Confusing a Call Center for Better Service
March 26th, 2007 · by David Bradley
Over on the BadLanguage blog, a comment from James Staut suggests using 321-Call-Log as a great way to get better service when you call so-called Customer Service at any company you have to deal with. You register with the site and they record the calls you make and announce that this is happening to the representative on the other end of the line. It works wonders.
But, you don’t really need to bother registering with such a service before speaking to a customer “service” department. Just record on to your mp3 player or dictation machine, the “Your call is being monitored…” message from any of the call centers you have the misfortunes to be forced to deal with. When they finally pick up and you get through to a rep playback the snippet, once at the beginning of the conversation and periodically thereafter until you get a decent response. You could even get a well-spoken friend to do a dummy sound clip for you along the lines of:
“Thank you for your ongoing assistance in this urgent query, your responses are being recorded for quality assurance and legal purposes, please ensure a satisfactory outcome for our client”
You could even actually record the conversation if you have one of those adapters that plug directly into the phone line (you can pick them up very cheaply at Radio Shack). Check your local laws as to whether this is legal. The periodic snippet alerting the rep to the fact that you’re recording, may cover you adequately in terms of staying on the right side of the law.
I’d love to hear if anyone tries this and whether they get better service than they were otherwise expecting.
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6 responses so far ↓
Paul Thomas // Mar 27, 2007 at 5:59 am
I think you’re missing the point about the utility of services like 321-CALL-LOG. Sure anyone can record a call on their own, but at the end of the day all you have is an audio file of the conversation which may or may not be legally compliant. Services like 321-CALL-LOG enable consumers to come together and to collectively press their rights in a way that could not be possible if you went at it alone.
Yes, that’s a valid point, and certainly worth considering if you have a serious complaint about a company. But, I was pushing more from the angle that, just telling the call center rep that their responses are being recorded might give them the incentive to obtain a better outcome for you.
As a rep I would probably be more careful about what I’m saying if I’m told I’m being recorded.
Bob, when you say you’d be “more careful” do you mean your remarks would be more guarded, or that you’d simply temper the expletives…?
db
edward // Dec 29, 2007 at 2:59 am
im a call center agent. i feel bad about this. we are humans too. you worry about your service, we worry about mouths to feed.
Edward, my deepest condolences to you and your mouths.
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