Repost: Call centre blues, Part I

I don't really have much on my mind on this late Friday afternoon, and there's really no news worth commenting on, so I'm instead going to repost from my former blog my "classic" series on what it's like to work at a call centre. The one I'm at now is for a major auto manufacturer (well, a company under contract to a vehicle producer) and not pizza, but there are some rather similar principles at work.

[Originally posted August 22nd, 2005]

When people call into a call centre to order something or get information, most are quite polite and put up with the inconvenience of stopping for a couple of minutes to do what they have to do. There are some, however, who will complain that the order-taker is being rude to them.

Sure, there's no question some people in the industry are like that. But it cuts both ways.

Here are some of the typical examples that get at my colleagues and me, in no particular order:

1) "What is your special?"

In the singular, like there's only one. When you're calling in, often times there's a feature that lets you listen to all the specials, not just the one. We feel like a broken record as we repeat, verbatim, the hold message. Or you get steamed when the price has gone up, when a listen to the message or a check of the website would indicate exactly that.

Tip: For heaven's sake, listen to the voice mail. It'll speed up the call when you do place your order. When you're ready to place to the order, hit zero and the next operator will help you.

2) "Can you wait a minute?"

Here, we tell you that we're ready to take your order, then they put US on hold while they consult with their friends on a single ingredient. And this happens over and over again, so a two minute call becomes ten. And for every ten seconds it goes on, another person is put on hold. By the time we get around to THEM, they've probably hung up and called someone else because they think WE'RE the insensitive ones. Meantime, you've probably ended up ordering something you didn't want to begin with.

Tip: Have a general idea of the ingredients you want on each item, how well cooked, etc. We'll talk you through the different sizes and prices and offer combinations that'll save you money.

3) "You're just down the street from me."

Uh, the store is, but we're not. When you call a food service chain (or department store or whatever) to order something , more likely than not you will be not connected to the nearest store but forwarded to either to a call centre or to an agent telecommuting from his or her home, often hundreds of kilometres away from you. Often times, there's more than one call centre, and it's just the luck of the draw where you get directed to -- next available operator means just that.

(To use another example, when you call the federal tax authorities, it's not too uncommon to have your called answered in Vancouver when in fact you're calling from Toronto or Montréal -- or vice versa. That's why they ask you for your social insurance number, since they can all access the same file.)

And we're not authorized to give out the "real" store numbers, because those are reserved to deal with customer service complaints.

Don't worry. All the franchises subscribing to our system are linked to us. We'll take the order and send it via secure link to their printer -- whether it's a pickup or delivery.

4) "I don't like the service from such and such store, can you have it delivered from somewhere else?" Or "That store is five kilometres from here, why can't you have it delivered from the store down the road?"

On the first point, sorry, no can do. Each franchise has a specific delivery area and will not trod into a neighbour's territory. The sole exception is if a store gets bombarded with orders or has an emergency situation beyond its control. In that case, the store either temporary closes to deal with the backlog (usually, this will take about 30 minutes to an hour) or the computer will automatically redirect the order to another location that is not too busy.

On the second one, it's a legitimate point. But I think the system tries to keep track of how many orders each store gets and, every so often, will adjust the boundaries to ensure the franchisers get on a weighted basis roughly the same number of orders.

5) "Why is there no time guarantee?"

Three possibilities: First, you're too far from the store or in a relatively new development that the drivers are not yet familiar with. Second, your order is too large to fit under the normal time constraints. Third, the store has too many orders.

6) "Can you rush my order?"

It's first come, first served.

7) "I need to get my credit card (or meal plan)."

To speed things up, you may want to consider having it with you when you pick up the phone. In some cases, the credit information is handled by an automated attendant after we've taken your order and you have to enter the card number and expiry date with your touch tone phone. If you wait too long, it'll hang up and the order won't be sent to the store. The order is still in the system but you have to call back, we have to retrieve it and so forth, delaying your wait time even more.

Otherwise, if you have to read out the number to the operator, it's just common sense to have it ready to read out. We can send the order to the store straight away and you can enjoy your service a lot faster.

8) "You have such a lovely voice. Can you deliver it to me?"

I get this about once a night, from a far flung place. The answer is, yes -- if you have contacts at NORAD and can fly a Harrier Jet or F-18 down my way. Otherwise, it'll be someone locally. Sorry.

9) "Will you go out with me?"

No fraternizing with the customers. In fact, we're not supposed to fraternize with each other -- that might be construed as sexual harrassment especially if it involves an underlink and a supervisor. Not supposed to but it does happen anyway.

[Update for clarity: I originally stated that intrawork relationships are forbidden. Of course, that's silly. Since I first posted this at my ex-blog almost two years ago, I found out such workplace rules are only supposed to be illegal in the US and only because companies say they're against policy. I can understand the concern given how serious real sexual harrassment is; but for the record I did some research afterwards and discovered such clauses themselves actually violate labour standards so long as sexual harrassment isn't involved. Come on, you're going to stop people from falling in love, or for that matter having a fling?

[Turns out such rules are totally unenforceable in Canada anyway, although workplace relationships should still be reported to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest.]

10) "You already have my address on file, why do you need it again?"

To make sure the order is going to the right address. Far too many times, people are rushing to make an order and accidentally give someone else's phone number, which screws things up. Or they're on the road and use their home numbers to place an order at the town they're visiting or doing business in. There is a difference between Thunder Bay and North Bay: They're 1200 km apart, folks.

11) "Are you a top or a bottom?"

Yes, someone really did ask me this one time. The next time someone asks me, I'll ignore the question and continue with the order.

For the record, I'm 100% straight, single and looking.

12) "You speak with an American accent."

Blame that on watching the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite and NBC's Meet the Press as a young kid. My experience around others is that one's accent is usually set around 7 or 8. Rest assured folks, I am Canadian.

13) "I've been on hold for 20 minutes."

No you haven't. When you call in, we have a clock that says exactly how long you've been in the system. Four or five minutes, tops, maybe. Not twenty. On a very rare occasion, one call centre might crash and the calls are redirected to the other ones ... even in a situation like that, we'll endeavour to clear the backlog in 10 minutes, tops. So please hold. If you hang up, you'll just go right to the back of th queue.

14) "I just want to place my last order, please send me back to the auto attendant."

This is rare, but there are people who do love voice mail. Not to worry, we can take care of that ... just pull up the last order from the server and you're done in about 15 seconds, which is way less time than it would take to send you BACK to voice mail -- if we had the ability to do that which we don't.

And last but not least:

15) "I don't need to give you a reason why I want to cancel my order."

Well, no you don't, but it'd be helpful if you did tell us. We want to improve your service experience.

Bottom line, we know you have a life to lead, but we're just doing a job here too. So cut us a bit of slack.