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This is from a few years ago, but I like to think back on it fondly…. I was working in a call centre for a regional alarm company as an inbound/outbound Alarm Monitor.
We get a burglary alarm at around 7pm on a Thursday (tons of clients frequently set off the alarm when arming at night.)
Per instructions, I call the store and get no answer, so I call the police to report the alarm (again, per the client’s written instructions.)
Just as I hang up with the police, another monitor gets a call back from a very angry woman who says she’s the senior manager for “all 4 stores.” The other monitor verifies her identity and the call gets transferred to me. She’s upset that she set off the alarm, and wants us to “change the code to something easier” (it’s a 4-digit code, so whatever that means…)
I tell her I can’t do that remotely (we can’t), but would walk her through the process while she does it on her end. Should take 30 seconds provided she only wants to change one code.
Not good enough. She demands we do it for her. I try to explain that we can’t, and even if we could, we shouldn’t (for her business’ own security.)
This causes her to flip out, yelling, cursing, personal insults about my career progression, the whole thing.
There’s nothing I can do here. She’s asking the impossible of me. I let her know that I can’t do what she wants, but could try and set up a visit by a technician as soon as I can to help, but they’re booked several weeks out for non-urgent matters.
That’s not good enough, so I offer an after-hours tech for a (admittedly massive) surcharge. Also not good enough.
I tell her that the police are on the way, and I’d really like to get off the phone to cancel them. Cue more cursing and yelling.
Just then the police show up, and I advise her that I have to end the call as I have other, more urgent things to deal with (and so does she.)
Cue her shouting as I move to hang up that we “just cancel my company’s service!”
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My manager was many things, but she really didn’t care for clients abusing staff.
I was close to her office the next day when she called to follow up with the client after listening to the call logs, and it went something like this:
*‘I listened to the entire call, and my Monitors did everything they were supposed to. They followed both our company’s policies and your company’s written instructions to the letter, and you still cursed at and insulted them. They were nicer to you for far longer than I would have been, so you’re lucky I didn’t handle the original alarm.
Per your request, I’ve cancelled alarm coverage for all 4 stores effective immediately. Per our service agreement, your final invoice will be sent later today. Payment is due within 30 days, or your account will be sent to collections. There will be no grace period.
Because your alarm equipment is leased, I’ll have someone from the Service Department call to set up times for our technicians to remove our devices next week (apparently this was considered “urgent”), but until then, we’ve remotely deactivated your system, so you are now completely without alarm coverage.
I suggest you start calling other alarm companies, but good luck finding someone to install 4 commercial systems in the next few hours before the weekend.
No, you can’t use our equipment. That’s theft.
No, you can’t buy our equipment. It isn’t for sale to you.
Oh yes, you’ll probably also want to call your insurance company, as your lack of alarm coverage likely puts you in breach of your insurance agreement.
I hope your tantrum was worth it.’*
The end.
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