An Ounce of Prevention

I always believe in the adage, "an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure". That's the reason why though I flounder on my personal life, I am a professional "dispute lover" when it comes to policies of the company. I don't know, maybe this is just borne by my being a frustrated executive or I was really born analytical (?).

Just this morning, I got a call from an Indian-American customer who was quite tech-savvy and very articulate. He said he was on the phone with a lady agent from Technical Support Department when all of a sudden he heard the Interactive Voice Recording (IVR) managing his expectation that calls are answered in the order that they are received. The customer was so upset he was furious talking to me and immediately asked if he's talking to an Advanced Tech Support Representative.....Out of my understanding that unscrupolous agent can transfer the call to another department or even put the customer back on queue if they find issues to be far-fetched from being resolved, and they know that they are being covered by their truant coaches, I answered the customer, "Yes you are."

Well there's no issue answering intricate questions from customer who are expecting they are talking to a 2nd level Rep as I have been handling the same technical questions for 2 years now but knowing that I am not a 2nd Level Support Rep and that I have to extend a lot of effort to make use of my soft skill to appease the customer is quite a headache.

Now another issue is that the QA Department is considering an enforcement of full disclosures during promotions and billing related customer service calls and imposition of a Non-Negotiable Behaviour rating for missing out a single disclosure doesn't seem to be rational. They should consider cleaning out the rotten system of barging of calls. Remember that in an 8 hour shift, a Technical Support Representative (TSR) receives an average of 45 calls. That means that in a 40 hrs weekly shift, an agent gets around 225 calls, only 10-15 of which are on e-Talk or recorded. With those recorded calls, only 2 are being rated by the Quality Assurance Specialists (QAS).


That means that while the adherent TSR's endure the churn of irate mis-informed customers, there are veteran agents who are messing up calls since they are covered by their coaches. Whew!!!!!

Coach Feedback

As usual, we have to answer the Coach Feedback Survey. I wasn't able to answer that one last month because of my week-long suspension which also happened to fall on the last week of September. When was the last time I answered the survey? Hmmmmmm....I can't remember.



There were several items to answer. While 1 is the highest score I can give my coach, I mostly gave a 2. Well there are 3 items I give a 1 on, first is for making me feel comfortable opening my personal problems; second, for my work problems and third for lending me money...No just kidding...



There were also about 4 items I gave a rating of 4 (very seldom) which would be for being objective in giving me feedback...coz personally, I see it that my Coach is quite holding it back when giving credits is due. I just don't know if it has something to do with his age being by far junior to me, 34 turning 35 as oppose to his 25. What I'm dreaming of is that he can be a bit objective and put into consideration that he is by far well-trained than I am as he has stayed for more than five with the company as opposed to my 2 years. Also, I can't find the urgency in him in sending the winpop everytime agents get a compliment........



Well these things can be worked out and I hope that the survey would be a very good tool for them to consider the areas that they need to work on. Lest the survey would be treated as an opportunity to glorify themselves, I have to give an honest, maybe painful feedback to the coach concerned.

Sleepless, Unsettled...

Halloween's eve and I barely got sleep. Two hours of sleep is basically a big no-no for me. As I always put it with my customers, "Golden rule applies". Always treat your customer how you want to be treated.....

With that in mind, I thought of pouring in my sentiments regarding the incompetence of our company's HRD. Payroll issues always take time to roll. Disputes for this payperiod would be taken into consideration the next, next payperiod. Brace yourself....hope for the best, expect the worst. Payroll disputes always don't yield good results.....

It's quite a pain in the ass, so to speak (sorry for the slang) that while I am working with one of the top corportions in the country, internal control policies seem to be very mediocre. There's no check and balance, no visible audit trail. You have to wait you're impacted and you call their attention. Not only that, you have to go to the hierarchy of authorities and please arm yourself with a considerable amount of patience coz you'll be referred to one person-in-charge to another.....