Pie Digital
Over the years it's been necessary to phone a certain satelite TV company a few times. Most times I've been sat on hold, listening to how 'important' my call is to them and that inexplicably - I managed to call just as everyone else decided to as well.

Personally, "High call volume" is something you solve either by turning down the volume on your handset, or employing more staff.

But... and you're not going to believe this. I'm going to defend those poor Scottish call centre workers, enslaved to Mr. Murdoch.

1. My internet stops working. Then I loose my phone line. After a brief stopover in Delhi - I'm put through to the 3rd line support, located in Belfast. Chatting with the guy, it turns out he's from Dublin (like myself) and we grew up 3 streets away. I got status updates every 30 minutes and BT Openreach were out within 12 hours to fix the problem. Moral of the story - be nice to the call centre guy - they have secret powers.

2. Many years ago, we had to move out of our place in London while the idiots who built place removed and then replaced the tissue thin walls and ceilings. We were moved to a very swanky place up the road (in one of those gated developments) rent free while the whole thing was sorted out (for 6 months!). Meanwhile - the place we moved to didn't have a satelite dish, and we couldn't put one up - so I went without for a few months.
Cue a call centre bloke phoning me up one Saturday morning asking if everything was alright with our box - obviously it hadn't been phoning back to base telling Mr Murdoch how many hours of Simpsons we've been watching. On telling him the whole story of being screwed over by the builders and developers and how we couldn't put up a dish in our temporary home, he refunded 4 months of subscription and placed the account 'on hold' so we wouldn't be billed until we moved back in. Totally out of the blue.

So that's why, if every I have to phone up any call centre (apart from Banks - they're all evil and deserve abuse) I'm always polite, ask how their day has been and make sure if I get good service, to write and praise the person who helped me out.
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Fri 4 Sep 2009, 22:37, 2 replies)

Bless you sir.
As a phone jockey and cubicle gopher myself, thank you.
(fai is rocking khaz modan server as of, Sat 5 Sep 2009, 19:23, closed)

As nice as it is to be on the receiving end of competent call-centre staff
The fact that the majority of them are useless, feckless, lazy cunts just makes the average/good ones shine all the brighter.
( OneSullenBrit *air sandwiches*, Sat 5 Sep 2009, 20:24, closed)