Just a little vent

[Bertie9396]

I am a Customer Service Representative. I was talking to a customer on the phone today. There was one of our technicians at his house and it turns out the customer and I had a miscommunication so I was trying my best to come to a resolution. Anyway, he wasn't happy with my suggestion so he got very angry and started yelling and swearing and told me to...well, its not appropriate to put on here but it was very insulting and sexual in nature.

I got angry. Very angry. As politely and firmly as I could I told him speaking to me like that was unacceptable and I was trying my best to help him out. He only got worse. I hung up on him and have now refused to deal with this customer again.

As much as I try to not let people like this bother me, it does. I've gotten angry at CSR's before. I've yelled. I've said bad things about the company, I've even used swear words but I never personally insult the person on the other end of the phone. And I always realize I've lost my cool and apologize for yelling and/or swearing (hello, pregnancy hormones at the time).

In this situation today, I was just about to suggest I call him back after I was able to speak to management to see if I could get a discount approved for him. But then he crossed the line and when I told my managers the whole story and they heard the phone call (all of my calls are recorded) they agreed that I did everything I could, he crossed a line and he was a lost customer but it was just as well.

Anyway, just a reminder the next time you are upset at someone on the phone. They often have no control over the situation and may sympathize with you 100% but can't do anything about it. They are a person with feelings and have good days and bad days too.

 

[a1tinkfans]

No one deserves to be verbally abused, end of story. I agree, politely explaining that you will not tolerate the verbal attack and then saying good by and hanging up is the right thing to do. So, good for you and nice to hear about management that supports their staff!

 

[kaytieeldr]

It's funny now. I had a customer like this a few months ago. He yelled at me, he swore at me, he swore at a supervisor, he twice threatened to come to where I was working and shoot me - not easy to find... management listened to the phone call (also always recorded) and except for the part where I started crying and handed the phone off to the supervisor I did everything right; okay, even then. Interestingly, he's still a customer.

 

[Styx Fan]

Sorry you had to deal with that.....sometimes people are just so awful. Especially when they can't see you.

I worked for Customer Assistance for a major auto company in the '90's. As the job was used as an entry level position to other jobs in the company, we were never treated or thought of as just "operators" by our company, despite what some of the callers seemed to think. We were given full authority to control the call and decide what was enough. Of course, it was fully expected you would do all possible to assist the owner and let comments and sarcasm about the "lemon" and bad dealers roll off your back. But personal comments were a strict no-no. The owner got a warning...usually along the lines of "Sir, I will not be yelling and swearing, abusing, whatever, you and expect the same respect in return". If it continued "I have asked for mutual respect in this call and I am trying to assist you...if you continue in this manner I will disconnect the call." Then we followed through. Of course, since we were given the discretion, there were times there were no warnings or very little before the disconnect was hit. Problem with that was they would just call back even worse.

It was a very hard job, but the respect of our management in these type of cases made all the difference in the world.

My personal favorite (not) call was from a guy who asked for some simple information. No problem, I had the answer. He said off to his companion something like "Honey, hand me that pen....ooooo baby (heavy breathing.....ohhhhh baby (pant, pant)......" Without even thinking I hit the disconnect button There was a manager near-by and we had a good few minutes of talking about how gross and wanting a shower!

 

[ShesAPirate]

Way back, when I was living in Georgia and working for Bell South, I had a customer who wanted extremely fast (less than 4 hours, which was our top priority) service. I told him I could do anything better, because 4 hours was the top of what we could do. He told me "well the people in the twin towers weren't supposed to run out of the buildings, but they did it anyway." along with a litany of curses and personal insults. I LOST my mind, being a native New Yorker, and absolutely offended by this jerk thinking his phone problems in any way measured up to the horror that was 9/11. I instantly put him on hold to talk to my supervisor, and was allowed to not take calls for the rest of the day. Some people just don't have any idea of the gravity of REAL situations before they blow up at you. I was just so grateful to have supervisors that saw my point of view!

 

[hereyago]

One time I worked as a pbx operator for Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg Va. They would have the golf tournaments there, oh yes what fun to see the famous people pop up on the caller id and be stupid drunk.

However, most of the crappy drunks would be regular folks and if they started cussing etc, i would tell them I was going to hang up and I would do it.

Then one time I worked in a hospital as an operator on the late shift. the patients were good, but there was always say a relative that was drunk that wanted to talk to the patient at um 3 am. um nope. or say if someone got shot and their identity was being withheld , the relative knew the person was there, but we had to say we don't have that person here. they would get all crazy, um we are trying to protect your relative or the person doens't want you to call them.

 

[superme80]

I worked in a call center for a year. I was able to handle most calls, but this one guy insulted my intelligence. He got hung up on! Then he called back and yelled at my co-worker. He got hung up on again! He called back and yelled at my manager. Yet again he was hung up on. I wish he would have calmed down and really looked at the situation. The sad thing was he was at fault.

 

[disneychic2]

DH works as a top level person on a help desk for a major corporation. He is so skilled at bringing people down it amazes me. All of you who do that sort of work are amazing!

Your stories remind me of when I was working as an x-ray technician, I used to get drunks all the time, most of whom were under arrest. They could be funny, but sometimes they were mean and tried to take their circumstances out on me. I've had them scream, threaten, cuss and cop a feel. We were allowed to refuse to x-ray anyone who treated us badly. Sometimes the arresting officers accompanied them to the x-ray dept., but sometimes they just handcuffed them to the gurney and left.

 

[bicker]

Very often, here on the DIS, we see the other side of the story - the one-sided, customer's diatribe ranting against some CSR. It is always important to keep in mind that there are two sides to every story, and that the customer is not always right. Often - far more often than not, in such disputes - the customer is very unreasonable.

 

[Bertie9396]

Wow! Those are crazy stories! Crazy but true I'm sure. I'm not feeling quite so alone right now. LOL

I find alot of people are soooo different over the phone. I told one of my co-workers that I would love for this guy to come into the office and say something like that to my face. He wouldn't. Big man talking like that to a woman over the phone.

We had one guy a few months ago who would freak out the second you picked up the phone. He has threatened everyone in our office, so much so that one of the owners made a report to the police! The thing is, our company was trying to work with him and his wife is one of the nicest ladies I've ever dealt with.

We do from time-to-time have to assist walk-in customers. One guy came in just before closing and refused to leave. I wasn't there that day but I was told he lunged at my boss over the reception desk and two male managers had to forceably remove him from the office and the police were called.

I have lots of stories I could share. I've always worked with the general public. I've even worked in a government office and have never had the sort of abuse like I've received in the last few years. Its like everyone in these stressful times have just snapped and common decency has gone out the window.

But, hey chin up for me!! Its my last Friday before vacation. A week from this very second I'll be on the road south!!!

 

[Bertie9396]

Very often, here on the DIS, we see the other side of the story - the one-sided, customer's diatribe ranting against some CSR. It is always important to keep in mind that there are two sides to every story, and that the customer is not always right. Often - far more often than not, in such disputes - the customer is very unreasonable.

In my experience, the more defensive and irate a customer sometimes gets is a direct result of how wrong they are.

Sometimes, a customer will call back and apologize. Usually to a manager and gets passed along to me. That's a nice feeling when it happens.

I'm embarassed to say, I've been one of those customers who called in and apologized and said "Oops. It was my mistake all along. Sorry." That's a hard thing to do.

I'm complaining about customers but some of them are fantastic. I do have some customers who send me christmas gifts and in November when my DH's grandfather died, two of them mailed in sympathy cards. I think of those customers after I've dealt with someone like the guy yesterday. Its the only way I don't walk out.

 

[golfgal]

When I was working retail I had a guy come up to the register, chip on his shoulder before he even started talking to me, wanting "that shirt that is in the ad". I am thinking "Ok, the ad book is about 50 pages long this week can you be more specific?" I gave him a copy of the ad book to page through and he pages through it and tosses it back at me 'it's not here, let me see the other ad". I told him that was the only one we had for this week. He starts going off on me that I was accusing him of lying about seeing the shirt. . I asked him to describe the shirt, he grabs the ad back again and said 'it sort of looks like this one". Ok, he said he looked all over the department and didn't see anything like that one. I asked him if he looked online-he didn't, so we looked it up in the store--not available. He looked in the ad book again and found the shirt. He said he had been to 5 other stores looking for that shirt and no one had it. I told him it was probably sold out company wide then because if we don't have it, the 5 other stores don't have it AND it isn't available online, we probably can't get it. He wanted my "managers" name . I called her up to the register, she took one look at the guy and walked away--I guess he is a problem customer on a weekly basis. I REALLY wanted to say--"oh wait, let me pull out my knitting needles and sewing machine and I will make one for you quick".

 

[Styx Fan]

We do from time-to-time have to assist walk-in customers.

Yikes! Our location was not made available. Not even the actual city! When asked we were in the Detroit area. Our mailing address was a P.O. box. Our building did not even have the name of the company outside. There were procedures in place if an owner did appear in person, and I heard they had been used a couple of times. When you are talking about a product as expensive as motor vehicles, people get pretty intensive. Awww heck, folks get intense about much smaller items too. Guess I just see the point a bit more in something this major.

 

[bettymae1121]

I've worked in customer service in one way or the other since I was 16. I have to say, every place I ever worked for would back us up if we had a customer go over the line. Even the places that were otherwise not all that great to work for, didn't want us being abused by the customers like that.

At my current job, I work as a travel agent for a large non-profit, I book all the travel for their meetings. 99.9% of the members we deal with are great people, and even when there is a problem, they treat us with respect. But every once in a while we'll get a real "winner" on the line. My co-worker actually lodged a complaint against one member with HR, I'm not sure what was said but she was rattled and she doesn't get upset easily. When our Executive Director (ie head honcho) heard about it, he personally contacted the member and told him if he ever treated any employee like that again, they'd revoke his membership AND tell everyone who would listen why it was revoked (which would embarrass him professionally). Since then that member has toed the line, not exactly nice to us on the phone but he never gets upset anymore, either.

 

[Cee]

I sympathize. I worked in a theater box office for almost 10 years(20 years ago) and I haven't recovered yet!

 

[kaytieeldr]

I have lots of stories I could share.

They're more funny or exasperating than horror stories, but check out www.notalwaysright.com

 

[2girlsmom]

I have also worked in customer service for nearly all of my adult life, and how to deal with a "difficult" customer was actually something discussed in interviews. I think it is important to try to put ourselves in the shoes of the customer, but there are definitely those customers whose attitude essentially reverses my otherwise helpful personality and a few who have gone nutty on me, which generally makes me want to deny them what they want even when I can get it for them! I wouldn't actually do it, but sometimes with some customers, after a while you really WANT to tell them no, they can't have their way just because they throw a fit.

 

[pixiefairy]

I have also done customer service for pretty much my entire working life, since the age of 15. I was in the install department for a major security alarm company years ago and got one man who called and swore up and down that he didn't sign a contract with us (I had it in front of me with his signature on it). We discussed it back and forth and around in circles for a bit and he became very angry and started cussing at me. I remained calm and told him that if he persisted, I would have to hang up on him. He kept going, and I hung up. I knew he'd come back through the phone queue, so I told the supervisors that he was theirs to handle this time. He did come back through and apparently, didn't speak to the men like that.

I'm currently in retail, which can be VERY draining. Most of the customers are fantastic but we do have some high maintenance ones. My boss even ran out of the store before the one lady could come back out of the dressing room, lol. I have been sworn at, especially right after Christmas...this man would not calm down no matter what I said. He started being loud and swearing and I told him I'm sorry, this is the policy, perhaps he should speak to the gift giver to get the original receipt, and that there was no need to swear and be rude. He just kept going, so I finished the transaction and as they left I told him to have a lovely day. I had kids in the store, I thought he was a bit over the line. My boss has repeated told me that if someone acts that rude, we can just hand them back the merchandise and refuse to take care of them until they calm down. I also have noticed that they will rant and rave at us, but given the opportunity to speak to someone from corporate (if they happen to be in our store), they back down really fast. They'd rather call so they can be rude without facing someone.

My thoughts go out to all of us who deal with the fun side of customer service daily, lol.

 

[pixiefairy]

I have also worked in customer service for nearly all of my adult life, and how to deal with a "difficult" customer was actually something discussed in interviews. I think it is important to try to put ourselves in the shoes of the customer, but there are definitely those customers whose attitude essentially reverses my otherwise helpful personality and a few who have gone nutty on me, which generally makes me want to deny them what they want even when I can get it for them! I wouldn't actually do it, but sometimes with some customers, after a while you really WANT to tell them no, they can't have their way just because they throw a fit.

My goodness...I couldn't have said it better myself. I get that same reversal of attitude at times.