Call Centre Stories

[muppet]

CALL CENTRE STORIES

Customer: "I've been ringing 0700 2300 for two days and can't get through to
enquiries, can you help?".
Operator: "Where did you get that number from, sir?".
Customer: "It was on the door to the Travel Centre".
Operator: "Sir, they are our opening hours".
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******* Electronics

Caller: "Can you give me the telephone number for Jack?"
Operator: "I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand who you are talking about".
Caller: "On page 1, section 5, of the user guide it clearly states that I need to unplug the fax machine from the AC wall socket and telephone Jack before cleaning. Now, can you give me the number for Jack?"
Operator: "I think you mean the telephone point on the wall".
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RAC Motoring Services

Caller: "Does your European Breakdown Policy cover me when I am travelling in Australia?"
Operator: " Doesn't the product name give you a clue?"
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Caller (enquiring about legal requirements while travelling in France):
"If I register my car in France, do I have to change the steering wheel to the other side of the car?"
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Directory Enquiries

Caller: "I'd like the number of the Argoed Fish Bar in Cardiff please".
Operator: "I'm sorry, there's no listing. Is the spelling correct?"
Caller: "Well, it used to be called the Bargoed Fish Bar but the 'B' fell off".
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Then there was the caller who asked for a knitwear company in Woven.

Operator: "Woven? Are you sure?"
Caller: "Yes. That's what it says on the label; Woven in Scotland ".
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On another occasion, a man making heavy breathing sounds from a phone box told a worried operator: "I haven't got a pen, so I'm steaming up the window to write the number on".
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Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop".
Customer: "OK".
Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?".
Customer: "No".
Tech Support: "OK. Right-Click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No".
Tech Support: "OK, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?".
Customer: "Sure. You told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'".

[MJU]

Sending flowers to a helpful call centre operator

My personal favourite runs like this:

Call centre operator has a hard week, with persistent problems with one client. The conversations get very torrid and "words are spoken". She sits safe behind the anonymity of a first names only company policy.

Imagine her surprise when she later gets a bunch of flowers delivered to the front desk with a card "for XXX from a grateful caller, I hope these grace your home".

This quite makes her week until, on the way out the front door at the change of shift, carrying her flowers, her aggressive caller jumps out from behind a bush and shoots her twice in the head.


This is probably just urban myth but having been abused by the New Zealand Ministry of Justice call centre operator chasing someone with a similar name, and dealing with Genesis Energy I can understand why, putting aside the death factor, the story appeals.

It is something about the rebalancing of power ...from the anonymous call centre operator and their incompetent company owned processes
...to the caller!

[sarahk]

The media use that trick to get past people and their alibis. Was used recently to out Abby Lee who wrote "Girl With a One-Track Mind: Confessions of the Seductress Next Door"

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?storyid=2006-11-10T134819Z_01_NOA044182_RTRUKOC_0_BRITAIN-BLOGGER.xml&type=reutersEdge&src=111006_1403_FEATURES_features

I can imagine it happening though!