Bad customer service

[lime]

This might be a touchy subject but hear me out.

Does anyone else feel like these days it's increasingly hard to get good customer service? And let me share my theory why. It's almost as if with the rise of the "Karen" and those types of people being empowered by having a platform online, customer service workers are probably having to deal with more and more difficult people and having to put up more of a guard to get through the day, so when it comes to helping people who genuinely need it or have a problem you can just tell their resistant to help? I just find that in the past couple of occasions where I've had to call a company with a problem (which I hate doing and I always apologise for having to call and be a nuisance) I'm met with a brick wall over simple things which I know could have been resolved but it was almost as if on all occasions it was like "we've got another complainer, get rid of them and read them the rule book".

I hope I'm making sense. Maybe customer service/retail staff could give some insight. I haven't worked in customer service for over a decade and don't get me wrong of course there were awful customers at times, but there wasn't as much entitlement from the customers and the service staff had a level of authority which I feel is lacking these days.

 

[ProphecyGirl]

I think it depends.

So I work in an office as an admin but also answer phone & e-mail queries so I guess that is some sort of customer service. But there's a small handful of us who work here so we need to maintain good customer service with them

I've found when I've also dealt with small offices, the customer service has been really good.
Customer service when it comes to call centers are shocking. They aren't bothered because they'll probably never deal with you again, that and they're probably rushed to get off the phone and have targets to meet.

I have also found my local council really horrible to deal with. Nasty people

 

[noseybirdxo]

Speaking as someone who works in customer service and for a busy bank, I think it’s difficult. I actually cannot be arsed with people but I equally am brilliant with people. I think part of the difficult thing a lot of customers don’t realize is that lines can be busy, often and I know in my work I come off a call and go straight in to another and it absolutely fries my brain because I don’t feel like I have a moment to breath or think to myself like I would if i wasn’t in a role like this. It can impact how you are with customers especially when you get people who simply won’t listen - they turn a 3 minute quick thing into 10 minutes or they wanna argue with you. I find it mostly very easy to be lovely to people and give them good service but it’s always worth remembering you’re probably not their first call of the day or their last and the call before them may have had them upset or shaking because it wasn’t a nice experience. It’s difficult! I had a woman shouting at me who told me I was calling her a liar when I had at no point called her that or implied it, and another who didn’t hang up properly and started then calling me a stupid woman and mocking me when I hadn’t done anything other than follow process. People might find calls boring or don’t wanna hear it but they forget people on the other side have to follow processes or they can get in trouble.

Let me tell you now, I wish I could provide some alternative customer service to some people because they are such arseholes. Getting shouted at for a timescale for sending money back to someone’s account that’s been sat there for 2 months, mate if you were bothered about your money you’d of done it 2 months ago when we’d told you it was owing

I think customer service face to face is far too much easier from experience, people wouldn’t say half the tit they do to your face

 

[Hinchhater1442]

I think as things get more technical, the customer just DOESN’T know best. Especially when it comes to GDPR etc..

I just to work on the phones for a bank and I once answered the phone to a gentleman telling me his full name, address, and DOB without being prompted (and so fast I couldn’t process it). I said I’m sorry first I need your account details then I need to ASK you security questions. He couldn’t understand why and turned something that would take 30 seconds into a 5 minute rant. It’s exhausting. I’m just doing my job!!!!!

 

[Veronica]

I work in customer service. Customers can be very challenging!! They can have very unrealistic expectations of what we can offer or what to expect. I do appreciate their situations generally and am sympathetic and will so whatever I can to help. I find honesty can really help and be factual for what u can do. If a customer wants compensation I ask what they expect and tell them honestly if irs doable! I always keep them updated and never say I will do something then don't. However, some customers are savages..... Threaten to kill you, hope you die..... Etc etc. But if there is one thing that bugs me is when customer says... I'm going to trading standards, my solicitor.... Watchdog!! I'm like OK that's no problem we will respond a cordingly!!! Its like it scares us!! I know they're legal rights..... I'm not an idiot!! Jog on customer....

 

[Kim Mild]

I work in customer service. Customers can be very challenging!! They can have very unrealistic expectations of what we can offer or what to expect. I do appreciate their situations generally and am sympathetic and will so whatever I can to help. I find honesty can really help and be factual for what u can do. If a customer wants compensation I ask what they expect and tell them honestly if irs doable! I always keep them updated and never say I will do something then don't. However, some customers are savages..... Threaten to kill you, hope you die..... Etc etc. But if there is one thing that bugs me is when customer says... I'm going to trading standards, my solicitor.... Watchdog!! I'm like OK that's no problem we will respond a cordingly!!! Its like it scares us!! I know they're legal rights..... I'm not an idiot!! Jog on customer....

Someone called trading standards out on us when I worked for a small business. They decided we were in the right and he was glad of an afternoon out of the office

 

[here4thegossxo]

I work from home for a big bank and its draining working from home. Were stuck within the same 4 walls each day for 7-8 hours eat dinner, shower, go to bed, same again tomorrow 5 days out a 7 day week. Its soooo different not being able to get up, get ready, go to work, chat with your team, have a laugh and be in a working environment! Were lucky to get a second between each call. Not every customer is a nice one as well be painent with us we really are trying our best x

 

[HockyRorror]

I completely disagree with the logic of your post because if there was “the rise of the Karen”, companies would be doing *more* to accommodate people, not fob them off. And having worked in call centres, I think people who haven’t think that people can just say what they want to customers without impunity. That is simply not true. Calls are monitored all the time, every single one of them - it’s not just something that they say for the sake of it - your calls really are all recorded and they are listened back to by management at random and call centre staff would get bollocked if they showed resistance to help or being generally crap). I think the problem is as another poster said, people have become far too entitled, too quick to complain and generally asking for things to be done that just aren’t realistic. The UK is turning more into the US in that respect with the whole “I know my rights” and it’s painfully obvious they don’t = “this better be fixed within the next hour or you’ll have to refund me every single penny of this product, I know my rights!” Thank god we don’t seen to be going down the road of lawsuits like the US. Yet.

 

[Hendrix]

I worked in customer service for over 10 years, some of those years in a Sky call centre.

Coming off a call where you’ve been called every name under the sun because you won’t turn their Sky back on even though they can’t pay their bill and then speaking to a lovely old lady who’s in the same situation but couldn’t be more apologetic about the late payment, you don’t get time to breathe in between calls sometimes.

People would think there was a button we pressed to turn their Sky on and that was not the case at all. Customer is always right though..

I once had a woman screaming at me because her daughter’s bill was over £200 due to call charges and she demanded I refunded the money so the daughter could feed her kids.

 

[HannahF]

I work with customers and get spoken to awfully on a daily basis. My job sector deals with builders and architects. The old schoolers havent adjusted to the fact women can do this job and do know there stuff. I had a man scream at me down the phone as i shouldnt of being dealing with his enquiry as im just a type writer and dont have qualifications after my name on my email signature. It was a simple question that even a google search would of answered and his kept saying he was a retired architect and been in the business longer than ive been alive.
One of the managers said something the other day that hit the nail right in the head. Things like amazon prime and netflix have really ruined peoples expectations. They expect next day delivery, box sets on demand and fast food. Yet they are so inpatient and demand answers there and then. No one can wait anymore. We get 100s of emails a week ontop of phone calls and applications to deal with. We are aimed to respond in 10 working days but always manage to answer quicker. Only at times when the email is a little more complexed and needs help from higher up that it takes upto that length of time but people call upto to complain they cant wait that long or they email a silly question that could be answered in seconds on a phone call. The y mostly are - “are you open” what are your office times etc. Yet they got the email address of the contact us page and they would of had to scroll past these details and then moan we dont answer straight away and we by company policy have to answer every email professionally and it takes time answering these silly ones

 

[Veronica]

I work with customers and get spoken to awfully on a daily basis. My job sector deals with builders and architects. The old schoolers havent adjusted to the fact women can do this job and do know there stuff. I had a man scream at me down the phone as i shouldnt of being dealing with his enquiry as im just a type writer and dont have qualifications after my name on my email signature. It was a simple question that even a google search would of answered and his kept saying he was a retired architect and been in the business longer than ive been alive.
One of the managers said something the other day that hit the nail right in the head. Things like amazon prime and netflix have really ruined peoples expectations. They expect next day delivery, box sets on demand and fast food. Yet they are so inpatient and demand answers there and then. No one can wait anymore. We get 100s of emails a week ontop of phone calls and applications to deal with. We are aimed to respond in 10 working days but always manage to answer quicker. Only at times when the email is a little more complexed and needs help from higher up that it takes upto that length of time but people call upto to complain they cant wait that long or they email a silly question that could be answered in seconds on a phone call. The y mostly are - “are you open” what are your office times etc. Yet they got the email address of the contact us page and they would of had to scroll past these details and then moan we dont answer straight away and we by company policy have to answer every email professionally and it takes time answering these silly ones

It's so annoying..... They go on our website.... They send an email. If they'd have read the website the answer is right there so frustrating!!!!!! I get that too if it's anything technical..... I think I need to speak to a man

 

[Meh]

I don’t know if a rise in Karen culture is to blame.

If anything, I think people can be auto-labelled a “Karen” so quickly and unfairly when they have genuinely been wronged. In that sense it could make some customer service teams less focused on resolving the issue?

That being said I spent years on the phones and working retail. And I could never go back to that. I do manage customers but more client account management which comes with its own challenges and stress. However, I won’t suffer some nutter going mental over a 12p increase in the price of rice or something.

 

[noseybirdxo]

I worked in customer service for over 10 years, some of those years in a Sky call centre.

Coming off a call where you’ve been called every name under the sun because you won’t turn their Sky back on even though they can’t pay their bill and then speaking to a lovely old lady who’s in the same situation but couldn’t be more apologetic about the late payment, you don’t get time to breathe in between calls sometimes.

People would think there was a button we pressed to turn their Sky on and that was not the case at all. Customer is always right though..

I once had a woman screaming at me because her daughter’s bill was over £200 due to call charges and she demanded I refunded the money so the daughter could feed her kids.

The second paragraph is absolutely spot on, you don’t get time to breathe in between calls some (most) days and even if you try to take some time between a call to calm down because the call has physically made you shake - you have someone telling your after call work is too high - can’t win It’s all far too scrutinized with not much reward really

 

[Kim Mild]

Call centres often seem to have a script and they only give answers from the script, even if it doesn't answer the query. In some cases, the person on the phone is only employed to answer the phone and another department does the other things, often in another place and there can be a lack of communication or a delay between the two and this affects the customer.

I've worked in retail and hospitality for a few years and I honestly believe if someone has had bad customers service, they likely deserve it. I know some staff are rude and can have a bad day and some staff are tit at their job or do the wrong thing so nobody is perfect.

However, customers are more entitled now. The normal behaviour we see is quite impolite ( eg talking on their phones while being served, putting their shopping on before previous customer moved along , interrupting to ask their question while someone else being served) .

The majority of complaints we get are because a customer has been told no , because of what they want is against our procedures (eg our apple pay in store is limited to a £50 transaction, or we can't give a discount because the goods don't belong to us as they are sold on behalf of supplier). It's often their expectations that are the cause, not our service.

We say 'The customer is not always right, the customer could be lying or mistaken '.

 

[Rippedjeanmaybe]

I have worked in call centres and in retail for over five years and I would say it’s such a mentally draining job and it caused me so much stress I think it nearly killed me off at points.

in all the call centres I worked in, we never had a script (although we did get accused of that sometimes), we never had a chance to breathe between calls and the amount of abuse I received was disgusting.

some days I was already mentally and emotionally drained from dealing with my own problems (for some reason, a lot of customers think they are the only ones affected by the pandemic) before I even got on the phone. I would try my hardest to be up beat and helpful, but I was suffering from emotional fatigue and I couldn’t cope.

it didn’t help that most of the people I spoke to thought they were the only ones with problems and that I was a robot devoid of feelings. The biggest problem though was that I didn’t have the powers to help in a lot of situations. Yes some things may have seen straightforward to a lot of customers, but if my manager said no, then there was nothing I could do. Also customers don’t know how our systems and processes work, so something that might seem a simple fix to them, usually isn’t.

I have been shouted at, screamed at, called thick, uneducated, I’ve been patronised and ridiculed, spoken to like dirt on the floor for no reason at all. Seriously some people will still speak to us like dirt just when making basic requests that we can resolve, because call centre staff are rum according to those people.

you have to bear in mind that these people in customer service are either trying to help you, but are extremely worn down and might not have the energy to come across that way or they might not be able to help at all.

I quit my job in September and I’ve been living off benefits because my call centre job for an airline nearly caused me to commit suicide, that’s how much abuse I was getting.

 

[Mulholland Drive]

My first IT job after graduating was on the IT helpdesk for a company. Most of the calls/IMs I got were from from internal users complaining about internet speed, or their apps weren't working; or their computer was slow/dead. And they all wanted their issues fixed "ASAP"

But because the IT department was so small we didn't have enough resources to visit everyone straight away. So I'd get even more abuse when I told them they would be put in a queue and would have to wait. Inevitably I got the "Don't you know who I am?" from some bloody administrator. Or they would email me and copy everyone under the sun (mostly their managers) trying to expedite things along.

It was a tough few months, but I learnt a lot. And it also brought into sharp focus how companies see IT departments as a cost burden rather than as a benefit, and will always try to keep the headcount as low as possible.

And then they wonder why they have to wait so long to have their IT issues addressed.

 

[The Devils Arse]

My biggest bugbear with customer service is being promised a call back/email and it not being done. I don't mind if they email/call and say that for xyz they haven't been able to process my request but it will be done by z date. That is not an issue, I understand things crop up, take time etc. I always reply thanking them and appreciating that they have let me know.

Its the waiting around and not knowing that annoys me, especially if I have someone waiting on info from me.

 

[Veronica]

My biggest bugbear with customer service is being promised a call back/email and it not being done. I don't mind if they email/call and say that for xyz they haven't been able to process my request but it will be done by z date. That is not an issue, I understand things crop up, take time etc. I always reply thanking them and appreciating that they have let me know.

Its the waiting around and not knowing that annoys me, especially if I have someone waiting on info from me.

I've never in 17 years ever not called anyone back when I said I would..... I'm a customer service queen

 

[HoGi]

Call centres often seem to have a script and they only give answers from the script, even if it doesn't answer the query. In some cases, the person on the phone is only employed to answer the phone and another department does the other things, often in another place and there can be a lack of communication or a delay between the two and this affects the customer.

I've worked in retail and hospitality for a few years and I honestly believe if someone has had bad customers service, they likely deserve it. I know some staff are rude and can have a bad day and some staff are tit at their job or do the wrong thing so nobody is perfect.

However, customers are more entitled now. The normal behaviour we see is quite impolite ( eg talking on their phones while being served, putting their shopping on before previous customer moved along , interrupting to ask their question while someone else being served) .

The majority of complaints we get are because a customer has been told no , because of what they want is against our procedures (eg our apple pay in store is limited to a £50 transaction, or we can't give a discount because the goods don't belong to us as they are sold on behalf of supplier). It's often their expectations that are the cause, not our service.

We say 'The customer is not always right, the customer could be lying or mistaken '.

You are so right about expectations being the cause.

We get people call up to complain that they haven't had a response to a letter they posted yesterday. Its like...mate, we haven't even received it yet?! How was I meant to receive it, process it and respond in less than 24 hours? You want that service then at least email so we receive it same day.

 

[Rippedjeanmaybe]

My biggest bugbear with customer service is being promised a call back/email and it not being done. I don't mind if they email/call and say that for xyz they haven't been able to process my request but it will be done by z date. That is not an issue, I understand things crop up, take time etc. I always reply thanking them and appreciating that they have let me know.

Its the waiting around and not knowing that annoys me, especially if I have someone waiting on info from me.

It used to drive me insane when colleagues would do this and colleagues from other customer contact centres. There was nothing worse than answering a call to an upset and angry customer that had been let down because someone had made false promises and then of course we would get the blame from the customer. We had a couple of customer contact centres that were based abroad and they were notorious for saying anything they could to get the customer off the phone, it was all empty promises and lies. It was honestly one of the worst part of my job. I very rarely offered to phone someone back, but if I did, then I meant it.