Shop Talk

I hate Convergys....Atlys is so poorly designed.

same from me but 14 months in Alberta

VZW Tech2 said:
I've been an in store tech for 14 months now. I hate the job and once I get the loan to build my house, I'm out. My experience has taught me alot about human nature and the huge gap between common sense and accountability. It will be time to go back to my old job in computer repair where I CAN tell these kind of people to F off!

Umm... all I can say is WOW.

First things first: I've been in retail sales and management for over 15 years, but I just started with Go Wireless, an exclusive US Cellular agent, in November. I love this job, and I'm proud of what I do here on a daily basis. 🙂

I agree that common sense is sometimes in short supply, and I also agree that people who take owne...
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Great lesson and words I can live on. Thanks Nos 😎

Nos4a2 said:


First things first: I've been in retail sales and management for over 15 years, but I just started with Go Wireless, an exclusive US Cellular agent, in November. I love this job, and I'm proud of what I do here on a daily basis. 🙂

I agree that common sense is sometimes in short supply, and I also agree that people who take ownership for their own actions are in equally short supply at times.

Is this "gap between common sense and accountability" unique to cell phone customers? My fifteen years in retail sales and management tells me otherwise.

That being the case, I have to wonder: EXACTLY WHAT KINDS OF PEOPLE ARE "THESE KINDS OF PEOPLE?" Cell phone customers? No, because cell phone cust

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oh nos shut the hell up!!! 🤣
what kind of name is Nos4a2 anyway...
you sound like an Import racing Vampire!! 😈

Silly Tequila... 🙂

To me, you are a mystery shrouded in an enigma wrapped in one terrible pun.

PS- Who invited you to the grown-ups' table anyway? 😈

Boo. Now go 'way. -boot-
-=Nos=-

Well done to you my friend. I am glad to find that you share the same sentiments as my posting....attention all reps, back to the basics.

Since you are in management, let me beg this question.....If all commisions were stopped in the wireless industry tommorow, do you think that customer service and disgrunteled customers would come to an end? Lets take away the "if you don't work, then you don't eat" theory

Will

I meant to say, if you don't SELL, than you don't eat.

Iselltheshitoutofphones said:
Well done to you my friend. I am glad to find that you share the same sentiments as my posting....attention all reps, back to the basics.

Since you are in management, let me beg this question.....If all commisions were stopped in the wireless industry tommorow, do you think that customer service and disgrunteled customers would come to an end? Lets take away the "if you don't work, then you don't eat" theory

Will

I would like to see salespeople PAID comission if an act is set up correctly and NOT PAID comission if it has 2 2ndary lines with no primary one one act and 1 primary line on another acount with no free nights and weekends, no in-network and has no contract leng...
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Hehehehe...reminds me of our C&A dept.

Iselltheshitoutofphones said:
Well done to you my friend. I am glad to find that you share the same sentiments as my posting....attention all reps, back to the basics.

Since you are in management, let me beg this question.....If all commisions were stopped in the wireless industry tommorow, do you think that customer service and disgrunteled customers would come to an end? Lets take away the "if you don't work, then you don't eat" theory

Will

Will:

Good question. In my experience, the answer to your question is "No, it wouldn't change much at all. As far as I can gather, it would create LESS customer service and MORE disgruntled customers. What you're likely to wind up with is a staff full of w...
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Very well said on both accounts. I've learned that I'd love to get into wireless sales (I'm just havin a hard time breakin into it) I've always held ideals as a customer AND customer service provider that meet with what you've said in this thread.

In my opinion the best way to run things as far as payment is this: Pay a base salary that's comfortable enough to allow the employee to live within their means then follow that with incentives like commision and rewards that give them reason to keep the customers happy. This eliminates pressure from management to get things done at all costs and makes the incentives "playin with" money, which we all love to have. The more work you do, the more you have to play with at the end of the day....
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Sounds like the deal I got... woohooo!

That's kind of how my pay works. My base salary barely makes bills and groceries. But I also have a family, wife and baby. Commissions and bonuses are for how much work you put into it. Which I think is fair and also allows me to make a lot more than just my base salary.

YAY FOR PLAY!!!!! 😁

I dare you to find someone who enjoys constantly talking to people in a call center about their problems with their cell phone or bill. The lying, the bitching, the ineptness of others they've talked to before you, the lack of information you're provided, the insane software issues, the bad equipment that you can't say is bad equipment, etc. The only thing that saves me sometimes is the comments I make to myself with the mute key. Find someone happy working in a call center, and I'll find you a freak.

I work on the retail end of things in the wireless industry, so I do not feel your specific brand of pain. However, I did work at a call center for a web-based home furnishings distributor, so I know how difficult some customers can be on the telephone. It's easier to be rude because the means of communication is less direct than face-to-face conversation. Believe me, I empathize.

As a retail consultant, I do everything I can to make sure my customers have been informed on everything they need to know UP FRONT. It takes me a few extra minutes to explain these things; I also have one of the lowest chargeback percentages in my district because of it. I do it because I hate chargebacks, and I don't enjoy dealing with irate customers. I...
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I'd settle for store reps who didn't lie to me when I ask them if they already programmed the phone.

You have store reps who don't program the handset for the customer? In the long, sad history of the bad idea, not programming and test-calling the phone before turning it over to the customer ranks somewhere between golfing during a thunderstorm and swimming with a cement lifejacket.

There's 2 minutes spent that saves the customer, the store, and customer service a metric ton of headaches right there! No wonder you're using your 'mute' button...

Talk about an ounce of prevention... oy vay!

-=Nos=-
Still part of the solution, last time I checked.

Word. In the past two years that I've worked for VZW, I've seen the non-program situation happen exactly three times. Twice, a local RAdio Smack employee forgot to program the handsets, and then the customer came to us to fix it, and then once I saw a fellow employee complete a sale, hand the customer the phone, and we both watched the customer walk out. Then I said, "DID you program that phone?" and my buddy ran out & caught the guy in the parking lot. Luckily the gentleman had a good sense of humor & we all had a good laugh about it. I seem to remember reading somewhere that companies that admit to errors & sucessfully fix them have a much higher repeat-business percentage than companies that never have problems in the first place... it ma...
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Now if I could just get Verizon agents to have all the consumers information at hand when the Agents call in for help with the consumer on the line so I don't have to get it all from the consumer again. I dunno what it is but I tend to get a lot of calls form Verizon CSR's who for some reason aren't able to do the simple task of calling up the consumers files. Are they not interconencted and share a Database? *sigh*

One of the reaosn I like this Forumn and this site is the sharing of knowledge to make ALL of our jobs easier.

Dude, half the time, the customers can't figure out who they are or what they're mobile number is. I've gotten to saying things like, "Don't call yourself much, do you?"

I'm not in the phone business but as a mediator I know something about conflict in families and businesses. Relating to others is much about managing expectations (your own and others). We would need to first ask ourselves what are the expectations of the wireless customer and how did they come by them. Could they have come by them from the providers advertising? In that advertising I do not see any mention of shadow areas or dropped calls due to too many calls in an area. I hear that the quality of each and every call is superb, the coverage is virtually universal, phones and accessories that never break down and a provider that will meet your needs. Wireless advertising is almost as prevalent as auto ads and they work to get the cust...
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looks like you got your phone from me.

everyone talks about the level up of customer service however the way the businesses themselves do the training is the reason why this business has the one of lowest satisfaction rates in the country, despite being so popular. I work retail now however i did work for CSR for a year and ill tell you the way call centers are ran are horrid. Albeit this was an outsourced call center (theres the first problem) as an out source we are treated like an outsource employee from day 1 and not a member of the parent company. Secondly many of these outsource companies have different perogatives and could really give a damn about loss prevention etc. I was lied to my boss on a daily basis about health insurance and benefits and pay increases and promotio...
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I'm sorry you had such frustrating experiences. Ultimately it is up to us to control the level of integrity that we provide to a job. If the support for a high level of integrity is not available then employment should be sought elsewhere. Fortunately it was one of the early lessons I learned in employment.

I recall leaving an executive position twenty years ago because the firm was no living up to the standards it had set for itself and promises made. At the end of the day you need to feel good about the work you d, otherwise it will eat at you and frustrate others.

I am aware that many call centers set goals and compensation rewards that have little to do with customer satisfaction. When I am talking with a CSR at a call center ...
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The worst part of being a CSR where I am is the time statistics. A group called "workforce management" controls every aspect of time in your day. The decide your shift, your days off (which never seem to be together), your break times, your lunch times. They decide if you can take a vacation when you want to. They decide if your calls are too long.

The greatest thing about this, they're not your boss, you don't report to them, and they will under no circumstances actually talk to you.

We're told to have excellent customer service and customer empathy, and yet we are forced to deal with a group as internal customers who treat us like automatons.

The entire concept of the call center blows. Nobody wants to work in them, and nobo...
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Yep call center work sucks...rocks through a five mile garden hose.
I work with a company thats super-anal about their call metrics too. IF I call in sick I have to get a doctors note or get written up for not being there. So not only do I lose a days pay for being sick if I have no PTO left but I also have to shell out the $30 co-pay. In other words it costs me about $120 to have a sick day.
The worse part about this job is all the crap info I HAVE to get before I can even ask the customers what their problem is. IF I could just answere the phone and say "Thanks for calling Samsung how can I help you today?" and only take info if I have to do actuall trouble-shooting or escalation, my job would be TEN tiems easier and we could probably ge...
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Thanks, Ren. Posts like yours confirm for me that it all starts at the retail end of things. If the retail sales rep doesn't properly explain these things, the customer almost invariably becomes upset and frustrated later on.

I also agree: INSURANCE SOLVES A LOT OF PROBLEMS. However, even that can generate customer angst if they don't properly understand how to file a claim and get their new phone. Our insurance attachment rate here is very high, just because we explain how it works and why it's such a good idea.

IT ALL STARTS AT THE RETAIL SALES COUNTER.
IT ALL STARTS AT THE RETAIL SALES COUNTER.
IT ALL STARTS AT THE RETAIL SALES COUNTER.

Retail reps: do your customers and your company a huge favor, and take the extra couple...
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To the post above, I for one set realistic expectations to customers I sell to. From a store sales/service rep perspective, my biggest issues are from third party retailers that set false expectations. As a corporate sales rep, if I screw it up then the customer comes back to me and I fix it, they aren't passed down the line so to speak. For 3rd party retailers there is much less accountability, in my area at least. Another problem is when customers walk up and want their 'free' phone that the call center rep promised them. Um, yeah, you gotta tell the customer that it's a MAIL-IN rebate.

I do sales & service at a Sprint PCS store. We are one of the leading sales stores and we always have a line full of service issues as well. Ou...
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For insurance...if you're filing a claim...do yourself a favor, always say it's lost/stolen.

Why would you want to do that?!? Asurion makes you fill out a police report if it's a lost/stolen situation. That's a right royal pain in the ass. Just put the damn phone in the little prepaid envelope they give you, mail it back.

Towermonkey, I agree completely. It can be a huge pain to claim a phone as "stolen". This is just one more example as to why honesty is the best policy.

Insurance is there to cover accidents. Accidents happen. It's not like they're going to tell the customer that their particular accident was so spectacular and unique that they're S.O.L., and I have heard some pretty interesting "oops"es.

Maybe that should be the topic of a new thread... hrm...

-=Nos=-
"Wisdom is simply an uncommon degree of common sense." -Mark Twain

Our insurance company has told people that they wouldn't cover the truth.

who is you're insurance company?

The signal

yeah, that explains it

*sigh*

Is it to much to ask to sales reps to give customers a brief rundown on how to USE the phones, how to use the menus etc? Just telling the user how to turn the phones ON and OFF would probbaly save about 100 calls a week!
Granted this may be difficult in phone sales, but still. Yeesh. Too many phone manufacturers asusme people are repeat users or that the phones are fairly intuitive. Oh sure intuitive enough for an idiot to really screw up their phone...8P

some of my favorite 'oops'es:
1)guy ran over his phone with a lawnmower, brought in a bag full of grass clippings and phone chunks and asked me to fix it.
2)guy dropped phone in garbage disposal while doing dishes, his wife hit the 'light' switch to help him get it out... wrong friggin' switch (it's amazing what garbage disposals do to camera phones)
3)guy brought in just the antenna... it was all that was left after his phone "somehow" made it into the wood chipper

and the list goes on and on...

happy selling all

because signal doesn't

Signal sux! Signal is the worst insurance provider out there.

yes ...signal has gotten too picky...if you lose a phone in our market, they make you do the proof of loss form....they ask to fax in the acct holders ID and half the time these people arent' carrying it,,they dont' call the customer to tell them they need a proof of loss form...one guy they made wait at least 2 weeks,,(mexican) who didn't understand the process,....he made the first call..waited...looked on the website..said he needed POL form...filled it out ..another 5 days goes by...look again says pending..i call and ask why??? they wanna know how he's paying for it...WHY NOT CALL AND ASK THE GUY>>signal blows,,,,

MY ISSUE IS THEIR DEDUCTIBLE! I HAVE THE I730, AND THEY WANT $100.00 TO REPLACE IT. WHY, I CAN DO AN UPGRADE AND GET IT FOR 124.99. NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT THEY ARE CONSTANTLY CHANGIMG DEDUCTIBLES ON CERTAIN PHONES AND REFUSE TO KEEP NEXTEL UP TO DATE IN REGARDS TO WHAT PHONE HAS WHAT DEDUCTIBLE. THEY WOULD RATHER RETAIL SALES REPS TELL CUST "I DON'T KNOW" THAN GIVE SALES REPS THE OPPURTUNITY TO KEEP THEIR CUSTOMERS INFORMED.

If you are in a place to provide another protection plan check into e-club, our customers have been real happy. I do not sell Signal anymore.

Nos4a2 said:
Thanks, Ren. Posts like yours confirm for me that it all starts at the retail end of things. If the retail sales rep doesn't properly explain these things, the customer almost invariably becomes upset and frustrated later on.

I also agree: INSURANCE SOLVES A LOT OF PROBLEMS. However, even that can generate customer angst if they don't properly understand how to file a claim and get their new phone. Our insurance attachment rate here is very high, just because we explain how it works and why it's such a good idea.

IT ALL STARTS AT THE RETAIL SALES COUNTER.
IT ALL STARTS AT THE RETAIL SALES COUNTER.
IT ALL STARTS AT THE RETAIL SALES COUNTER.

Retail reps: do your customers and your company a huge

...
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Now I realize that even though sales reps and customer service are a "team", and each side could tell equal horror stories on the other. but the only comment i would like to make is that when i was a sale rep for Verizon i would dreed calling into customer service for the simple fact I would have to hang up and call back 10 times before i would get a rep that spoke english well enough that i could understand them. My district manager would even crack jokes about "don't even bother if can't say the name of the person from customer service" 😳

I feel your pain.

For 80 years, people were happy so long as they picked up a phone, and there was a dial tone. Now, I have some twit calling me because the date won't show on her phone. I like to help people, actually. I like to help people with for real problems. Not having the date under the alpha tag on your phone doesn't constitute a problem. My personal favorite though, are the people who call in freaking out about the "coffee cup" showing on their screen. I think I could tell them it means they've launched nuclear missles, and they'd believe me.

abbazabba said:
My personal favorite though, are the people who call in freaking out about the "coffee cup" showing on their screen. I think I could tell them it means they've launched nuclear missles, and they'd believe me.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! Dude that would rule.

Customer: I did WHAT?

Rep: Yes. You just started world war 3.

Customer: Oh. My. God.

i did some b2b at cingular but our customers quibbled over the price of everything! lawyers, doctors, executives, didn't matter how much money they made the wanted everything free. i'm sorry just because you make 6 figures a year doesn't entitle you to free s*it.

Interesting. I prefer B2B over regular walk-ins. Less of a hassle over where the phone is going to work, upgrades, proration, etc. We generally didn't fool with anything under 5 or 10 lines. Sometimes we'd give away car chargers to big customers, and we usually gave a discount on large purchases of phones & accessories. I even worked for an indirect for a while, and they gave away tons of stuff with new activations. Some of it was cheapo stuff, but every now and then they would give away OEM leather cases & the like.

B2B clients seem to prefer the high end handsets & data devices. Lots of Crackberries. Big rate plans - $300 aircards with $80 rate plans, for example.

I worked at Radio Smack for a while in college, that's how I got start...
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i'm going back to school for a mba but i think i want to stay in the wireless entry. i might go b2b but i think i would go back to regular sales. i might try to get back in with cingular. but like vzw benefits. right now i do customer service via a vendor of verizon.

Nice. Which one? I couldn't handle being a call center CSR - I'd go postal in about 2 minutes. I have no patience for fools, and unfortunately wireless seems to attract more than its' fair share of defective customers.

Yeah, VZW's benefits are stellar, especially the PPO. And they pay what seems to be a slightly above-average salary for the industry.

i work in a vzw call center in alabama its smaller and more ghetto than the one i worked at for cingular. call center work is not that bad. yea i get a lot of bull$hit calls. and i want to yell at these folks sometime but i'm used to it. i'm sure the stores are less stressful but i'm sure they get their fair share of wackos.

i really work for a vendor for verizon but i would rather work for vzw sales as a vzw employee. for the salary and benifits but i do prefer call center work now. i wonder how the transistion would be.

I'm neither black nor female.

I just felt like it.

I know a chinese guy named shaniqua you racist.

shaniqua don't live here no 'mo!

1 year of selling at&t wireless service, home internet, all forms of uverse and direct tv and harassing Pickles. 🤨

Omg same here when Flexpay was still around we like took bets on who was M or N class...always right and exactly who's asking about smartphones with no data lol

Ya its still around for over the phone sales 😡

I know...its annoying lol

Yep i just got my second flex n of the day. I only have one or two people qualify for post paid service a month. I get the worst markets. I have people around me geting post paid customer all the time.

That totally sucks ☹️ Im glad we're back to deposits though, it actually lets me sell something lol