7 Confessions Of A Verizon DSL Tech Support Rep
A former employee has stepped forward to tell us what it's like to work as tech support rep in a Verizon DSL call center. Learn about how the supervisors aren't really supervisors, the numbers and call times the reps have to meet to keep their jobs (and the sneaky tricks they use to meet these numbers), and more...
"Dear Consumerist,
I started near the beginning of a new center that was taking care of business DSL Technical Support and when the job started it was a great job. We were greatly encouraged to take care of our customers and technical knowledge was second to none. I spent around 2 years working for the company and multiple help positions.
The center was made up of several different departments. These included Level 2 Technical Support, Level 3 Technical Support, Business Intelligence, Quality and Management. Furthermore Level 3 Technical support was further divided into Business Order Status, Supervisor Take Over, Ticket Management, Outage and Presidential Appeals. Additionally Level 2 Technical Support also had a separate division for "High Care" customers, and eventually Premium Technical Support would join the team. The hierarchy of people that the customer will ever deal with is only two tiers. You call in and talk to a Level 2 agent, however if there is a requirement you may eventually speak to a Level 3 and if you are really persistent you may get the privilege of speaking to an actual supervisor.
7. The Supervisor You're Talking To Is Not Actually A Supervisor
My first confession on the list is about the Escalations department, which never used to exist. When the center first opened and a customer would demand to talk to a supervisor, they would actually end up talking to a supervisor. This created problems however ranging from supervisors who would dodge taking calls from customers to supervisors who were overwhelmed with customers and could not do any of their actual work. The solution was to create a department of agents to handle the issue, and this is not all bad. One of the major problems when supervisors would take over calls is that almost none of the supervisors had any technical knowledge and were virtually unable to assist the customer in any way unless the customer was only looking to vent about their experience or in some cases give kudos to outstanding service. There are approximately 10-15 "supervisors" for each center to handle the escalation calls now. Each of these agents has their own direct phone number which they can give out to the customer. There is a standard external number that the customer must call, then they are prompted for a password (4-6 digits long and changes monthly) then they are asked to enter the extension of the supervisor, or they may press 0 to get the first available supervisor. When the team first started they were allowed to a lot to help the customer, sadly their privilege to help with stuck orders or technicians who didn't show up were eventually removed. Things may change in the future but unfortunately the supervisors are bound to the same support boundaries as the normal Level 2 Technical Support Agents, and in most cases are unable to assist the customer any further.
6. The Metrics That Rule Our Lives
- Handle Time (15 min): During an 8 hour shift, the agent must achieve an average handle time of 15 minutes. This timer starts from the time the agent hears a beep in their headphone to notify them that the call has started to the time they set themselves as ready to take another call. When I worked there we had a lot of calls where the customer simply got to the wrong department so this was normally an easy metric to meet.
- Hold Time (2-3 min): If for any time the agent puts you on hold, they are supposed to only leave you on hold for no longer than 2 minutes (it used to be 3 min). After that time they are supposed to pick up the phone again and refresh you as to what is going on. Also a note here is the customer is supposed to put you on hold and not simply mute their phone. This was a common tactic used by agents to dodge the hold timer. If you're speaking to an agent and they put you on hold and you hear silence and no music. They likely have you on mute and not hold, and additionally they can hear everything your saying at that time, when you're on hold they cannot hear you.
- Quality (88%): Every Agent is supposed to be graded approximately 2x a week on their calls. This is the metric that most agents hate the most and I will touch more on this later.
- A repair ticket that was dispatched out to the customers location was closed with the notes left "Technician had a gun pulled on him area is unsafe closing ticket"
- 1-888-427-1405 (Business Customers Only) - This is the phone number that we would use to call internal departments. The only real difference from this number and the one provided to the customer is instead of having to talk to the IVR and have it ultimately mess up where you want to go, you are given simple number prompts for where you want to go.
o 1 - Technical Support
o 2 - Billing
o 3 - Used to be sales
o 4- Cancellations/Retention - The most angry and vulgar customers are the least likely to get helped. When dealing with customer support please try to explain your frustration in a civilized manner, and be persistent if you need to. Just remember swearing and insulting us only gets you put on the back burner.
- Technical Support is open 24/7/365, and they are the only department that is.
5. In order to meet their 15 min handle time, agents have simply transferred the customer back into the queue to talk to another agent and tried to make it look like it was a phone problem.
Agents have just hung up on customer/disconnected their phone, or told the customer that they need to go to another department and then transfer the customer there. It is sad that this happens but unfortunately if you cannot meet your metrics then you will do this.
4. Customer Service Is More Important Than Technical Ability
I was told by someone in management that the mentality was it was far easier to train someone in technical support than customer service. Now my personal view on this is that it is just cheaper/easier for them to hire anyone off the street and give them a month of training on how to follow a script to fix a customer's problem than hire people with actual technical background. The problem this creates is a barrage of customers whom are fed up with the lack of technical knowledge the support staff has. Verizon did however introduce a solution to this problem; Premium Technical Support.
3. "Premium" Technical Support Means They Had 1 More Week Of Training
Now first off I want to say, Premium Technical Support is an awesome service in the fact that they are not under the same pressure as the normal Level 2 Agents. They do have more technical ability then the level 2 agents; however there are no real requirement for certification to get the position and the training is only a week above the normal technical support.
2. "Quality," The Department Everyone Hates
The sad fact is, even if you go above and beyond, assist the customer in every way and have an amazing rapport with the customer you can still utterly fail your quality which means you can in turn lose your job if you keep failing. Some of the fun tidbits from quality include the agent must say the customer's name three times throughout the call. They must review what they have done with the customer, use the "outstanding" verbiage, brand Verizon and they can also ding you for little things like saying "tech" instead of "technical" here. This sadly is where a vast amount of talented technical support agents were lost. They worked great with customers, got issues solved but didn't do the little things and it ultimately ended their careers working for Verizon.
1. We Must Implant The Word Outstanding In Customer Brain's To Score Higher On Satisfaction Surveys
This is something I always found hilarious, and I am not even entirely sure if they still do it, but agents are required to mention at the end of the call something along the lines of "I hope I've provided you with outstanding service today", the stress always being on the word Outstanding. Now why is this you ask? Well Verizon contracts out a company to call back customers who have recently called into Technical Support and perform a survey about the service they received. The customer is supposed to rate the service from "poor" to "outstanding". So basically they want to embed that word in your mind so that you rate them higher.
Tips/Funny/Random Thoughts:
This is all my personal opinion on my time I spent at Verizon and I hope that it has given you some insight as to what it is like to be on the other side of the phone.
-Anonymous"
(Photo: Getty)
This is a test using rich text formatting and html links. It's the generic "company" ad that should appear on all posts with the Company category if they don't have an ad attached to a specific company.
Post a comment
Comments:
Hellvista?
What is that girl's extension!?
Couldn't agree more with this:
"The most angry and vulgar customers are the least likely to get helped. When dealing with customer support please try to explain your frustration in a civilized manner, and be persistent if you need to. Just remember swearing and insulting us only gets you put on the back burner."
Ugh. The "quality" rating reminds me so much of when I worked in retail. I worked in a big-box store, and we had to ask customers a specific set of questions while we rang up their purchases. The barrage of scripted questions annoyed a lot of customers (to the point where some would yell at us), but we had to do it, because there could be a secret shopper around who would ding us for not asking the inane questions.
It's annoying when you work in customer service, but to keep your job you have to do things customers hate because the company tells you it's good customer service.
I call health insurance companies frequently at work, and I have noticed that more and more of their CSR's close the call with "My goal was to provide outstanding customer service today." Now I know why.
I love how these "confessions" so often have something like this: "When dealing with customer support please try to explain your frustration in a civilized manner, and be persistent if you need to."
Seems like CSRs always chide us to "be polite" or "act civilized," while they continue to ignore/deride/coerce/abuse/lie to/degrade/hang up on/back-burner their customers. Don't they ever wonder why people aren't always polite to them or don't always act civilized? It's not just because Verizon (et al.) sucks.
It's because the Verizon "suck sundae" comes with an asshat-CSR cherry on top.
Very nice article. I can say, having worked for a couple different call centers over the summers (including working for Comast's billing department) that you're pretty much on the money. The only things that I know are different for Comcast are:
1) Handle Time: I worked billing (which also had to handle tech support for the digital boxes) and our handle time was 5 minutes! It was ridiculously small, and most people were only able to meet it by pulling the same garbage you mentioned.
2) The internal phone #'s: We had such huge problems trying to re-direct customers to the right department. It seemed like everyday we had a new number that we were supposed to use. Then you'd call the number and they'd say that they couldn't (wouldn't) help the customer. I'd spend 20 minutes trying to find the right department for some poor customer wanting to get something fixed, then get yelled at by my "floor Support" (fancy term for supervisor) for spending so long on a call.
But I think stories like this are a good thing, since if the customers can get an inside view of how things work when they call up with a problem, it'll given them a better idea of how to go about getting their problem solved. And yes, if someone called me up yelling and screaming, I'd go out of my way to do as little for them as allowed, whereas if they were nice, I'd bed-over backwards and break all sorts of rules to help.
I do phone support and am consistently amazed at how lax my bosses are about the "little things". I don't get paid a ton, but it's completely stress-free. There are a host of specialists that you can turn to if you need to help someone further, and we're allowed to be civil with people. There is no required call time (spent 3 hours one Sunday helping someone install Win95 - don't ask), and rarely, if ever, do we have any upset customers. I guarantee this because they give the phone support guys like me free reign to help in any way we know how.
@DrBologna: I can almost promise you that if you are nice and polite, it will be returned.
Usually the tone of the call is started by the customer, not the CSR. Trust me, more than anything we would love to answer your question/solve your issue. That way we don't need to talk to you anymore.
Verizon DSL reps signed me up for some extra "games" package even though I repeatedly said I did not want it. Then online, there was no literally no way to decline the package. When you declined it, it just said "are you sure" and put you back to the agreement.
Then Verizon kept emailing me, asking to confirm my order. THEN Verizon started CALLING with automated reminders to agree to the package.
Finally after like three months, Verizon gave up.
Very honest, Verizon!
When will companies realize that putting 'metrics' on their support department is an utter waste of time and ultimately damaging to their consumer relationships? I don't care if your boss is looking over your shoulder saying you've been on the phone for 15 minutes if a FiOS installation resulted in my home blowing up.
this article comes at a time where I am experiencing this horrible service first hand. my dsl and linksys wireless setup stopped working over the weekend. after multiple calls and many, many hours of dealing with both verizon and linksys I was at my wits end last night. I asked to speak to a manager and was told there is no managers only supervisors.
so I was "transferred" to the supervisor "department" and was given a number to use to callback with today after work. (after spending another 2 hours last night at it I was fried). I think I will be using the business line instead tonight.
I ended up buying a new router and actually had it working yesterday without a password prompt to get into the wireless network. Silly me...I called in to get help setting that up and the tech f*&ked everything up and ended up telling me my router is bad. (the brand new one that worked fine earlier). he told me he was going to get a linksys rep on the phone to help US out...when in reality he transferred me to some number at linksys that nobody picks up. I finally hung up after waiting 30 min on hold.
BURN IN HELL VERIZON TS!
Cool. Nice towing of the corporate line. Can I get some answers to, y'know, REAL questions:
1. Why does my DSL service just go out at random times?
2. When my neighbors and I are all without service, why am I never told there's an outage when I call?
3. Why do I have to reset my modem once a month to keep a connection for more than 15 seconds?
4. Why am I grilled about whether or not I'm sharing my connection regardless of what I'm calling for?
Snooze.
I think maybe one out of ten of these "Confessions" posts have any kind of useful information. What did this post tell us that we either don't already know or have any use for? Let's just go down this list for a moment.
7. The Supervisors Aren't Really Supervisors: Thanks, but I could pretty much have guessed this on my own. Plus, is this helpful to us as consumers? See #6.
6. The Metrics: Why is this important? Does it do us any good to know how you are graded? It's not like we can use it as leverage.
5. Dirty Tricks: Again, why is this important?
4. Customer Service vs. Technical Knowledge: How is this knowledge helpful to us?
3. "Premium Tech Support" is a Sham: See above: How can we use this information usefully? Chide the person who is trying to help us for their lack of experience? The author admits that this is an "awesome service", so what's the problem?
2. The Metrics pt. 2: Why do we need to know how you are graded?
1. "Outstanding": Thanks. Do I really need another reason to ignore the scripted hellos and goodbyes of the CSRs?
I enjoy the "Confession" posts when they actually have useful information. However, the majority of them have degenerated into self-indulgent job descriptions. Remember authors, the point here isn't to tell the world where you are coming from. It's to give us information that we can use. Typing up the specific inner-workings of your company helps with nothing except whatever bizarre ego inflation you get from seeing your post featured on Consumerist.
@howie_in_az: You can't really fault people for not wanting to get fired. You're right--companies shouldn't make people lose their jobs by doing their jobs.
Wow, they got a lot more call time than we did when I worked for Adelphia. We got 13 mins, I was always way under, but 15 mins is insane. A lot of that is right on too, everyone hated quality because they would ding you on the stupidest things just so you didn't get a bonus that month.
@DrGirlfriend:
The last place I was at, our lab that did blood draws would call us if there was a critical result we would need to know immediately. All of a sudden, the person calling us, after giving the results, would ask if there was anything else they assist me with. This be something some management drone thought of, because it sounded ridiculous, since they were the ones calling us.
It's not really a chicken-and-egg problem. It's actually pretty simple. As a CSR (of ANY company), your job is to help the customer, no matter how loud, irate, angry, etc. they may be.
The customer is the customer. They are not bound by their job description to be level-headed. You, on the other hand, are. If you choose to treat a customer differently because of their attitude, you are a bad CSR.
Now, on the other hand, I'm not naive. I know my attitude as a customer can affect how I am treated. That's why I don't have an issue with the author of this post throwing in that note. But there is a major difference between explaining how things are, and then trying to defend poor CSRs or put the blame onto the customers.
Interesting. Not surprising about the lack of actual tech knowledge - I think Time Warner NYC's whole tree consists of figuring out what piece of equipment you have that isn't theirs (usually a router) and blaming the problem on it.
@Hambriq: I disagree. If consumers know that certain aspects of bad customer service are a company's policy rather than a "bad" CSR, then consumers have a bigger picture of the actual issue.
It does no good to say, "I don't care what the working conditions are, just help me," if the CSR is, in fact, prevented from helping customers in order to save the company money. The real problem is that these huge near-monopolies are set up so that they have no incentive or pressure to treat consumers fairly--and that's not going to be solved by yelling at CSRs.
Full size version of customerservicescarygirl.jpg please!
T-Mobile seems to have the biggest Department For Writing Stupid Scripts. Every time I call, the intro script gets longer and sillier. When will the people who write this nonsense realize how bad it sounds? There is no substitute for authenticity.
"The most angry and vulgar customers are the least likely to get helped. When dealing with customer support please try to explain your frustration in a civilized manner, and be persistent if you need to. Just remember swearing and insulting us only gets you put on the back burner."
Ya hear that Mr. AT&T/refurb iPhone dude??? This is applicable to EVERYONE- not just Verizon. I generally get everything I want when I call a company because I'm a sweetheart that acts like the rep knows everything. They like feeling appreciated, and they like feeling smart.
This article explains so much of the hell I have endured with Verizon over the past few months. Truly maddening. If you are interested, fiosexperience.blogspot.com. I linked to this article, since it was so fitting.
100% Agree. When I worked at AT&T this summer if I got yelled at I just transfered them ASAP. On the other hand, if someone was nice, I usually stayed on the line and tried to help, and if I had to transfer them, I would stay on the line and tell the next agent the problem before switching them over.
"The most angry and vulgar customers are the least likely to get helped. When dealing with customer support please try to explain your frustration in a civilized manner, and be persistent if you need to. Just remember swearing and insulting us only gets you put on the back burner."
LOL@Dooley....exactly!
Interestingly enough. I have found that I received better service and correct information by calling the technical support call center late at night rather than during the day. The only time this failed me was when they were in the middle of a system wide update which prevented the support rep from accessing my information. He said he could get it if I could give him my DSL line number but reformat of my own system, I couldn't location my DSL information
I believe that he wasn't just brushing me off because he then proceeded to call or talk to anyone he could trying to figure out why the hell my DSL wouldn't activate.
Things haven't changed much since my days at Compaq...in 1995.
@snowpuff:
I just moved my Verizon DSL service from my old apartment to a new one. The rep was very nice and helpful. BUT she also signed me up for their online storage and security package. I do recall telling her on the phone that I didn't want it at all. But she kinda played it down and said that I would need to actually install the software to sign up for the service. Wrong.
I logged into my Verizon account and saw that the service was added. It was a 30 day free trial, and around $8 a month afterwards. Luckily, there was a "Decline" button. And I was able to remove it from account.
It really sucks when tech support reps are also sales reps.
My husband worked at this exact place when we first moved to the city in which it is located. It's truly a horrible call center. It's known in the area as being the worst employer you could get stuck with. People will ask, hey I'm thinking about applying at ------ and everyone in the room will turn with a look of horror in their eyes and warn them against it. This post tells you about the stupid practices that affect the consumer, but it doesn't mention the way the managers will decide that calls are slow and force you to take an hour off without pay in the middle of your shift, which should be illegal. Or how if you don't get around to taking your lunch exactly when it's scheduled (something that's pretty hard in a freaking call center where you have no control over the amount of time you'll be on the phone with someone), you'll often get screwed out of getting one at all, which should also be illegal. But no one cares and most of the employees who want justice just end up quitting and getting another job because it's easier than fighting for your rights.
My husband was extremely part time there because he's in grad school and they would just randomly change his schedule without telling him, and if it conflicted with his classes, he had to jump through a million hoops to get it resolved and usually get 'pointed' (it's like occurrences for missed time) in the process if he chose to attend a class rather than come in and work his new schedule before it got fixed. So the next time you call Verizon DSL tech support, just be aware that you're probably talking to someone who has recently discovered that their employer is the devil incarnate and would like to help you but most often can't, or you're talking to someone who has been there a while and is either too stupid to find a better job or loves the place because they're also the devil incarnate.
My husband used to get tons of calls about service techs who were supposed to make house calls and never showed up multiple times. He would get screamed at, and he would do everything he could - note the file, escalate the call, tell management about the problems customers were having - but nothing he did would solve the problem and he obviously couldn't get a on plane to Arizona or wherever to fix the problem himself (even though some customers demanded that!). Whenever he got one of those calls, he would come home and say, "I can't understand why these people still have Verizon DSL when the company obviously doesn't care about them. Instead of waiting 3 months to get your connection working and paying that whole time, call up another carrier and get better service!" I would wholeheartedly recommend this plan of action to anyone struggling with a company as customer-hostile as Verizon.
Just another note: this call center is completely outsourced, so my husband didn't actually work for Verizon. They do tech support for other companies, including Apple. First sign that a company doesn't care about customer: they outsource their customer service to a bunch of people who don't know anything about the company or the product and expect a couple weeks of training to make up for that.
Okay, that was long, but that place is truly evil and I had to speak up!
As a former CSR for a major airline (probably the most hated group of CSRs out there, even more so than tech service people), I can say that a lot of the issues the author mentioned are true for us as well. Some comments have raised an interesting point - why should we care about details of the CSR's job like metrics or crappy training or whether or not there are genuine supervisors, anyway?
Mainly because the quality of your service depends a lot on those factors that may seem irrelevant to you! I cannot begin to count the number of calls I had where I had to break some metric (time limits, compensation limits, using particular phraseology, subverting the computer system even) in order to actually help a person who I felt had been wronged and deserved better service. It's ridiculous that so many CSRs feel like they have to choose between proper service and keeping their jobs, and the main consequence is that CSRs who actually give a crap end up quitting, leaving customers with gormless idiots who couldn't care less as the only ones to deal with. These measures which seem like they should only effect the reps themselves in the end do have consequences for us all.
And yes, it's true, the caller's attitude shouldn't matter to a truly good CSR. But seriously, when choosing between risking your job or taking the safe route and toeing the company line (which usually isn't terribly beneficial to the customer), would you choose the former to help someone who just called you a f***ing piece of s***? I know I never did...
Thanks Consumerist. Posts like this make up for the inane ones.
@Dooley:
Okay.
@SVreader:
What you're saying is true. If your CSR is administratively crippled and cannot help you, it does no good to bark up that tree. But what does that have to do with this post? The OP gave us little insight into the company besides the specifics of how they are "graded". I will spare you the blow-by-blow of why nearly all of his "confessions" are useless and go with the summary: I feel absolutely no more equipped to deal with Verizon's customer service now than I did before I read this post.
So, that leads me to my question: what's the point?
Sounds more or less like most other call centers: scripts and verbiage are more important than effective service. I'm just surprised that we didn't hear anything about upselling. Working tech support for Dish Network, we had sales quotas for upselling movie packages.
Also, I don't see anything about how Verizon's tech support center is housed in Bangalore. I don't think I've EVER spoken to a Verizon tech without a thick Indian accent.
@DrBologna: Didn't you read an article earlier today, on how to get what you want.
I work with tech support(different industry altogether), and when the customer gets abusive, he gets BANNED from the center.
And your frustration with Verizon does not have to be vented on a poor tech support. It shows your lack of education and respect to a HUMAN.
Eds, where did you get the image for this story? is it one of your Flickr finds?
I suspect the imaginary supervisor is used everywhere.
@Echodork: I don't remember exactly (it's a been a while), but I believe the company Verizon DSL outsources their tech support to has a few locations around the world, at least two of which are in the United States
i only get angry when i have to sit through their automated answering machine repeating myself over and over while waiting to talk to a technician.... that is what gets me
Confession number 8: They don't all look like that hottie in the photo, do they? [If they do, I'm gonna switch to verizon DSL and have technical problems!]
"A repair ticket that was dispatched out to the customers location was closed with the notes left 'Technician had a gun pulled on him area is unsafe closing ticket'"
I fail to see how this was funny/tip. If the technician felt his/her life was in danger, by all means he needs to put that in the ticket notes. As for closing out the ticket and not specifying if it was the actual customer who pulled a gun on the technician or a passerby, it should have been noted but the ticket shouldn't have been closed. I wonder if authorities were notified or if this was just a hoax.
Ah Verizon, the company behind "show us your Verizon face", and "burning down your house with the faulty FIOS install and lying about it". The only way they don't lose "Worse Company not the RIAA" every year is sweet sweet astroturfing.
@DrBologna: Not everyone who takes technical support calls is an asshat. Many people that work at my particular site actually have college degrees; when you speak to someone as though you think they are an asshat, trust me, it's much more amusing for us to play along. Moreover, it is often the limitations of quality metrics, etc. that prevent us from delivering the service customers need and want.
If that girl works for Verizon, I forgive them of all sins.
This was awesome. A great peek behind the proverbial curtian. I always treated CSR's and tech people with respect and honest appreciation for their help. Now I have even more reason to appreciate them, especially for sometimes thriving in such a weird enviornment. I love the little work-arounds that people have come up with too.
I did the full training at an outsourced T-Mobile center in Canada. One of the things they stressed is that we don't let the caller know we are from Canada. We were told that if a caller asked us where we were from to say "up North" or "near Seattle". Side note: I quit after my first day on the floor because when a caller demanded a supervisor 2 times, the "supervisor" wouldn't pick up the call, and instead told me to "cool the customer down".
sounds exactly the same from when i was a tech phone jockey at cox....