Why Do They Call It A Help Line???
For the most part my interactions with employees of my bank are positive ones. People are friendly, nice and helpful. Except for the moron I caught on their phone help line this morning.
I was wishing to re-establish online banking. I don't recall my old login or password, and the e-mail address tied to the account was well out of date, so I called last night and they obliterated my old login and informed me that I could probably re-establish the account at that time, but it may be today before the old account was fully obliterated and the new account could start.
I tried to start up the account and hit a snag in one of the final steps in the process. I presumed it was the potential issue they had tried to warn me of, so left it at that. Tried again today, and got the same snag. It wasn't letting me past the disclaimer that you have to accept to log-in to your account. So I called the help line. They were helpful last night, so hopefully they will be helpful again this morning. Here's a synopsis of the phone call:
Her: Can I confirm your name and address please.
Me: Swankette, House of Swank.
Her: What can I do for you today?
Me: -- explain problem to her--
Her: OK, let me get some additional information from you to confirm your identity, if you don't mind?
Me: Not at all. (Last night they asked for a recent transaction I had made on one of the accounts. Easy enough)
Her: What is the month and year you opened one of your accounts?
Me: uh........................ what was that you just said?
Her: Month and year you opened one of your accounts?
You're kidding me, right? You think I have this stuff on record, or on top of my brain. I'm lucky that one of those accounts originated as the account with which to pay for the wedding, and we started it shortly after the engagement.
Me: The month or two after the engagement.
Her: Oh no, it looks like the website is down right now. If you try again in an hour it should work.
Me: Has the website been down since last night?
Her: No. It was working for the last caller I had.
Me: Then this problem is not a result of the website being down. Remember, I told you, it started last night.
Her: But the website is down right now.
Me: OK. Can we fix this anyhow, as I'd prefer to not have to call in again.
Her: The website is down, but you've got a login (tells me my login). I can create a password and e-mail it to you if you give me your e-mail address.
Me: Actually, I've got a login AND a password, since I've been telling you I've been logging into the site and it's just not letting me get to my information. I simply need to figure out why it won't let me past this screen.
Her: But the website is down right now.
Eventually, after more of the same, I convinced her to transfer me to someone with more technical knowledge than her (in other words, a rock). Turns out that there's a glitch with Firefox, so I had to login through Explorer to get past that screen, and now things are working just groovy now.
I don't like idiots. I don't like timewasters. And I REALLY don't like idiots who waste my time, especially when I'm trying to give them an out to get me to someone who knows what they're doing. But if they were smart enough to do that they wouldn't be idiots now, would they?
I was wishing to re-establish online banking. I don't recall my old login or password, and the e-mail address tied to the account was well out of date, so I called last night and they obliterated my old login and informed me that I could probably re-establish the account at that time, but it may be today before the old account was fully obliterated and the new account could start.
I tried to start up the account and hit a snag in one of the final steps in the process. I presumed it was the potential issue they had tried to warn me of, so left it at that. Tried again today, and got the same snag. It wasn't letting me past the disclaimer that you have to accept to log-in to your account. So I called the help line. They were helpful last night, so hopefully they will be helpful again this morning. Here's a synopsis of the phone call:
Her: Can I confirm your name and address please.
Me: Swankette, House of Swank.
Her: What can I do for you today?
Me: -- explain problem to her--
Her: OK, let me get some additional information from you to confirm your identity, if you don't mind?
Me: Not at all. (Last night they asked for a recent transaction I had made on one of the accounts. Easy enough)
Her: What is the month and year you opened one of your accounts?
Me: uh........................ what was that you just said?
Her: Month and year you opened one of your accounts?
You're kidding me, right? You think I have this stuff on record, or on top of my brain. I'm lucky that one of those accounts originated as the account with which to pay for the wedding, and we started it shortly after the engagement.
Me: The month or two after the engagement.
Her: Oh no, it looks like the website is down right now. If you try again in an hour it should work.
Me: Has the website been down since last night?
Her: No. It was working for the last caller I had.
Me: Then this problem is not a result of the website being down. Remember, I told you, it started last night.
Her: But the website is down right now.
Me: OK. Can we fix this anyhow, as I'd prefer to not have to call in again.
Her: The website is down, but you've got a login (tells me my login). I can create a password and e-mail it to you if you give me your e-mail address.
Me: Actually, I've got a login AND a password, since I've been telling you I've been logging into the site and it's just not letting me get to my information. I simply need to figure out why it won't let me past this screen.
Her: But the website is down right now.
Eventually, after more of the same, I convinced her to transfer me to someone with more technical knowledge than her (in other words, a rock). Turns out that there's a glitch with Firefox, so I had to login through Explorer to get past that screen, and now things are working just groovy now.
I don't like idiots. I don't like timewasters. And I REALLY don't like idiots who waste my time, especially when I'm trying to give them an out to get me to someone who knows what they're doing. But if they were smart enough to do that they wouldn't be idiots now, would they?
posted by Swankette at 12:38 PM
4 Comments:
I get easily frustrated with people on help lines who don't really help. I know they can't know every answer, but if you don't, pass me on to someone who can.
On our phone queues, we have coaches who are there in case the original associate gets a situation they can't help with. I think it improves our customer service...
This woman was definitely inept, but I suspect it might be a different kind of ineptitude than you are talking about. The problem is that, in user support, your first job is to recreate the problem. With the website down, she could not do that, and evidently had no clue what to do for a step two.
Instead of her saying "But the website is down right now" (thus implying that she believed that your problem was with the website being down), this is what should have happened:
Me: Then this problem is not a result of the website being down. Remember, I told you, it started last night.
Her: Unfortunately, since the website is down at this moment, I cannot do any more debugging of the problem. If you can give me all the relevent information, including what browser you are using, if you have any pop-up blockers installed, and what firewall you use, if any, I'll look into it when the system is back up and give you a call back by the end of the day.
That way, she can refer the problem to the person with the technical expertise, who is a little bit to blame in this scenario too, since there's no excuse for not having browser limitations posted on the website, much less disseminated to the entire helpline staff. You get your answer without feeling jerked around, and she doesn't have to try to figure it out with an increasingly irate customer on the line.
Lessons learned in the trenches...
Alison -
The first person didn't have a clue, as she seemed convinced that this was a problem due to the fact that the website was down, which is why she kept reiterating it. She was not trying to figure anything out, she was just trying to get me on my way because once the website was back up my system would work fine.
I guess the good news is that she kept me online long enough the website came back up, as the second person got right to it and got it done for me.
I have utmost respect for the vast majority of help desk workers (especially those that read this blog. :) but this woman's help should be relegated to asking if I want fries with that.
Gotcha. I still maintain it's (9 times out of 10) a matter of training. "What browser are you using" should be the first question out of someone's mouth with nearly every website-related problem. Or better still, they could, y'know, program the sites better. With the possible exception of cookie requirements, the bells and whistles that require one browser over another are almost never actually necessary to the transaction at hand.
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