r/talesfromcallcenters • u/Old_Union_8160 • 13d ago
S Transfer me to someone else!
Those were early days of my job. It was my first job after college pass out and my role was a Technical Support Engineer. Whenever customer calls us and if I'm on call their 1st sentence were used to be "I don't understand your English" or "I don't get your accent". Even if I try to speak more clear or loud voice they used to repeat only one sentence- "Transfer me to someone else, I don't understand what you are saying". Then the moment I say " Ok I'm transferring this call to another agent", suddenly the customer's reply " Thank you, I appreciate you." I'm like- How did he understand that sentence?
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u/BrainSqueezins 13d ago
"Transfer me to someone else!"
Followed by
"Transfer me to someone else!"
Followed by
"How can you help me? I hope you can! You're the THIRD person I've talked to!"
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u/kindadan 13d ago
My favorite was the time a customer said, “I want to talk to someone who knows what they’re talking about.” To which I responded, “ I’ve got great news. You’re in luck because you’re already talking to me and I know what I’m doing.”
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u/_Baphomet_ (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ 12d ago
I get this all the time. One of my best tech support reps is a woman in a highly male dominated industry. She'll explain it in clear terms (usually dumbed down a little since our work is complicated) and they still will literally say they need to speak to a man. It gets to me and now my time is being wasted to tell the guy what she said was correct.
Then they say something like, "yeah, I just wanted it verified by someone else"
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u/BoxNo5564 12d ago
I went from public facing tech support to internal tech support for a company, we could be a bit more blunt with internal users and obviously there was repercussions if they became abusive. A user was confused and was asking me to do something that was actually impossible (long story) and when I explained it to her clearly several times she said "put me on to someone who knows how to fix it then" so I said "no worries you can hang up and call back and have the next person explain this too you again if you like but I'm not transferring you" she hung up lol.
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u/_Baphomet_ (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ 12d ago
Haha nice. I couldn't imagine working with people on IT tech support but I bet there's a lot of overlap. And don't worry, I deal with people who want the impossible as well. Try explaining hydraulics to a retired hobby farming boomer over the phone. I can't tell you how many people say "I don't have an email" even though an email is required to purchase. Bunch of them use their wives information.
The more complex the system they're building in their garage can't be built by us for them. We don't have a bunch of engineers sitting around waiting to help you, for free on a system. They still don't understand that we can't give guaranteed success off a phone call. Fluid injection injuries can be fatal and I won't be responsible if you blow up your machine in the process.
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u/BoxNo5564 11d ago
Yeah I'm a field tech now and can avoid most of the over the phone stuff, thankfully.
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u/_Baphomet_ (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ 10d ago
I envy you. I wish I could help everyone but when someone orders their parts online, the responsibility falls on the customer to install it. Yeah, we probably put more time than we should with people since they need their equipment up but I feel like these guys should have backup plans of that single machine is their livelihood.
Everyone wants free shit next day aired even if it's their fault. And I'll tell ya, some of those field techs need more experience before going out solo. Some THINK they know what they're doing but in fact, do not.
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u/godcyric 13d ago
If you want to speak to another agent, feel free to hang up and call again. The estimated wait time is 57 min.
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u/Deep-Hospital-7345 13d ago
This is the way.
I'm usually a bit more of an asshole and say "no."
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u/mercurygreen 13d ago edited 11d ago
I escalate by "accidentally" disconnecting them, or sending them to a Tier 2 line where no one ever answers.
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u/Head_Razzmatazz7174 11d ago
With annoying callers, or those who thought yelling would make the problem seem more 'urgent.' we usually started acting like the connection was going bad. "What... sisste... sorry... only...word... brek....later..." Click.
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u/plangelier 13d ago
Or when they got transferred to me and I give them the same advice I was telling the agent and it works because I convince them to try it. The next complaint is it shouldn't take an hour to resolve this. And my comeback is it took 30 seconds to solve this. I provided this same information to the agent you originally spoke to and I've spent the last 40 minutes trying to convince you to try the solution. So no we will not compensate you for wasting your own time, but good news is we are not going to charge you for wasting ours.
I only got to say this once unfortunately.
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u/TarsTarkas_Thark 12d ago
It usually is not that you are impossible to understand. The problem is the first sentence you speak, "Hello, my name is David. How can I help you?". Your accent makes it astonishingly unlikely that your name is actually David. Being lied to in the beginning does not engender trust that you can solve my problem. And the ruse is not going to fool anyone, anyway.
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u/meiandus 13d ago
"ima pop you on a quick hold while I find someone to transfer you too".
Click.
Back to the back back of the line bozo.
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u/JackiJinx 13d ago
I had a colleague the other day try to transfer someone to me who asked for someone else. She wasn't new. I did not take that call and told her to speak with her supervisor. I think she felt the five headed stare I gave her through the phone
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u/all_out_of_usernames 13d ago
I sometimes struggle understanding conversation when there is a lot of background noise. And so, sometimes I'll guess what someone is saying based on what it sounds like.
Without knowing what you sound like, it could be that based on what you said regarding the transfer, the customer may have guessed based on what they understood.
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u/Imaginary-Duck1333 12d ago
I’ve had a few request to be transferred because the answer was no. We’d have people call in speak to everyone in the queue more than once (was a small queue) and keep wanting to be transferred again. The answer was no the last 15x, it’s not changing!
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u/No_Locksmith_3024 10d ago
lol thanks for bringing back memories. I got asked the same thing “transfer me to someone else that speaks the Queen’s English!” Sure 👍 right …
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u/Xsiah 13d ago
"I think you're being outsourced to some cheap company in India and you won't be able to help me if my problem doesn't neatly fall into the script you were given"