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Working at a Call Center: Disconnects


~Shockwave~

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Ugh I don't think I can take this much longer. Here's a little explanation on how a mobile phone number disconnect goes for those of you have not had the unfortunate opportunity to work at a call center for a phone carrier before.

 

So, to begin with, a customer can't disconnect their phone number on their own, it's one of the few things they need to call us for. We are told to keep our disconnects below 1%, meaning one percent of our calls are supposed to involve a single disconnect. So we have to do the exact opposite of what the customer wants and try our best not to disconnect said line(s). No matter what reason they have to disconnect, anything from not using it, to wanting to save money, to even death and terminal illness. Yeah. It's not something we can actively offer to help the customer, and if they are considering it as an option, we have to actively fight it even if a disconnect is in the customers best interest.

 

My supervisor once used an analogy that went like this: Imagine you had a pie shop, now imagine you had a customer that brought back a half eaten pie and wanted to return it, shouldn't you be offended? I neglected to point out that that's a completely different situation, as you don't pay o monthly fee on a pie, and it's not a string of 10 random digits that some people aren't aware they even have, let alone where tricked into getting. But whatever. it bugs me but that's not the issue.

 

No, the issue is that we have to make save attempts for people that are calling in for a line that isn't in use because the user has passed away, or isn't going to need to be used because the caller has cancer and has six months to live.

 

I have taken both those calls. The second one in particular still makes me feel terrible.

 

The guy wanted to disconnect his tablet line, and I would have been happy to just disconnect the line and be done with it. But no. I had to make save attempts. (after calling my supervisor over)

 

I explain the situation and he informs me that I still have to try to save the line. Namely by seeing if he wants to suspend it to see if he's really sure he wants to save the line. Again, given the situation, he's probably sure.

 

When I say I don't really care to do that, my supervisor (and I might be misremembering this) that even if it saves him money, does it really matter if he's going to die of cancer anyway?

 

So I do it. I offer to suspend the line for him to see if he's sure. He reacts much as you could expect. I inform my supervisor of that and he says I could have worded it better. But authorizes the disconnect and remarks the account. Thankfully after I tell the customer on the phone I did it he was much less angry.

 

That was a little while ago but it's just been bugging me lately, and I haven't talked about it with many people. Probably because I partially blame myself because I could have said no and just disconnected the line, what is my supervisor going to do? Fire me?

 

I really need to find a different job...

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