A simple request
I have one and ONLY ONE simple request for Customer service reps as an agent. When you tell a customer to "go to any Cingular Wireless store" please PLEASE PLEASE specify to them that you are referring to a Cingular owned and operated location. I'm constantly bombarded by customers with only this to say: "But the girl on the phone at customer service told me to come to ANY Cingular store and they'd _____! You're a Cingular store, why can't you do it?" That blank is usually filled in with something like "exchange my phone" "give me a new SIM card for free" or "fix my bill" and an insistence that I look at thier account. (I don't know why, but from our systems I can't view account notes in POS đ ) If I hear this come ...
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yea i agree i hear other reps say "go to any retail store" but not me i always find them the closest cor store . no offense but i never send anyone to a authorized dealer for anything
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I don't think its that simple. I'm a rep in a COR store and I get customers coming in all the time saying a CSR said go into the store for a "free" upgrade. So, the customer thinks they walk in and out with a phone. Yet as soon as I tell them there is the upgrade fee or that they have to sign a 2 year agreement they say "oh well I was never told that." So I end up being the bad guy. To make matters worse, the only free phone we have is the 3120 after a rebate. So, they also think that we will take care of the rebate which again is incorrect. So agent or COR, we get the same thing. So, I feel your pain.
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yea as far as upgrades i take care of those myself becase they are useually early upgrades that i always have problems with sending people to the store ...i.e customer is in a 2 year contract and is in it for 1 year but has an arpu of 100 per month they are eligable for a full 2 year discount but when i send people to a retail store most of the time someone only uses the upgrade checker and it is never right
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its not the sending customers that is a pain. its the customers that think they get everything for nothing. They say "oh the CSR said I get a 'free' phone and to come into the store and get it." Great if offer phone for free. We don't have them right now. And its the customers that think its my duty as a Cingular employee to waive the upgrade fee because the CSR never told them or that they get the phone free without signing an agreement. Sorry, ain't gonna happen.
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well i hear ya when i upgrade someone first words out of my mouth is youwill pay an 18.00 upgrade fee and you will have to pay prorations for changin your plan and depending on the date of the rate plan change your bil is going to be about 80 bucks higher
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And another thing to remember, agent locations have been given additional capabilities not previously granted via POS.com. COR locations have had capabilities taken away. Things are on more of a level field than ever before.
I think many of the people coming in have been sent to a store incorrectly. As was stated by the orignal poster as well as above, people come in thinking they can get something that just isn't available.
I think many of the people coming in have been sent to a store incorrectly. As was stated by the orignal poster as well as above, people come in thinking they can get something that just isn't available.
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it makes our lives as reps so much harder when customer says "well its free online so why not here?" Don't ask me, ask the higher ups.
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That is a whole different discussion. I have no issues with that question.
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tell your customers the reason it is cheaper online because the internet is a cheaper way to do bussiness...this is the "official" answer we call center reps are told to give...it's cheaper because no reps to pay.
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I hear your pain! But you and I both know that we could fax a four-color map to some customers and they'd end up in a different state! If I can get "How much is the $29.99 plan?" then I know there are some customers who should not be driving cars in public. And if you are in a store then you know EXACTLY what I mean.
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DrDialtone said:
I hear your pain! But you and I both know that we could fax a four-color map to some customers and they'd end up in a different state! If I can get "How much is the $29.99 plan?" then I know there are some customers who should not be driving cars in public. And if you are in a store then you know EXACTLY what I mean.
Oh! I know exactly what you mean! The best is when that same customer says something like that and then tells me that they used to sell cell phones too. I pity their previous customers.
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well for one thing if a cust asks to fix their bill then why dont you call up cust service and say hey this customer came in and is having a problem with their bill and give the customer the phone. we seem to have a lot of agents sending bill payment problems to us and the problem is with the way the agent location put them on service. (ie: 2 line family plan but both lines have a $39.99 family plan thus charging the cust double) I understand tha you dont want to deal with it but its your mess fix it. next the sim card issue. whats the big deal. give them a sim card again if you cant fix it in the system call up cust service and tell them you need to add the sim card. the number is right on the brouchers and it would only take like...
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Yeah, I hear that... Heck even the blue store at my mall pulls that stuff.... It is so crazy... I totally understand you. âšī¸
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I don't mean for this to sound trite, but what? Did you only read every other word in my post?
It's not that I'm being lazy, really. If a customer comes in with a billing problem and they've already talked to CS (prompting CS to say "go to ANY Cingular store") then all I'm gonna do is call CS and we'll get into a vicious circle, that wastes the customer's time and grows the CS queues. I don't care about the time it takes I get paid hourly anyway. And FYI: The majority of the cust's that I get that rattle off that blasted quote I mentioned aren't my cust's in the first place. The majority of the problems didn't originate in my store (maybe in another agent store, but not here for the most part). The point is why would CS tell a custo...
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It's not that I'm being lazy, really. If a customer comes in with a billing problem and they've already talked to CS (prompting CS to say "go to ANY Cingular store") then all I'm gonna do is call CS and we'll get into a vicious circle, that wastes the customer's time and grows the CS queues. I don't care about the time it takes I get paid hourly anyway. And FYI: The majority of the cust's that I get that rattle off that blasted quote I mentioned aren't my cust's in the first place. The majority of the problems didn't originate in my store (maybe in another agent store, but not here for the most part). The point is why would CS tell a custo...
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1st let me say i dont know all agents stores so i dont know if you all work like the ones that i have in my mall but, let me just say that the agents in this mall are doing a great job at giving all agents a really bad name. i dont to come down on you personally so dont take it that way. all i am saying is that the agents here make a mess of accounts and then say well here you go i made a mess now you fix it. not going to happen.
next....sim card so are you telling me that you have a cust in front of you that you know that you activated 2 days ago and they say hey man my phone says sim blocked wont give them a new sim card cause you havbe to put it on a new account? its all about reputation. then tell the cust to stop playing ...
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next....sim card so are you telling me that you have a cust in front of you that you know that you activated 2 days ago and they say hey man my phone says sim blocked wont give them a new sim card cause you havbe to put it on a new account? its all about reputation. then tell the cust to stop playing ...
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You still didn't get it about the SIM card. I have to charge them for it. If CS tells them it's free then I can't honor that. So I send them to corporate where maybe that free quote can be honored. get it now?
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you can tell me that all you want but the truth be told you dont want to give then that card cause its more "profitable" for you to sign them up on a different number and then deact that other line cause you probably dont get charged for deacts. and like i said before if it is your sale that you did 2 days or whatever ago just do it dont send the cust all around townlooking for a sim card. thats the problem with agents they can activate phones just fine but when it comes to helping the customer with things or i cant do that i dont get paid for it. so go ahead and keep telling me you cant and i will keep telling you to do it as a curtisy to the customer. its only the cingular name that you are representing.
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and to add to that. PLEASE PLEASE do not send customers to credit and activations. we are only here to help the agents.
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we have all the same problems ya'll do. CS sends customers over all the time because the C in C&A stands for credit. unfortunately that is the customer actual credit report not issuing credits. we also get cs sent us here to active my phone. wrong again. that's their job. we're just dealer support
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Ya know....I'm not harpin on the CS people. It's thier training that didn't specify the difference b/t agents and COR. It's thier training that tells them (or didn't tell them in this case) that C&A is there for credit not crediting. It's bad training, it has to be. How do you survive as a company if your CS reps are so uninformed, but you hold dealers and COR stores to such high Mystery Shop scores?
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I think it works both ways. CSRs have a much better knowledge of the 'inner workings' of accounts and how people are billed and what can and can't be done with credits and features than most sales reps that I know. But on the other hand, most (but not all) CSRs have relatively poor knowledge of the handsets themselves in comparison to sales reps.
Because of the mismatch in knowledge and training, there's a lot of misinformation circulating about what exactly agents and indirect dealers and CSRs are actually capable of doing. The sad thing is that there are a lot of bad dealers and a lot of bad CSRs out there, so it's hard sometimes to tell if you're just being given the run-around or if they genuinely can't do something for you . . ....
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Because of the mismatch in knowledge and training, there's a lot of misinformation circulating about what exactly agents and indirect dealers and CSRs are actually capable of doing. The sad thing is that there are a lot of bad dealers and a lot of bad CSRs out there, so it's hard sometimes to tell if you're just being given the run-around or if they genuinely can't do something for you . . ....
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I feel your pain...I get that EVERY single day...It's definitely a problem, and we are the people that get made the bad guy because of it.
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I'd love to that for you. I just have on simple favor to ask of you in return. Do not screw up anymore accounts please. I have to say that some of the worst messes that i have ever had the pleasure of dealing with were caused by dealers.
My favs include; "I was told at the store that I could call in and you would credit me half of my invoice if I migrated today."
(Not going to happen, it is nice to dream about i sappose)
"I went to a store and got a new number. Why am I being billed for the old number still."
(Becuase the dealer you spoke to forgot to cancel your blue account.)
And of course there is the fun of explaining to the cust why dealer did not waive the ETF when they phantom churned. Speaking of witch why do you do ...
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My favs include; "I was told at the store that I could call in and you would credit me half of my invoice if I migrated today."
(Not going to happen, it is nice to dream about i sappose)
"I went to a store and got a new number. Why am I being billed for the old number still."
(Becuase the dealer you spoke to forgot to cancel your blue account.)
And of course there is the fun of explaining to the cust why dealer did not waive the ETF when they phantom churned. Speaking of witch why do you do ...
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ohhh my new favorite on is now the agent says hey go ahead and text all you want it free for the first month...on pay per use. ohh cust service will credit it
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Ok, so not all dealers are reputable, sorry! I've fixed mistakes from them too and I know it sucks. I will however tell you why it is that they "phantom churn"...or at least why I believe they do.
We get paid a lot more on activations than upgrades. It's a lot more profitable (moneywise as well as those all-important numbers) to port that blue customer than it is to do a proper migration. Now in MY market we can't migrate (NC's a divested area) so all blue customers are ports if they wanna switch. Outside of here it's most likely that that dealer preferred to port and call it an activation instead of migrate it like they should have. It's shady, I know, but it's the only reason I can think of that it would happen.
As for being bi...
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We get paid a lot more on activations than upgrades. It's a lot more profitable (moneywise as well as those all-important numbers) to port that blue customer than it is to do a proper migration. Now in MY market we can't migrate (NC's a divested area) so all blue customers are ports if they wanna switch. Outside of here it's most likely that that dealer preferred to port and call it an activation instead of migrate it like they should have. It's shady, I know, but it's the only reason I can think of that it would happen.
As for being bi...
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auth dealers suck and pretty much they are 18 and 19 year old kids who don't know their ass from a whole in the ground . another thing reply all you want but that is the consensus with auth dealers ! Instead of replying to my post here do me a favor and take that time and energy and .........LEARN YOUR DAMN JOB !!!
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Has it maybe occured to you that auth agents do know their damn job??? Think about what their job description is. To sell, and to support their own sales. They are a TOTALLY SEPARATE COMPANY that merely has a license to SELL (imagine that!) for us. It isn't their job to support billing issues, or anything else. Why don't you do YOUR JOB, and quit expecting auth agents to pick up the slack because you don't want to do yours???? And no, I'm not an auth agent, btw. Now if an authorized agent does know his job, he should be definitely able to support any customer he has sold a phone too. But if they didn't sell that customer a phone, they have NO obligation whatsoever to help that customer with billing problems, or anything else. Sorry...
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agents lie to customers to get the sale, then send them into the CO store to fix the problem. prime example, i had a agent here in the mall a work tell a customer the the $36 activation fee was included in his $250 deposit that he paid. đ where do they get this bull from. agents are the evil and all should burn! đŋ đŋ đŋ đŋ
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i get the agents that say oh your act fee is waived. then throw them on a "2 line family talk" but low and behold they are on 2 seperate plans with 2 $36 act fees.
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Oh....and COR agents don't lie to get a sale??? Show me a salesmen who doesn't lie, or at least "expand the truth" to get a sale!!! I bet you can't. Because of two reasons:
1. The salesmen did lie to get the sale
2. The customer going to say the salesman lied to get what they want after getting the phone.
Why do you think they come to you after going to an auth agent to crap about the activation fee??? Probably because the agent DIDN'T tell them that, they are trying to get something for nothing. Before you assume all auth agents are liar (and they might be, but COR agents are from from angels also), you might want to ask the customer, have they talked to the auth agent they bought the phone from? If they haven't, ask them ...
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1. The salesmen did lie to get the sale
2. The customer going to say the salesman lied to get what they want after getting the phone.
Why do you think they come to you after going to an auth agent to crap about the activation fee??? Probably because the agent DIDN'T tell them that, they are trying to get something for nothing. Before you assume all auth agents are liar (and they might be, but COR agents are from from angels also), you might want to ask the customer, have they talked to the auth agent they bought the phone from? If they haven't, ask them ...
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if it was 1 or 2 cust then maybe...but i get this every day about the same agents. dont tell me that its all these customes teaming together and say or i know how we can get our act fee waied. not a chance. again i am not saying that every agent does this practice just the ones that i deal with in this mall.
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no assuming here the customer came back to the store with the agent. the agent told me that the activation fee was included in the deposit. i informed him that he was incorrect and showed him the $36 in CARE under actions. the customer went back and canceled with them and came back to a real store and activated. đ¤Ŗ
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wow you must have got lucky with that one...by the time my cust comes to me its 2 weeks later and they have their will and say whats this charge? then i say well lets go ask mobile solutions since they signed you up.
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wow, and i bet working for a corporate store makes you guys feel all knowing and all powerfull. Well it doesnt bother me that much considering you guys always get my customer service problems, "whats that, you need to look at your bill, well theres a corporate store up the street. They can help you with that." tell me guys, how does it feel to get half the sales and twice as many customer service problems for the same play? if you were really all knowing, or at least somewhat knowing, this isnt a civil service job, suck it up or go work for mcdonalds, at least they're all franchise with equal opportunity for all you complaining losers.
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Wow, that's not nice either...
I think that we all need to realize that there are always going to be "good seeds and bad seeds", no matter what the industry is... Let's stop pointing fingers at each other and all just do our job right and not care what the other guy does... I know that I get angry when I see the agent down the hall from me getting all kinds of activation while I am sitting in my booth taking care of billing issues. But I can see that my customer service skills help me in the long run, I see their business dwindling now since people realize that there are issues that they can't deal with and I can. I figure it this way, if everyone just did their jobs properly we would have to play this "he did- she did" game. It is hones...
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I think that we all need to realize that there are always going to be "good seeds and bad seeds", no matter what the industry is... Let's stop pointing fingers at each other and all just do our job right and not care what the other guy does... I know that I get angry when I see the agent down the hall from me getting all kinds of activation while I am sitting in my booth taking care of billing issues. But I can see that my customer service skills help me in the long run, I see their business dwindling now since people realize that there are issues that they can't deal with and I can. I figure it this way, if everyone just did their jobs properly we would have to play this "he did- she did" game. It is hones...
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It takes class to say what you do here while the waves of negative feeling swamp this forum.
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đ I try to focus on the positive. đ If I focused on the negative I would never get anything done... đ
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I say we all point fingers at people with low secret shop scores. No, not really, but corporate does it already anyway.
Next month (I predict) the number 1 issue will be CSS and reducing the amount of customers needing to call in during the first month and all together. The average call costs the company $8, so the more that can be handled in stores the better. People (and companies) that don't do everything they can in stores wont last long when that hammer falls, and then this issue of COR v agent will be moot.
Next month (I predict) the number 1 issue will be CSS and reducing the amount of customers needing to call in during the first month and all together. The average call costs the company $8, so the more that can be handled in stores the better. People (and companies) that don't do everything they can in stores wont last long when that hammer falls, and then this issue of COR v agent will be moot.
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Thanks Jackie! You hit it on the head!
Ya know I started this as a simple request to the CS reps who frequent the site. All I wanted was for them to take an extra second and specify that they are reffering to COR stores when they tell a customer to go into a store to have something taken care of. It seems that 9 times out of 10 if they come here instead of a COR store (I'm a Premier agent so we LOOK like a COR store, but we're not) and I can't help them for whatever reason it just pisses them off that much more. A pissed of customer is not someone who's gonna give a good refferal when their friends ask "I wanna switch carriers, how's Cingular?". This is for the good of our customers not my own preferences. If I had my way I'd be abl...
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Ya know I started this as a simple request to the CS reps who frequent the site. All I wanted was for them to take an extra second and specify that they are reffering to COR stores when they tell a customer to go into a store to have something taken care of. It seems that 9 times out of 10 if they come here instead of a COR store (I'm a Premier agent so we LOOK like a COR store, but we're not) and I can't help them for whatever reason it just pisses them off that much more. A pissed of customer is not someone who's gonna give a good refferal when their friends ask "I wanna switch carriers, how's Cingular?". This is for the good of our customers not my own preferences. If I had my way I'd be abl...
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Well, here's a good story for ya...shows ya how good COR reps are. Customer called in, works for homeland security. Traveled out of his area, and had just purchased a phone through the CLM department. Phone stops working. Customer heads into local COR store. Rep says, well, have the original box shipped to you and we can do an exchange. So customer pays $20 to have the phone's box shipped to him. Goes into store next day (cuz is was overnight shipping) and SAME rep says, oh sorry, you need to exchange at a COR store in your local area. Customer is 500 miles away from his local area. When customer said you just said yesterday I just needed the box and you would do an exchange for me, the rep looked at him and said "Oh well...." Ok.....
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Like I said... There are good people and bad people... On both sides, agent and COR stores.
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Oh yeah, I think it was somewhere in the contract that we had to start lying after the merger finalized, day one meant that we could lie freely, I felt so much better then. đ¤Ŗ If that was the case... I honestly think that it has gotten worse since the merger but that is probably because everywhere is so incredibly saturated with "stores" now, that some people get scared and figure that is the only way that they can get their numbers in.
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The funny thing is - I've worked in a couple of management positions now where I've been expected to meet certain 'numbers' or quotas. My experience has been - if you focus on the numbers, they stay constantly just out of reach. But, if you just focus on doing things the right way, they 'magically' just fall in place. The 'numbers' have been calculated to measure if you are doing your job the right way, so if you focus on that, then everything else (usually) just falls into place.
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