Sprint hangs up on a 1000 callers

[1908Revelations]

Originally Posted by Still BLUTANG

however, i've been a sprint customer for about 7 years and everyone i know has had at least one MAJOR issue. things get cleared up after incessant calling or stalking the store employees, but that's the only way to things get resolved. last month i had a "notation" on my account that wouldn't let me pay my bill online because i had called customer service about something earlier that month. that meant i had to call customer service AGAIN to be able to pay my bill.

i wonder if the people who are being dropped called over and over again to get 1 issue resolved or if they really are the callers who go overboard and want to complain just for complaining's sake.

I have T-Mobile and was being billed for a function that my phone didn't have!!! I was pissed! So, I called to ask how did I gain this service? The rep told me I got it on the phone internet (T-Zones...a service where you can check balance, purchase tones, walpapers, and games).

Now.....I think I know my individual phone and I do not have the internet.....I KNOW I don't. I asked him to pull up the time and date of then I signed up for it and he couldn't. I said I wnated to cancel it and I wnated a refund for the months that I had been charged, because at the time my phone (BlackBerry Pearl) didn't have T-Zones. So I was being charged $10 a month for something I didn't sign up for nor could I use it. When I requested to speak with someone else (because James from Mars couldn't understand) the Beiotch hung up on me.

Outcome....I was refunded $50. LIKE I KNEW I WOULD!!

[33girl]

Originally Posted by _Lisa_

I think this is what it seems like, but I don't think that is the intention especially on the agent level. Maybe the management of the company sees the benefits of trying to "trick" the customer, but it also helps the customer to remember who they spoke to for the next time they call in, or it helps them feel like they can communicate with the agent a bit better because they know how to say their name. Amaranath, Srikanth, Sridhar, Amit, Anil, Balaji, Hema, Shunmugam, & Jitender would rather spend more time helping the customer with the problem then trying to tell the customer how to spell or say their name.

I'm probably not going to say their name, unless they do something to piss me off, and in that case I'm going to ask for a spelling to write it down anyway. Hell, I know half the born and raised in America people can't spell my name (first OR last).

Everyone knows outsourcing to India & other places is happening, to pretend otherwise doesn't help the company.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I'm probably not going to say their name, unless they do something to piss me off, and in that case I'm going to ask for a spelling to write it down anyway. Hell, I know half the born and raised in America people can't spell my name (first OR last).

Everyone knows outsourcing to India & other places is happening, to pretend otherwise doesn't help the company.

I work for a company where we DO ask for names anytime we call customer service for another company (not my rule) - so I appreciate having to write Julie instead of Jubin or Joobun or however.

[OneTimeSBX]

i think my worst experience was when i bought a new phone and switched it to my existing line...i didnt change my plan, i did nothing but change phones. next thing i know my phone is off because my bill was about $250.

i called and asked why in the HELL my bill that i had just paid to a zero balance, had magically jumped to the $250. 4 people couldnt tell me. 4 people...finally on my 5th call, someone discovered that they charged me for ending my contract. i didnt end my contract, i replied. "well thats not what it says"...but i didnt end my frickin contract, i PAID OUT OF POCKET for a $400 phone so that i could have a nicer phone, so why would i cancel my service after dropping all that money?

it took another 3 calls to get that straight. even then, it was never done correctly. everyone took off a little piece here and there, instead of the full $250. sprint is a joke. there, i said it.

[_Lisa_]

Originally Posted by OneTimeSBX

^^yes, i dont want to have to guess at how to spell your name, Balaji.

I'm sure your experience as an inbound callcenter agent is different from mine, but its not like we were taking calls from business professionals or even savvy home users. Savvy home users figured it out with the online manuals, or used email, or didn't care what the name of the agent was as long as they could fix the problem.

The type of customer that makes up the majority of our calls, the standard home users, are the kind want to know who they're talking to, and want to be able to say the name of that person. They couldn't get my name right, and its not really all that hard. Elisa, Lise, Lysa, Lesa, etc. I could go on for ages with all the variations of my name that I've heard.

And its not that its even the US companies asking the outsourced callcenters to change the names of the agents, its the the business practice of the outsourced callcenters because they found that it worked to help familiarize the customer with the agent, or it helped the customer feel more at ease, or something. Its so hard to explain what the US company really controls over the outsourced callcenters unless you've seen the inner workings for yourself.

[_Lisa_]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Everyone knows outsourcing to India & other places is happening, to pretend otherwise doesn't help the company.

I know my company doesn't pretend, and I can't think of one that I've called who does?

[RACooper]

Good for them - when I worked in Consumer Relations back in the day we did develop a list of customers that were "cut-loose" or even blocked from calling the call centre because of their constant harassment and completely facetious complaints... ultimately it came down to the simple economic fact that these 'uber-troublesome' customers were negatively impacting customer service by eating up so much time and resources, time and resources that should have been going to customers with legitimate concerns or questions.

Funny thing was that some of these troublsome twits developed such a terrible reputation that even the compitetion refused to deal with them (and between Unilever and P&G that made up a huge block of the market).

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by _Lisa_

I know my company doesn't pretend, and I can't think of one that I've called who does?

Off the top of my head, Dell and Linksys. A couple years ago after a huge Earthquake in India, I was talking to Dell customer service. While we were waiting for some diagnostic to run, I had a nice chat with "Mike" or whatever the person's name was about his family and how they were doing and whether they were okay, etc. I don't mind it at all. As long as the person I'm talking to knows what they're doing, I'm happy. I've received excellent service from foreign call centers in the past. If they keep the price of the end-product low, I'm all for it.

[PeppyGPhiB]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I'm now in a law office. We routinely fire clients when they don't keep up on their bill or are rude to the staff. We happily field stupid questions, but then again, there aren't too many of those as we bill in quarter-hour increments (if you only talk to us for 30 seconds, you get billed for 15 minutes). That seems to cut down on the inane questions.

Good point. PR/advertising agencies do the same thing - when a client becomes too difficult to work with, to the point where we can't provide the services we were contracted for, we will resign or decline the business.

As a Sprint customer, I've actually never had to contact customer support except for maybe one or two instances when I first signed on with them almost seven years ago. These people they dropped deserved to be dropped. It's not like they were dropped for making 3 or 4 calls to solve a problem one month. They were calling ten times that amount for what sounds like more than one month. Calling customer support an avg. of 40-50 times each month?! That's harrassment, basically, and it's preventing Sprint from offering its services to customers that actually NEED help.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by PeppyGPhiB

Good point. PR/advertising agencies do the same thing - when a client becomes too difficult to work with, to the point where we can't provide the services we were contracted for, we will resign or decline the business.

As a Sprint customer, I've actually never had to contact customer support except for maybe one or two instances when I first signed on with them almost seven years ago. These people they dropped deserved to be dropped. It's not like they were dropped for making 3 or 4 calls to solve a problem one month. They were calling ten times that amount for what sounds like more than one month. Calling customer support an avg. of 40-50 times each month?! That's harrassment, basically, and it's preventing Sprint from offering its services to customers that actually NEED help.

heree is a question tho....I wonder if those folks are gonna be blacklisted from other carriers


" I am sorry sir...we can't sign you up for service due to...errrmmmm.... technical difficulties..."

hehehehe

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

heree is a question tho....I wonder if those folks are gonna be blacklisted from other carriers


" I am sorry sir...we can't sign you up for service due to...errrmmmm.... technical difficulties..."

hehehehe

Carriers ought to offer these customers the option of being charged for each time they call customer service in lieu of terminating their agreement. I can see how that'd be a win-win.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Carriers ought to offer these customers the option of being charged for each time they call customer service in lieu of terminating their agreement. I can see how that'd be a win-win.

I agree...my only prob with that is that greedy carriers will want to do it for EVERYBODY....for instance...if you dont want to pay...u would be in one queue...or if you want express service (or service where someone is paid to hear u rant) not only do u pay, but your call would get answered quicker or some BS setup like that....the carriers would find a way to abuse that sort of system

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Carriers ought to offer these customers the option of being charged for each time they call customer service in lieu of terminating their agreement. I can see how that'd be a win-win.

Considering it costs your minutes to call from the cellphone in the first place, often customers ARE being charged for the call.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Considering it costs your minutes to call from the cellphone in the first place, often customers ARE being charged for the call.

Most services don't charge for calls to customer service.

Or at least they didn't back in my day.

[_Lisa_]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Considering it costs your minutes to call from the cellphone in the first place, often customers ARE being charged for the call.

T-Mobile lets me call them for free from my mobile.