped me out and spoke to him about the call. He is an older gentleman and very to the point. He just said that I just didn’t explain the procedure properly and that sometimes you just get customers like that. I also then found out from him that I will be the one who has to call her back when we get an answer. This should be tomorrow. I really don’t want to call her back though, and I told my colleague this, but he just said I have to.

Sorry this is mega long but there were many parts of the conversation I wanted to include. I may update tomorrow if I do call her again, but I might see if my Team Leader can do it… I just don’t understand how people can speak to others like that. It completely ruined my weekend and the confidence I was gaining.