Not exactly a secret in the trade
But I worked in a call centre for a very short time (3 weeks actually) before I was forced to leave. I used to take call orders for a certain childrens toy magazine for posh parents (rhymes with BetterLox) and and for those cheap CDs and DVDs you see advertised on the tv. Now, the main majority of callers for CDs were elderly people who were either very rude or would not just get off the phone as they had no one to talk to. And many refused to pay postage. The secret is, you DO have to pay postage. No matter how you yell or stamp your feet, I have to add it to your order or the warehouse will not send it out! Pretending you didn't see it does not change a damn thing. And seeing how the only way to make my pay packet liveable was by getting commission and by wasting my time, I'm not earning it so I may fuck up your order on purpose.

We also have no idea about the products you are ordering so please do not call up just to ask, we don't actually know! We just log onto the company website and read the spiel on there, which is exactly what is in your brochure. The worst I got was a man calling because he had ordered a DVD catalogue and he didn't have a DVD player. He called me and I had to waste 20 minutes reading out all the videos we had on Steam Trains from the website, which in the end, he decided he didn't want. All this during our busiest time.

Oh, and BetterLox? There is no point calling us if you have the internet. If you call to place an order, all we do is take your customer details and place the order through the site anyway. You're just wasting money phoning us.

And yes, we do have to try and sell you something. When we start reading the 'Our friends at blah blah have a special offer', it's because we have to. You miss the script 3 times and you're fired, so please don't yell at us for doing our jobs.

This has been a Public Service Announcement (rant) by MissC.
(missc, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 16:45, Reply)