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I had one difficult caller today out of all my other calls
I currently handle credit card accounts
CCI about an Interest Fee on their account, it happens when they don’t pay the balance on their account on time, they were two days late in making the payment
We’re required to ask the reason for why they didn’t pay on time, this one said sarcastically it was the holidays and ‘had better things to do’
I followed procedure and let the computer decide if fees can be waived, since it was an interest fee and not a late fee, I couldn’t waive it on my end
I explained to the customer that Interest Fees are valid whenever we receive a late payment, they ask for a manager of course, I oblige and ask for them to hold while I connect them with one
We have to do a warm transfer and explain the situation to the manager, the wait time was going to be longer than 2 minutes
I return to the customer and tell them about the wait as per guidelines, he curses ‘bullshit, I don’t want to wait for a goddamn manager, either you fucking remove the interest charge or close my account’
I tried to tell them again that a manager can try to further assist them, they curse and scream to close the account
We are allowed to do so and only have to mention the benifits of the cards before closing, but if the customer is really adamant about closing the account, we process it
I didn’t feel like arguing (or mentioning the benifits, since he did say the card is ‘bullshit’ earlier in the call), so I inform them that I will close the account upon their request and that they will be notified by mail about the closing of the account
They hang up, and I document the account
The amount they were angry about was ~$2
I would have been fine with giving them credit, since we are allowed to do so up to a certain amount, but they did curse at me and asked for a manager before I could mention I could do so
Applying a discretionary credit is up to the agent, transferring to a manager upon request is non negotiable, except at the start of the call, try once to de-escalate, transfer if still wants supervisor
They have 24 hours to reinstate the account or they’ll have to reapply for a new account, which I know we don’t currently process or will be processing in the coming months due to changes happening with the client we support
The only thing I hope for is that I don’t get a survey from them, but there’s a good chance I won’t since they hung up first, and the survey is usually given after I end the call and the caller decided to stay on the line to answer it
(If you feel like what I just said sounds impossible, I don’t blame you, even I’m surprised by the amount of control we’re given
I’ve only been with one other company [pre-pandemic, and I hear they require people to be on-site] before my new one [WFH, all equipment provided] and some of the things I would have probably said about this story would have been:
“No way, they don’t make you try harder to save the customer?!?”
“Only managers can apply credits and waive fees!”
“You should have transferred them to the Retentions Department before saying you’ll close their account”
Not sure if there are other companies or agents with similar experiences, but I’m just glad I got them off the phone in less than 10 mins and all my other calls were fairly pleasant or mundane)
Hope everyone can have good shifts for the rest of the month and their KPIs improve!
Edit:
Unrelated but similar call type story (happened the day after this one):
https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromcallcenters/comments/s9nld1/why_do_i_have_an_interest_fee_on_my_statement/
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