Fun With Others

I've got plenty to gripe about, but Rev's blog tomorrow it'll probably get covered.
He could talk about the pissing contest with Medical, or a fat ass nurse that causes problem, or the ditsy dame that started the whole thing, but maybe he's got something else in store.

I've decided, instead, to talk about stuff that makes the day go by, and things to think about the next time you call.

I worked for an outsourcing company, one of the finest...
For credentials check the Urban Dictionary.
Anyway, it was a call center for, uh... well hell, I'm not opposed to name dropping...
I was outsourced to Cingular Wireless.
Six call centers in the country, and about 2oo people per center.
There was (roughly) a 1 in 12oo chance of talking to me.
Of course, there were a good 12 of us (or more) so it was a 1 in 100 shot of getting someone like me.
(This is where it gets interesting.)

Note: Calls MAY be recorded for quality assurance. (Team Leaders record 2 calls per agent per week and a monitoring company records roughly 2 calls per agent per month. 1o calls recorded per month per agent. Estimated 2o calls per day, or 1oo calls per month.) 1/1o of calls are recorded. Plenty of time to have fun.

I only worked there a year but in the year that I was there, we pulled some pretty colorful stuff.
Of course, if you were on the phone it might not have been so funny.

You may have heard this, if calling: (note: this is acceptable) "Thank you for calling Cingular Wireless, where the rate plans rock and the minutes roll over. My name is XXX, and who am I speaking with?"

However, you may have gotten a hold of me.
"Thank you for calling Swingular Walrus, home of the rollover midgets. My name is Mike Hunt, how can I be of assistance to you today?"
Not every call, but some.
This started with the "meow" bit from Super Troopers but progressed to something much worse.
You may have also heard the phrase (and this came outta the gal's mouths too!) "Sir/Ma'am can I place you on hold for just one ("hot" was added at times) second? My computer just went down on me."
And sometimes it may have sounded like your entire call was fielded by a celebrity.
Johnny Carson was fun, but you needed a friend to be Ed McMahon.

TagTeam: Happens when 2 people are on the same phone and at undetermined intervals tap each other for the hand off.
This usually happens in the middle of a sentence.
Also when your partner isn't paying attention. (KC was bad for this.)
MH: Okay ma'am, thanks so much for holding. We're just gonna go over what we talked about, make sure we've got everything right okay?
CUST: Okay.
MH: Great. Now the plan that we're gonna go ahead and set you up with *tap* is the...
KC: Uh, 7oo minute plan.
CUST: I thought we talked about the 45o minute plan?
KC: That's right, we did. *MUTE* Asshole! *UNMUTE* I glanced at the clock and got confused.
Of course, it didn't always go down like this.
There were plenty of calls that a TagTeam was successfully executed and no one was the wiser.
Sales were made and people had fun.
(Note: Both participants tapped back and forth throughout the call.)

Switch Hit: Is like TagTeam in the fact that customers talk to 2 different agents. The difference being the agents do not keep switching back, once switched, the call is finished.

The point of both of these is to neither confirm nor deny the switch, no matter how obvious.

Call to Talk: Was usually a good time. The customer calls for whatever reason (i.e. service, sales, questions, billing) and we get to know a little about the and chat like old pals for about 45 minutes to an hour.
This is great if you were taking to many calls and need to slow down the flow for better conversion.
Usually you made a customer pretty happy too.
Especially if you actually helped them in the process.

Of course, some things we did for fun that you couldn't hear, and would never know.

Putting: We all had cubicles and the top caps came off in nice 3 foot pieces.
Roll a wad of paper for a long enough time and it gets pretty round.
Flatten the lip of a coffee cup and square a side.
Stick+ball+hole=putting practice.
I don't even play golf and I invented this one!

Flirting With Accounts Reviewable (AR): On occasion, when a person called, they might have a deposit to set up service.
$5oo or $75o was always a no-go.
$15o was sometimes something we could work with.
Get a $15o and call AR to speak with, in my hopes, a female.
Find out where she's from (usually Plano, Texas) and tell her she's beautiful.
Tell her you'd love to take her out and you'll be there in 14 hours to pick her up.
Tell you're going to e-mail her a dozen roses.
Or that you've got 12 of something else to give her...
Warm the right heart and that deposit disappears.
This was helpful in many ways.
I make a gal feel good about herself, I get a sale, and YOU get a phone.

Many agents also played on the Internet, sent text messages, and made cell phone calls.
All 3 were unauthorized, but so were hang-ups, and those happened quite a bit too.

MUTE: This is the greatest key ever to grace an agents phone.
I really don't need to say why.
It's usage was already demonstrated.


Once again, none of this was used to make customers feel bad, or unwanted, or even to show how absolutely stupid we sometimes were, it was all in good fun.
And much fun was had by all.

Have fun,
Don't let 'em getcha.