The customer is always right...

[kablooee87]

..or not.

notalwaysright.com

Bang Head Here
Tech Support | London, UK

Me: “Hello, technical support, how can I help?”

Customer: “I don’t know what’s wrong with my computer. Can you tell me?”

Me: “Well… can you explain what’s wrong?”

Customer: “Your job is to tell me what’s wrong.”

Me: “Yes, but unless you help me I can’t tell you what is wrong.”

Customer: “Why? Can’t you guess what’s wrong?”

(I have decided a this point whatever is wrong will be something stupid.)

Me: “Okay, maybe you can’t turn your computer on because it hasn’t got any power.”

Customer: *angrily* “DO YOU THINK I’M STUPID?”

(Suddenly, the customer calms down.)

Customer: “Sorry, you were wrong. It’s plugged in and the light is green. Can you guess what’s wrong? It’s still black on the screen.”

Me: “Well, is your screen on?”

Customer: “Yes, I just said it was. It’s just black!”

Me: “Right click.”

Customer: “Hey, it worked… oh, it was a screensaver. Couldn’t you have guessed it was that at the start?”

Me: *thud thud thud*

Customer: “What was that?”

Me: “Guess.”

Montgomery Scott’s Early Days At The Copy Shop
Copy Shop | Kalamazoo, MI, USA

Customer: “My son is locked out of the house and I need to send him the key!”

Me: “We can overnight the key and have it to him by 10:30am tomorrow morning. Shall we send the key to the neighbor’s house?”

Customer: “No, he needs it right now! Why can’t I just fax it?”

Me: “…Ma’am, you can’t fax a key.”

Customer: “Why not? He’s locked out and needs the key!”

Me: “Because a key is a three dimensional object, not a document.”

(Customer stares at me.)

Me: “Ma’am, is your fax machine in your house?”

Customer: “Yes!”

Me: “How will your son get into the house to get the key from the fax machine if he is locked out?”

Customer: “D*mn it! You’re right! Well, thanks for your time!”

Me: “I do what I can.”

 

[Geordie Ahmed]

) ) ) )

There was a whole list of these on some site (i shall see if i can find them)

 

[kablooee87]

) ) ) )

There was a whole list of these on some site (i shall see if i can find them)

you mean like the site I provided a link to?

Lesson Of The Day: Food Poisoning = Bad
Sandwich Shop | Austin, TX, USA

(Note: the FDA recently recalled tomatoes because of a salmonella outbreak.)

Me: “… and what veggies would you like on your sandwich?”

Customer: “Lettuce, tomato and onion, that’s all. And some mayo.”

Me: “Sorry, ma’am, we’re not selling tomatoes right now, but I’ll put the rest of that on for you.”

Customer: “What? Why can’t I have tomatoes?”

Me: “Because the FDA is worried that they may be contaminated with salmonella and until we’re sure that ours are safe, we’re not allowed to sell them.”

Customer: “Your tomatoes are contaminated?! How can you sell tomatoes that are contaminated? That’s disgusting! I can’t believe you!”

Me: “Ma’am we’re *NOT* selling them.”

Customer: “Well, why the h*** not?!”

Me: “Because the FDA says they might not be safe and we don’t want our customers to get sick.”

Customer: “Well, that’s stupid. I want tomatoes.”

Me: “All right, ma’am, but I suggest you leave off the mayonnaise then.”

Customer: “Umm… okay, why?”

Me: “It tends to taste bad when mixed with salmonella.”

 

[Geordie Ahmed]

you mean like the site I provided a link to?

Ah didnt notice that

 

[kablooee87]

Ah didnt notice that

yea I think it's because it doesn't have www in front of it so the boards don't make it into a link. But if I use www then the link doesn't work.

 

[Geordie Ahmed]

yea I think it's because it doesn't have www in front of it so the boards don't make it into a link. But if I use www then the link doesn't work.

Thats cos if you want to put a link you need to copy the address and select the INSERT HYPERLINK and paste the address into there

 

[PlanetPakistan]

There was a whole list of these on some site (i shall see if i can find them)

you mean like the site I provided a link to?

Ah didnt notice that

Admin is always right...?

 

[princess_of_punjab]

i hate it when i get nasty customers...they r just human beings like us..why do they feel so prestigious than us!

 

[the_game]

Aah, the joys of dealing with the general public.

 

[Saj]

Recently I have had to call Virgin Media, British Gas and Sky.

All overseas call centres - one in India, one in Philippines and one in South Africa. All of the customer services agents were absolutely terrible, bordering on totally useless, could hardly speak any English and wasted my time.

For each of the calls I had to ask them to transfer me to an agent in the UK to resolve my query.

Has customer service gone downhill or is it due to overseas call centres?

 

[ElRaja]

i once had to call vodafone to cancel an old contract, it took more than 5 hours jumping between call centres all over the world, simultaneously on the phone and online chat.

however on the flip side i called BT and complained about a persistant problem, took abt two 15 min calls, eventually the issue got sorted and they threw in a complimentary LAN cable.

so its swings and roundabouts really, some work out OK, others not so much.

 

[Itachi]

One needs to understand the scenario inside a call center.

When a company outsourcing the service, they give a strict regulations and possible scenarios that may occur in day to day life.

Since these call centers are overseas, they may not know many local issues and give a generic answer which were provided to them by the company which on the other hand, isn't that helpful.

When there is cost cutting, there will be bound to some lack of quality. I wouldn't blame the call centers nor the company but in reality, it's an unavailable situation.

 

[Varun]

Since Covid, companies in India have found it more convenient to shut down call centers altogether, leaving you at the mercy of a chatbot.

Ridiculous.

 

[Tera Gawaandi]

Recently I have had to call Virgin Media, British Gas and Sky.

All overseas call centres - one in India, one in Philippines and one in South Africa. All of the customer services agents were absolutely terrible, bordering on totally useless, could hardly speak any English and wasted my time.

For each of the calls I had to ask them to transfer me to an agent in the UK to resolve my query.

Has customer service gone downhill or is it due to overseas call centres?

I would say need to call has reduced so much, I don't know which age group you belong to or how much time you have on your hand for making calls and be on wait queue but for me improvement in self serve section of websites is day n night and I get so exhausted from day to day life that I just don't want to talk to another person sometimes. I wanna thank app developers, ui designers and in general better ethics from businesses. I also love the callback feature. I am in Canada btw.

 

[Giannis]

I would say need to call has reduced so much, I don't know which age group you belong to or how much time you have on your hand for making calls and be on wait queue but for me improvement in self serve section of websites is day n night and I get so exhausted from day to day life that I just don't want to talk to another person sometimes. I wanna thank app developers, ui designers and in general better ethics from businesses. I also love the callback feature. I am in Canada btw.

A lot of people still call customer service, in fact that's how you get things done fast and it's better than dealing with some robot/automated message on the other end. I'm in my mid 20s and and most people I know around my age still call customer service if they're frustrated with service, customer service agents can usually do a better job than going to a website and reading per-answered questions that don't necessarily help my specific case. It's the same with HR at work, I'd rather to speak to an actual person than go to some dumb online portal operated by some AI that is of no use.

 

[Saj]

I would say need to call has reduced so much, I don't know which age group you belong to or how much time you have on your hand for making calls and be on wait queue but for me improvement in self serve section of websites is day n night and I get so exhausted from day to day life that I just don't want to talk to another person sometimes. I wanna thank app developers, ui designers and in general better ethics from businesses. I also love the callback feature. I am in Canada btw.

If only things at ALL companies were so simple.

There are still many companies out there who you have to call up to get things sorted out.

 

[Saj]

Since Covid, companies in India have found it more convenient to shut down call centers altogether, leaving you at the mercy of a chatbot.

Ridiculous.

Covid really has been used by many useless companies as an excuse for pathetic customer service.

Easy excuse to say we are short-staffed or cannot help due to Covid rather than actually looking into their errors or shortcomings.

 

[MenInG]

I had a call from my Credit Card provider's fraud section trying to alert me about a suspicious txn. Was from India and the line was so bad that it felt like he was the fraudster himself.

 

[Technics 1210]

If the voice is an Indian accent, hang up.

The best customer service I have ever used is the Amex Platinum service via the app. It’s super fast, and support staff are based in your country.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

Since Covid, companies in India have found it more convenient to shut down call centers altogether, leaving you at the mercy of a chatbot.

Ridiculous.

I was directed to a chatbot when I had a problem with BT Broadband, was taken up in India, had to go through about 5 minutes worth of security checks, finally put through to someone in England, who again asked for the security checks, was told there had been an error at their end where the equipment had been sent to the wrong address, and they would deal with it.

Chatbot lady sent me a text and told me I could raise any further queries with her by replying to the text, I did so a few days later, and she didn't reply.

Back on the chatbot again, this time I got a guy in India, went through the security protocols again, updated everything taking another hour or so, signed off and again he left me a text and an email address to update on progress, when I replied with a query....zilch. No reply.

I just sent them an email cancelling the contract, because it was still within the 14 day cooling off period. I must have spoken to 5 different people during that time, and every time I had to go through everything all over again so they could understand.

 

[Saj]

Here's another bunch of clowns - Vodafone.

My wife recently changed her phone - what a mess they made of the whole process. Then they tried to blame colleagues and other teams without trying to sort the issues out.

Absolute shambles.