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The “VIP” Customer

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I work for escalations and we’re mostly dealing with complaints and vulnerable customers.

We are trained to treat people with respect and with extra patience as our primary goal is to lessen legal complaints. I kind of see our team as the “risk-management team”. Process-wise, only supervisor calls can be transferred to us, as any incorrect transfers that will lead to legal complaints will definitely cost us our revenue as our client would penalize us by refusing to shoulder the fees.

With that in mind, I’d like to share the story of my “VIP” customer.

Now I have this customer who refuses to speak to anyone unless it’s from the higher ups. They would complete the normal verification process but would refuse to let anyone assist him (including supervisors) unless they’ll be transferred to us.

Now this call was transferred to me by a front of house agent, not by a supervisor. When I asked why, they told me to check the account and I found out that all the contacts the customer has made are all handled by our team, why? I don’t really know. Even normal requests like resending the bills are being handled by us as they are really refusing to be assisted by the customer service agents, refusing to utilized our automated systems, refusing to check or use our websites (even if he has the capacity to do so according to him), because… “I’m paying you to treat me like a real customer.”

Like how the hell were you being treated by our front of house agents?

Well being in escalations, I humored this customer and requested for a call recording while I was assisting them with fixing their “billing concern”.

They are really mad that their quarterly billing (utility) was estimated as they are not at home because they are at a holiday but a caretaker is apparently at home but can only access their garden outside their gated property. Meter is on the inside, and even though as per the contract, they’re obligated to provide clear access to their meter to avoid estimates, they’re refusing to do so as they are not mostly at home.

Now I’ve arranged a special reading for this customer, waived the fees as “we are not properly doing our jobs” and agreed to provide a clear access to the meter by providing the key to the caretaker.

Now while waiting for the completion of this request, I was able to obtain sample copies of their conversation with our front of house agents, and this customer… Sorry for the word, but they’re basically terrorizing our front of house teams, would always say that they would sue them if they won’t be transferred to us, etc.

Everyone’s nice to them, everyone’s overworked, but would still treat them with respect even if they don’t really deserve it. Everyone would offer all the things they can but they would really refused to speak with them, and when I later asked why, they told me one of the things I despised the most… “They work overseas, they most likely wouldn’t understand me.”

Now, I also work overseas, everyone on our team works overseas, so what’s the difference?

“Oh! I believe you will be held more accountable if something happens on my account.”

Why are you even doing business with us if you don’t trust us?

The thing though, sabotaging an account is almost close to impossible as everything in our workspace is being recorded, whether we’re speaking with someone or not. And with how their doing, refusing clear access and etc, being it included in the contract, their more likely going to lose in a legal complaint than us being penalized by the client.

And yes, as expected, this customer lied and did not provide the access to the property and their complaint with the bill was not fully sorted out as they’re refusing all the options we are providing them. We couldn’t magically obtain the reads in their meter if they’re not allowing us and it’s not our fault.

I would love to provide them the contact number of where they can file a legal complaint so they’ll be told that they’re actually at fault and they are abusing their “rights” as a customer. That even if they are the customer, they also have obligations that needs to be met as stipulated by the contract. I would really love to hear them complain back to us just so I can hear them rant about how incompetent everyone is, when they’re failing to see that they are the problem and not anyone else…

But I could no longer contact them as their number is not accepting incoming calls.

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What do you think?

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