Send help!

Another story from my 5 years spent working for a major ISP in the UK.

I Worked customer service, tech support and field and operations support (helping our engineers on the field).

This tale is from working in the Field and operations support department.

A Little background on the job. A technician contacted us if they needed to query an account, or to amend equipment codes or just general information about a job. We had an AHT of 30 seconds, which sounds ridiculous, however it was surprisingly achievable as the tech knew that we had such a short AHT and they usually only had a quick question such as “is it 22A customer street or 22B customer street?” that sort of stuff. Anyway, we get our regular techs who have a cheeky attitude and really care and appreciate the agents on the phone, so we form a special 30 second bond with them :).

Well, here’s one of the worst calls I have ever taken in this department…

I’ll be M, tech will be T and Crazy Pants will be CP.

M: Hello, Tech ID and area ID. T: 1234 and 01 M: Hello T, its M! What job you on? T: I’m at CP’s house on 666 Hell St. M: Go’tchya, whats up? T: I’m refusing to work on this job due to health concerns. M: Sure thing T, I’ll close the job down. Whats wrong? T: Cat and human poop everywhere. Disgusting. This will need to be visited by a manager if the customer wishes to re-book after he cleans the place up.

Now this is surprisingly quite common, our techs will not work in a dumpsite for obvious reasons.

M: I’ve closed the job T, Speak to you soon! As soon as I finished speaking I heard screaming, which I could only describe as a warrior going into battle, followed by the sounds of a struggle. M: T, everything okay over there? T: The c**t has locked me in the cupboard! M: He what? T: He just punched me and dragged me into his cupboard.

I just froze and asked T to repeat what he just said.

T: I’m locked in!

I then heard CP telling T that he has a knife and he will use it if he calls the police.

M: T, I’m going to call the police and I’ll let your manager know whats going on.

I call my manager over and I get them to dial 999.

M: T, the police are on route and your manager has been notified.

T then remained silent, and I could hear brief gasps and whimperings. The poor boy must of been distraught.

I stayed on the phone with T until the police arrived. My AHT went from 26 seconds to almost 5 min after that call.

I was taken off the phones to calm down and I spoke to T’s manager who confirmed that T was safe but a bit shaken up.

Sadly, I never heard from T again and I never found out what happened to Crazy Pants.

I was, however, put on coaching for a week after my AHT for that week was over 30 seconds. Got to love call centers!