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I had an escalation yesterday, it was over a situation which comes up often at my company and everyone there has had someone escalate over this at some point. Basically the person cancels their policy and they’re on autopay, but they’ve called like one day before their due date so the autopay process has already started so there’s no way for us to stop it, even with cancelling the policy. The payment will still go through and the customer will have to either wait for the refund or can maybe contact their bank to have it blocked.
So I had a lady call in and when I told her it couldn’t be stopped she goes off.
“The last person I spoke with said it could be! I can’t afford to have this payment come out!”
I explained there’s nothing we can do and she can contact her bank.
“This is ridiculous, let me talk to a manager!”
“I can get one for you ma’am but just to set clear expectations, a manager is unable to stop the payment too. There is no one here who can. It’s an automated process through billing and it’s out of our hands.”
“Well let me talk to someone in billing then!”
“Not possible ma’am.”
“Okay well I used to work in customer service and I know that you can ask for the manager and they can override things that you can’t so just get me the manager.”
Sigh. I reach out to my manager and surprisingly she’s available. I told her what’s going on:
Her: “okay so why did she want a manager? Does she want to log a complaint or does she think I can stop the payment?”
Me: “both? She thinks a manager can stop it.”
Her: “right, which we can’t.”
…. Yes, I’m aware of this. I’ve worked here almost 4 years. I tell her the customer simply wants a manager because she won’t listen to me. It happens.
Her: “okay well I’ll log into my phone system but you can try to nicely tell her that there’s no one here who can stop her payment…” Blah blah blah.
Lady you don’t think I already tried all that?!? I hate how managers act like every call can be deescalated because they just don’t want to do their jobs and get on the phone for an escalation. I’ve explained this situation to customers hundreds of times, and there’s always someone who thinks a manager can override it, when they can’t. Some people just need to hear “no” from a manager to believe it. Managers need to remember that sometimes the person just wants a manager no matter what and nothing we say will change that , it doesn’t mean we’ve done something wrong. Giving us these useless tips to “help us deescalate” when we’ve already done everything we can and we know we’re getting nowhere, makes things more stressful on us.
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