I tried to help you…Now you’re going to get offended by the way I speak?…I amsome brown from Brooklynfrom Brownsville, Brooklyn, NY…I’m not changing my voice for you or no one else. God blessed me with this, you understand? And this is how I talk. I don’t sound sweet. I don’t have a sweet voice, OK? I don’t have one.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, absolutely no power outside the call center corrupts absolutely plus 1.
Great job, Crapitol One! You just lost a(nother) customer! — BEN POPKEN
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To me it seems like a universal truth that when someone appears frustrated with you, you don’t calmly point it out to them. Even your best buddy will take it the wrong way. It’s just very condescending.
Agree with majority of posters. What makes it worse is Consumerist editors always siding with the complainers who offer little if any proof of their accusations (like where is the racism?).
As for those who say CSRs shouldn’t be rude, that’s true, but at what point? In case anyone forgot, including the editors who obviously have forgotten, CSRs are humans first, CSRs second or someplace after that. If Consumerists editors and some posters can learn how to treat CSRs are humans first, maybe many of these situations wouldn’t happen.
Lastly, why didn’t Ben P. and “Steve” reveal what was said by the wife to cause the CSR to defend herself? What was it about the way she talks that offended the wife? Seems like Ben P, Steve, and wife need a little “Diversity” training. Why aren’t we getting the complete story?
I think she sounds hot ha ha
As has been stated before, I think we do need to hear the rest of the conversation to get some context here. I do get the impression that something provoked her, though it may not have been entirely intentional.
Either way though, it was a bit unprofessional on the agent’s part. If the customer did make a comment about the agent’s attitude, the agent could have handled it much better (“my apologies, I’ve had a long I apologize for my tone blah blah, let’s just get this fixed”). The long winded rant was a bit much.
@Erskine: Sigh… half my mothers side is from New York so I understood it as well. Shame, stopped just short of being Comcastically insulting.
I have done customer service phone work most of my life. I feel that we were not given all the facts and like an earlier post from CSR, I agree that the rep most likely went out of her way as the rep said she could have transferred Steve’s wife to voice mail and instead choose to try to assist.
I do understand the previous frustration of getting the credit and statements. Perhaps Steve and his wife should have used the lessons here on how to drop a corporate email bomb or try to go through the CEO’s office to get someone that could sort things out pronto.
The rep NOT transferring Steve’s wife and trying to assist I feel should be commended and it is people like Steve and his wife that will make it even harder for reps to assist the masses as with this post it shows that in my opinion, this rep got stabbed in the back for trying to assist versus pass the buck.
“To me it seems like a universal truth that when someone appears frustrated with you, you don’t calmly point it out to them. Even your best buddy will take it the wrong way. It’s just very condescending.”
I have two takes here.
First, Televiper is absolutely correct. I never give people attitude that I am trying to use for my benefit. I can’t extract the help or information from them that I so desperately need if I decide to come correct on them by letting them know that I sense there attitude with me and it’s not appreciated. I never give my waiters in restaurants shit and I never give a CSR shit on the phone when I need them to go to bat for me. Or in the case of the waiters, I need for them to not give my food any extra add ons that I did not request. After I am done with their service or lack of service, then I will speak to a manager or supervisor if I still deem it necessary. In my home, I am the one with the temper but my wife is ALWAYS the one who loses it on the phone in situations like this because she treats it as though it is a normal face to face but it’s not. The CSR’s have the customers by the short hairs and they know it.
Second and lastly, the “Brown from Brooklynn” is ill suited for this type of work and her dumbass should be fired immediately. As long as the customer is not insulting, a CSR should be angelic. If all Steve’s wife said was something to the affect of (I sense you are being short with me and I don’t appreciate it), then the CSR should have remained calm. This should not have rattled her in the least. Worst case senario is that Steve’s wife said something like (I don’t appreciate the attitude lady besides you’re here to help me not get short with me). In that case, the CSR should have kicked her up to a supervisor. Instead, she goes off about God making her and where she’s from. No matter how you look at it, the CSR twisted the confrontational remark by Steve’s wife into something else altogether. Besides, no one should be able to sense from a CSR that they are running out of patience. This entire adventure started when the CSR showed very little restraint by letting the customer know that she was becoming impatient with her.
I’ve been working in Japan doing work via the phone for about 12 years now and the first thing you learn is that you are being paid to provide a service to the person you are speaking with and you must be helpful, polite, and calm at all costs. It doesn’t matter what the other person says or how they “provoke” you. They’re not the ones getting paid to assist and speak, you are.
In the U.S., where people have a highly-developed sense of individual rights and also take offense easily and react strongly, you find that manners on the whole are poor and that people put the work they do second to their own egos.
It doesn’t matter what the customer said. The CSR is paid to handle the situation professionally. If she isn’t up to the task, then she should find another line of work.
I’m a vanilla from NE Ohio…
I have worked as a CSR for over 7 years, in that time I have facilitated many customer service courses for other CSR’s. While this CSR certainly didn’t diffuse the customer, I have had to deal with too many customers, to be naive enough to think the customer didn’t play a large part in creating this situation. If the customer and her husband want to be upset at the way they were treated, I would suggest they start with the way their online statements and records were promptly removed. By focusing attention on one side of a conversation with a CSR, they lose all of their credibility.
IF there was any customer abuse on the part of the CSR, Capital One would have reviewed the call (most call centers do monitor all calls, and have them available for requested playback), and there would have been a call made to apologize to the customer.
It sickens me to see someone use the vast availability of the internet to record an unknowing person and twist stories to their own benefit to attempt to get their way.
Well. It would’ve been nice to hear, but it’s been yanked from YouTube.
Nice… Youtube yanked it.
Even if the customer had been rude or otherwise to the CSR, it wouldn’t have gotten that far if they had taken care of the customer in the first place.
NOW, here is my story.
First a few facts. when you cancel a cap1 card you can reinstate it again for something like 60 to 90 days after cancellation. When I signed with cap! for credit protection which is a small charge when there is an active balance. I also signed up for credit reporting which I never got any credit reports as long as I had the card but was billed for. Credit card companies do not cancel cards with a balance so they can continue to charge intrest.
Now check this out …
About a year after canceling the card I started getting phone calls from a collection agency about a 125 dollar bill from cap 1. They never gave the name of their company or gave me any chance to contest the charge only pay the bill. I had never gotten a bill from cap 1 for anything since I canceled the card.
I called capitol one and although I had signed up for these with cap 1 I had to turn them off from a different company and I wasn’t told about that. I called the companies and one withdrew all charges and the other withdrew the recent month and I had to go to cap 1 about the previous months. Cap 1 would do nothing even though the card was canceled at the time.
Now you want to talk about irate customers? I was Irate about this and believe me, when a bill collector calls about fraudulent charges and I have no way to contest them, I get irate. When their callers (who never hang up on you) who actually hung up on me and refused to call me back a second time, I finally got a call from the collection companies corporate offices. They listened.
They called capitol one and got the date of cancellation of the card and the dates of the charges which were for credit reporting and credit protection on the existing credit reporting charges. They determined the charges were fraudulent and the fraud was perpetrated by CAPITOL ONE and that it was intentional., not a computer glitch. They actually had to call corporate and threaten to report it to the feds to get them to cancel the charges.
What some of you are forgetting, is that even IF the lady provked the representative, she still shoudl have been profession ad not said a word. professionalism is an important part of American life. I think there are some highschoolers that are more professional that this woman.
I am a diabetic. My diabetic supply company(Minimed) and the firm that finances their equipment (Monterey) are supposed to be two different corporations.I owe Monterey mone, and they told me that if I don’t bring my account current byDecember 1st. They will have Minimed stop shipping to me. Telling a Diabetic he will not receive suplies is the same as saying “If you don’t pay, we will kill you.”Today, I sent a certified letter to the CEO of Minimed, Chris O’Deonnell, one to thePresident of Monterey, Robert Steinke and a third letter to the Stt’y General of Florida, Bill McCollum. Collection agencies are getting too stupid with their threats.