Requesting to speak to Team Leader

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Genfres

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#101112 24-Apr-2012 21:15

I have noticed with a number of my broadband issues which I have discussed with different ISPs I have been signed up with (Xnet, Slingshot, Vodafone) That I am being put on hold a bit so they can speak to their team leader.
When I have requested to speak to their team leader after little progress I get responses like "They will say the same thing" and "I just spoke to them".
I am thinking that in future when first getting through to support to first give account details and then request to speak to team leader. How successful have people been in getting these important people to talk to you?
Is anyone else experienced problems such as this with support staff? I know that some of the problems we may have may be trival, but I see it a little time wasting to go back and forth on hold and for them to go over and talk to their team leader.

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#614583 24-Apr-2012 21:20

Every time (well almost every time) I have rung my ISP help desk I have had the overwhelming desire to break something afterwards. What I have noticed is that generally their 1st language is NOT english, and they read from a script, their supervisor is avaliable to talk to them but not you, which then leads me to beleive that they are not actually spekaing to their supervisor, but just putting you on hold for a suitiable amount of time to lead you to beleive they are speaking to their supervisor.

SteveON

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#614590 24-Apr-2012 21:27

Why are you having so many issues? I haven't spoken to orcon in years.

scuwp

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#614603 24-Apr-2012 21:36

In my work (not telecommunications) our call centre's team leader is there to direct, manage, and provide backup for the call takers. They typically do not directly speak to the customers, if for no other reason than they are looking after a team of 10 - 12 people who are all on calls. They simply can't afford to get tied up with customers directly when they have so much to look after.

Not an excuse, just a reality check.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

Genfres

47 posts

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#614605 24-Apr-2012 21:43

scuwp: In my work (not telecommunications) our call centre's team leader is there to direct, manage, and provide backup for the call takers. They typically do not directly speak to the customers, if for no other reason than they are looking after a team of 10 - 12 people who are all on calls. They simply can't afford to get tied up with customers directly when they have so much to look after.

Not an excuse, just a reality check.

I understand this, however I feel that in dealing with major problems it would be better to take a more direct approach.
If the technical support was slightly better than we wouldn't need all this holding for the team leader.

DonGould

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#614606 24-Apr-2012 21:44

How long before call centers are a thing of the past as social media reps get better and better?

What questions can you have for a telco that you can't just ask in GZ these days and get sorted?

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gregmcc

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#614608 24-Apr-2012 21:46

DonGould: How long before call centers are a thing of the past as social media reps get better and better?

What questions can you have for a telco that you can't just ask in GZ these days and get sorted?

"my modem won't connect to the internet"

DonGould

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#614609 24-Apr-2012 21:49

gregmcc:
DonGould: How long before call centers are a thing of the past as social media reps get better and better?

What questions can you have for a telco that you can't just ask in GZ these days and get sorted?

"my modem won't connect to the internet"

Sure, how are you posting right now? off your mobile? no probs...

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Genfres

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#614611 24-Apr-2012 21:50

gregmcc:
DonGould: How long before call centers are a thing of the past as social media reps get better and better?

What questions can you have for a telco that you can't just ask in GZ these days and get sorted?

"my modem won't connect to the internet"

This was my issue today. Called my current ISP Vodafone, and they told me to call my ISP next week Slingshot.
Long story short, Slingshot are unable to correctly schedule internet connections, even when confirmed to be correctly scheduled.

DoomlordVekk

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#614615 24-Apr-2012 21:56

How do you prioritise 500 tweets that hit you, First in, First out? Look at them all, assign a number from 1 to X, and round robin them across a group of people that you have no leadership or management of?

Sucks to have to point this out but the Call Centre concept has brought a measure of order and predictability to what would otherwise be multiparallel madness.
Yes, I do agree it would be good to staff it such that wait times are minimal and Apple gets glowing Forrester reports for customer service most quarters, because they hire a mad number of front line reps to make the Apple experience something worth repeating (whilst paying through the nose for AppleCare).
Most companies can't afford to do that. they can only staff for the 75-80% maximal and anything above that starts backing up the queues.

Yes, you might not like it but social media as far as customer service goes is just turning everyone into a "Me now, or I scream louder" opportunist.

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riahon

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#614616 24-Apr-2012 21:56

If you are changing providers then there is no need for you to ring anyone but your new provider - full stop.

gregmcc

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#614624 24-Apr-2012 22:05

DonGould:
gregmcc:
DonGould: How long before call centers are a thing of the past as social media reps get better and better?

What questions can you have for a telco that you can't just ask in GZ these days and get sorted?

"my modem won't connect to the internet"

Sure, how are you posting right now? off your mobile? no probs...

Imaging you're internet is down, how would you contact someone from GZ? ok maybe with your smartphone logged in, but hey only 27% of mobile phones in NZ are smartphones, ok so you have a smartphone, damm still can't connect as the phone is wi-fied to the dsl modem which can't connect, ok switch the wifi off and log on, damm, my plan doesn't allow 3G data......

It is simply much quicker and easier to ring your ISP, now the real challange begins, getting someone at your ISP who has english as their 1st language, and has some actual technical know how.

DonGould

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#614631 24-Apr-2012 22:18

DoomlordVekk: How do you prioritise 500 tweets that hit you, First in, First out?

I agree. Twitter is not the idea tool, and neither is facebook from what I can tell.

Smart forum software would be my preference. Vodafone seem to have had some success with theirs.

I know some providers use 'smart' email systems. My experience with those is that your email ends in a queue with no one taking ownership and endless silly answers that don't address the questions.

Cisco seem to have some quite cool technology and after getting though their IVR system, the staff are quite good, though they do have english as a first language.

I do agree with the OP, it's very frustrating when you just can't make yourself understood.

Thing I like about forums is the ability of the community to help out with issues and lesson the load on the provider.

I would agree it comes right off the rails if the provider just has problems that just can't be fixed. If marketing has simply over committed what the service will do then you're stuffed and the trolls can quickly take aim.

I often read public forums and wonder if the respondents are just shrills paid to drive negative noise about a company or product.

I agree that call centers are going to be with us for a long time to come.

I was interested to see a .us doco recently talking about call centers coming home though.

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mattwnz

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#614634 24-Apr-2012 22:24

DoomlordVekk: How do you prioritise 500 tweets that hit you, First in, First out?? Look at them all, assign a number from 1 to X, and round robin them across a group of people that you have no leadership or management of?

Sucks to have to point this out but the Call Centre concept has brought a measure of order and predictability to what would otherwise be multiparallel madness.?
Yes, I do agree it would be good to staff it such that wait times are minimal and Apple gets glowing Forrester reports for customer service most quarters, because they hire a mad number of front line reps to make the Apple experience something worth repeating (whilst paying through the nose for AppleCare).?
Most companies can't afford to do that.? they can only staff for the 75-80% maximal and anything above that starts backing up the queues.

Yes, you might not like it but social media as far as customer service goes is just turning everyone into a "Me now, or I scream louder" opportunist.

Email support ticket system. Far better than a call centre, as you and the company you are dealing with can track exactly what is happening, and it can be escalated when it needs to be. Phone call centres are so cumbersome and frustrating to deal with. I can appreceiate that if you don't have an internet connection then it isn't easy to email the ISP, but that is changing no with many people having a smartphone with email access.
Social media is ok, but you can't manage and track support tickets through it. It is really only good for occasional people contacting you.

DonGould

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#614636 24-Apr-2012 22:30

gregmcc: Imaging you're internet is down, how would you contact someone from GZ? ok maybe with your smartphone logged in, but hey only 27% of mobile phones in NZ are smartphones, ok so you have a smartphone, damm still can't connect as the phone is wi-fied to the dsl modem which can't connect, ok switch the wifi off and log on, damm, my plan doesn't allow 3G data......

3 Years time most of that is going to be a non issue.

Software keeps getting better.

Yes, some people will insist on holding on to older stuff which continues to have issues. Some people are still on dial up. Those people will die eventually and next years old people will have grown up with computers.

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Genfres

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#614654 24-Apr-2012 23:24

I feel in New Zealand a number of companies primary use phone support. If you try to email you will get a reply 3-4 days later.
Live chat is something which I have seen in websites such as Amazon work successfully.

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