We all know in our heart of hearts, but sometimes when you call customer service and ask for a supervisor the person who comes on isn’t really a supervisor. We spotted these comments over at an online call center magazine where agents admit that they routinely have other agents pose as supervisors instead of actually escalating the call…
” I was working in a call center with just 40 seats and when customers insist on talking to supervisor we just passed it to the next guy, introducing him as supervisor.”
“Is it ethical to have another agent pose as a supervisor? Sure, depending on how it’s done.”
“I have worked several call center jobs. In some cases we were told to avoid supervisor contacts at all costs. In others we were empowered to either say we were supervisors or to pass off to another agent who claimed to be a supervisor”
Most of the other comments find this practice unethical and bad customer service, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not going on.
I WANT TO SPEAK TO A SUPERVISOR [ICMIi's QueueTips]
(Photo: Getty)
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I guess I’m one of the few people who love working in customer service. I bet working for companies that actually care about customer service is a big part of it. A little empathy goes a long way (not sympathy, empathy), especially since I’ve so often been a customer myself, and I know how it goes. Also, every company I’ve worked for monitored calls and went over your bad calls at random performance review times, so there was no fake transferring. Wouldn’t have thought to do that anyway.
nice people get what they want.
No, usually nice people get run over. It’s always “the system”, it’s always “the computer, I’m really sorry ma’am but I can’t override it”. And nice people are the people who accept that.
A lot of times what people want is empathy and they don’t want to be lied to. Stop lying! It seems very difficult for many CSRs to manage either of those things. I guess if they’re doing “fake transfers” it’s to be expected. So all you whining CSRs and tech support reps on this thread, who advocate this sort of deception? Y’all deserve the nasty customers you get. And in the end, you’re the one with the crappy job.
I used to be a Senior Representative in our company’s call center. (Yes, it’s an actual position and not just an adjective.) When someone would ask for a supervisor, the rep would offer a senior, and they’d get connected to me – and I’d be introduced as a senior specialist, not a supervisor. I’d help as best I could – and I could help pretty damn well – but if they insisted on talking with an actual supervisor, they’d get one.
The thing is – and it should be no surprise – supervisors aren’t really experts in the job their employees perform. They’re management, and if you want to know about managing employees, they’d be the go-to women. If you want to know how your bill works, you really want an experienced rep.
When someone would talk to a supervisor, they’d basically listen, take notes, offer a call back, and then ask a senior to explain the situation and take care of whatever needs done. Then, they’d call the customer back.
Now, just passing a call to the next rep over? That’s horrible service. No excuses for that.
I work for Amazon.com, and in the call centers the CSAs and their Supervisors have the EXACT same powers. If you want to speak to a supervisor, you will actually get to talk to one, but they’re just going to tell you the same thing the CSA told you five minutes ago. If you’re still not happy, the only thing a CSA can do is to transfer you to a specialist, most of whom only do their correspondence through email, and it might be 2-3 days before you hear back from them. Most of the CSAs really do want to help people, and they’ll do everything they can to help you. And as others here have said, the nicer you are, the more the CSAs will do for you. I’ve seen (heard?) instances where, by the book, a customer was only eligible for a partial refund, but the CSA went ahead and gave them the full refund just because the customer was nice.
I’ve also never heard of a CSA passing on a “supervisor” call to a friend. All the calls are recorded (and a fair number listened to), and anyone caught doing that would get in massive trouble. Amazon is a good company to work for, and most of its employees are not in any hurry to get fired.
Working as a supervisor in a call center for a very well known company, I feel that I am qualified to comment on this subject. It has been my observation that the only thing you may gain from speaking with a supervisor, in most cases, is the luxury of hearing the same thing that you were told previously, being explained by someone with a different title. Because all we as reps or supervisors are able to do is correct legitimate errors, assist the customer with using the product/service or educate the customer on the company policies. The exception to this would be if you happened to get a new rep when you called in that perhaps overlooked something on your account and being that a supervisor is more experienced, they were able to catch it. Most of the time, that will not even be the case because a help line is established where reps can receive assistance or a second opinion if needed. I suppose that this is the reason some companies adopt the policy that speaking with an actual supervisor is not necessary and I would further surmise that this is why some reps, such as those who have previously posted comments in this thread, feel that to lie to a customer is justified because, after all, they don’t ‘need’ a supervisor.
I believe that most calls escalate to a supervisor because the customer is dissatisfied with the answer they were given by the original rep and just want to make sure that management knows that they, as a customer, think that the company policy stinks….
And as mentioned previously by another poster, as a supervisor I can assure you, if you want excellent service you’ll have a better chance being nice and polite than being rude and obnoxious….your threats mean nothing to us….
I’m unsurprised to see that the actual call center employees and supervisors seem to hold customer-hostile preconceptions.
When I ask for a supervisor, it’s almost always because the person I am talking to doesn’t appear to correctly understand what it is that I’m requesting.
Sadly, this “the customer is usually wrong and annoying” attitude means that often it takes an enormous battle to get somebody to actually listen to me for a moment, at which my problems are nearly always resolved in my favor, because I almost never make unreasonable requests.
Oh, and I’d like to note that when you pass the phone from one person to another, and pretend that you’re a supervisor, that you are almost always transparent and obvious.
Heh, I have first hand experience with this. Worked for DTV for a few months (before I got completely sick and tired of screwing people over) and I had friends and fellow co-workers who trained with me that were picked to “walk the floor” which means they answer any and all supervisor calls.
If you’re a DirecTV customer and you want to talk to a supervisor – ask for their coach or another coach on the floor. They are the real supervisors.
I work in a call center, and in my department (cancellations), there are not always supervisors available. Sure, we can get a general care supervisor, but we try not to, since they have less power than we do in most situations, and it’s a waste of time for all parties involved. While we are not allowed to say that somebody who is not a supervisor, or has not been given rights as an “acting supervisor” (such as for days when our immediate supervisor and our manager are both gone) sometimes we will tell them that a supervisor isn’t available, and offer their voicemail, or that they can talk to a senior rep on duty. In my own case, it’s not trying to be evasive, but getting somebody to a general care supervisor for an issue that involves a specialty team will not get anything done. They just have to bring it to our supervisor when they come back, the same as I would have to, and in most circumstances, I can explain better to my supervisor what needs to get done.