The Nuts Are Running The Squirrel House

Well, not really.  But I work in customer service, so I’m getting very close.  The longer I work in a service field, the more amazed I am that that human race hasn’t died out long ago.  We certainly contradict the idea of survival of the fittest.

Caveat: I certainly am not referring to you, gentle reader.  If you are here on this blog, you:

a) can read, or
b) know me, or
c) clicked here from a site I read, or
d) know how to do a google search, and came to my site.If any of these things are true, then rest easy.  None of this refers to you.  Sit back and enjoy my tirade knowing that you are a spectator, not a target.  Also remember that this has to do with BAD customers.  Good customers are great.  There are times when I’ve hung up from a call and said out loud, “I love nice people.”  The first job I got out of college was a phone rep job, too.  And I was great.  Nice, a good listener, and eager to please.  I still am in many ways.  But I’ve seen enough of the bad customers to have developed a very bitter disenchantment with customers who call in.  If a customer has an IQ above 50 and any sense of personal responsibility, we will probably get along just fine, and I might even laugh at their unfunny jokes and attempts to be clever.  But for the customers who don’t have and IQ above 50 and any sense of personal responsibility, my feelings are best summed up in two words: Piss off.

If you have ever worked in a customer service field–especially a call center–you have discovered the dirty little underbelly of humanity.  10% of your calls are normal.  Good customers calling to updated their credit card number or contact information, or nice people asking questions that make sense.  The other 90% of the people are the ones I talk to.  These are the people who don’t read their terms and conditions, who don’t ever look at their credit card statement, who think that anything that doesn’t make them happy is bad customer service, and who threaten to hire a lawyer.  Let’s check these out in more detail.

People Who Don’t Read Their Terms And Conditions

If you have ever worked in a customer service field–especially a call center–you have discovered the dirty little underbelly of humanity.  10% of your calls are normal.  Good customers calling to updated their credit card number or contact information, or nice people asking questions that make sense.  The other 90% of the people are the ones I talk to.  These are the people who don’t read their terms and conditions, who don’t ever look at their credit card statement, who think that anything that doesn’t make them happy is bad customer service, and who threaten to hire a lawyer.  Let’s check these out in more detail.I don’t care if our product is great or it’s crap.  When you sign up for it online, it is physically impossible for you to sign up without approving the terms and conditions.  Whether you read them or not, clicking on “Accept” means that you are legally bound to those terms and conditions.  When you call, and I point out that you DID approve something that you are now complaining about, the correct thing to do is take responsibility.  Simply say, “You are right.  I agreed to those terms, and I take responsibility.  I’m sorry for wasting your time.  Because I even thought of going against the terms I agreed to, I will now get a vasectomy to prevent myself from raising future generations of equally unobservant customers.  Thank you for pointing this out before I procreated.”

People Who Don’t Look At Their Credit Card Statement

We bill automatically each month for our service.  I get calls from people complaining that they have been billed for over a year and they thought they cancelled their service.  First of all, READ YOUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS.  You have to actually contact US to cancel.  Second, why the heck are you JUST noticing this after a YEAR?!  Tell you what, try checking your statement, oh, say, MONTHLY.  Then you won’t be billed for a year and not realize it.  Also, when you DO call about this issue, be nice to me.  Remember two things: you are seeing the charge on your credit card because we have YOUR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION ON FILE.  Tick me off too bad, and you may find yourself with a $10,000 order of embarrassing adult toys UPS’d to your front door.  I’ve got your credit card information, remember?  Second thing to remember: I am paid enough to answer the phone, not enough to care about your problem.  I haven’t had a raise in two years.  Bite me.

People Who Think That Anything That Doesn’t Make Them Happy Is Bad Customer Service

Let’s get one thing straight.  The customer is not always right.  The customer says the sky is plaid?  Nope.  Customer’s wrong.  Let’s say the customer’s angry about being charged $88.00 for the renewal of one of our services.  They are angry that the renewal was done automatically (per terms and conditions), and that the charge overdrew their account.  Here’s how the situation would go, in a just world:

Customer: I got charged 88 friggin’ dollars for a service I don’t even want!
Me: I don’t see where you called to cancel your account.  Therefore, per the terms and conditions, yes, your account did renew.
Customer: But I don’t want your service!
Me: Ok, I can cancel your account.
Customer: Ok.  And refund me that last charge.
Me: I’m sorry, but per the terms and conditions you agreed to, that charge is not refundable.
Customer: What?  So I just lost $88?
Me: You are getting exactly what you signed up for.
Customer: That’s bad customer service.
Me: Actually, that’s a combination of many things.  It’s bad reading, as you apparently did not read everything that a fiscally responsible consumer should know before voluntarily signing up for a service.  It’s bad memory, as you don’t remember that you badly read the terms and conditions, and it’s bad ethics as you apparently lied when you said you agreed to the terms and conditions.  Most of all, it’s more annoying than anything, as I have to spend my valuable time explaining your own shortcomings to you.  Bad customer service? No.  Even if it were possible to refund you your money in spite of the contract you agreed to, your $88 is worth more to me than your satisfaction, as you make me very angry.
Customer: What am I going to do about these overdraft charges?
Me: I would suggest getting a second job.  Perhaps in customer service.  You’d feel right at home.  You’d get to talk to many people similar to you each day.  Most of them are probably related to you.

The icing on the cake is the people who think that asking to speak to a manager is a get-out-of-jail-free card.  Ask to speak to a manager if it’s a judgement call, not if it’s an issue with your contractual and fiscal irresponsibilty.  If you’ve ignored the terms and condtions, haven’t checked your credit card statement in a year, and are getting mad at me for using common sense, do you think the manager is going to say, “You know, even though the representative I hired is correct, you seem very upset, and I’d like to refund you your money, thus undermining the job I pay my representative to do.  I would rather have a good relationship with you, a person I will talk to for 1 minute, than the employee I will have to deal with for years.”

People Who Threaten To Hire A Lawyer

I don’t know what I like better…the thought that they aren’t going to win their case because they agreed to the terms and conditions, or the thought that they’re going to lose $500 trying to get back $88.

My customer service experience has not only prompted me to write this post, it has also changed the way I look at things.  I no longer think Jesus died for EVERYONE.  In fact, there’s only 15 names on the list of people I suspect He died for.  FYI, none of them are my customers.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Have A Laugh. You can follow responses to this entry through the Comments RSS Feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.