From inside a Comcast call center, we got a sales goal sheet designed to excite call center reps to sell more new customer bundles using with four cartoons icons of cold; Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat,, Mr. Freeze from Batman, Frozone from The Incredibles, and Ice-Man from X-Men. The flyer exhorts: “ANTI FREEZE INCENTIVE. Don’t let these freeze masters get you…Sell some bundles and protect yourself from the cold!!!” If you’re in the top three of your department, the flyer continues, you can win $250, $150, or $100 for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, respectively. Exciting. What is the symbolic function of the “freeze masters” as a performance incentive? What does, “the cold” represent? Left out in the cold? Given the cold shoulder by your peers if you’re not contributing enough to the 2000 bundle goal? An inability to pay one’s heating bills? We have no idea, we’re just glad we don’t work in a call center, we’ve never been too good at winning knife fights. (click to enlarge).
leaks
Does Comast Check To See If 911 Works On Your Digital Phone?
A Comcast insider warns us that Comcast does no checks to make sure 911 is working on your Comcast digital phone:
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A Lowe’s worker says that at least at his store they’re marking down all open-box appliances 50% to try to get rid of them before the end of their fiscal year. This type of stuff varies by store, so your best bet is to grab a manager and see if they’re willing to bargain.
Reach Office Depot Executive Customer Service
Customer.relations@officedepot.com, an internal source says, is a good email contact for reaching Office Depot executive customer service, those cool cats who can solve tricky customer service issues when the lower level people fail. “Office Depot calls it customer relations,” our tipster tells us, “and I’ll be the first one to tell you that we cave easily.”
Washington Mutual's Internal Breastfeeding Policy
A source inside Washington Mutual has sent us the internal company policy on workplace lactation. They say that they found it amusing that the bank regulates employee’s breast-milk. Overall, the policy is mainly about how one needs to go to special lactation rooms to express one’s milk (for the unaware, that’s what it’s really called). Facility specialists are available if the lactation rooms aren’t up to snuff, and company consultants are on call if you have any questions about expressing your breast milk. Elsewhere, a business writer says that, “Workplace lactation programs are inexpensive way to reduce employee absenteeism, lower health insurance costs, and improve employee retention.” Overall, it’s actually a pretty good policy, but it’s interesting to see how they talk about breastfeeding in corp speak. Oh, by the way, if you express your milk at work and store it there, make sure to label it and take it home at the end of the day. Thanks.
6 Confessions Of An Alamo Car Rental Agent
After reading these six confessions of a current Alamo car rental agent, you will learn:
10 Confessions Of A Chase Customer Service Rep
Do you know the one thing to never say to a customer service rep if you’re late on your bill? Do you know how Chase ranks you, and how you’re ranked determines whether they help you out in a bind? Do you know the best way to get what you want from customer service? After you read these 10 confessions from a Chase customer service rep, you will.
General Motors Recalls 313,000 Vehicles To Plug Fluid Leak
General Motors has recalled 313,000 vehicles over concerns that a fluid leak could send motorists sliding brake-lights first into hedges. The recall, however, won’t begin until February 2008.
5 Bank of America Executive Email Addresses
A former Bank of America employee provides these email addresses and says they’re the people to complain to about getting fee’d to death (or any other customer service related issue you want to escalate).
Leaks: CompUSA's Going-Out-Of Business Discount List
We’ve got the CompUSA internal discount list for their going out of business liquidation sale. The discounts are mainly 10% and 20%, with some 5% and 30% in there. Audio hardware, mounting brackets and the like, is 30% off. Just because they’re imploding doesn’t mean they don’t have some pride, as least for now. They’re entitled “opening discounts,” so perhaps will keep dropping week by week until all the stock is gone. Looks like for now they’re using the same close-out strategy as when they closed down most of their stores before: offer crappy deals and advertise the heck out of it.
Exclusive: CompUSA's Tentative Liquidation Schedule
A CompUSA repair tech has leaked to The Consumerist what he says is their schedule for the liquidations happening now until they close everything down after the holiday season. This is in no way set in stone, he says, but it looks like this is how it’s going to go down starting this week. (He would also like everyone to know that no one his place steals porn from customers).
Comcast Encourages Employees To Stuff Comcast vs FiOs Poll
Comcast told its employees to vote in the Consumerist reader poll asking readers what they thought was better, Comcast, or FiOs. Above is the employee email blast they sent, provided to us by several different Comcast employees: Now, we’re definitely more amused than this than anything else, but it certainly was odd. Why would Comcast want to interfere with the torrents of peer to peer opinion sharing? In any event, Fios won, 784 to 277.
Circuit City Also Steals Porn From Your Computer
Stealing porn from customer’s computers isn’t just for Best Buy, one reader reports they’re doing it at Circuit City, too. He writes:I wanted to write in about my recent experience with employment at circuit city. I work at a circuit city in Colorado, I was recently hired as holiday help.
5 Confessions Of A Reference Lab Technician
He’s the guy whom pieces of your body get sent off to when you go to the doctor’s office, and he’s got some things he’d like to tell you. Like the secret manual covering which tests Medicare will and won’t cover, your rights under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and can you please, please, write legibly and use a standard version of your name when filling out forms…
Best Buy Porn Thief Inquisitions Revealed
After reading “How Geek Squad Investigated Its Own Porn Thieves,” another fired Geek Squad tech has chimed in to tell us how the internal witch hunt for porn thieves proceeded.
I had worked for Geek Squad for over a year, and Best Buy a year and a half before that and was recently let go. Back when they started scanning computers, they said they found downloaded music and movies on our machine and we were to send them the hard drives. So we boxed them up and sent them out.
Target To Downgrade Return Policy: Receipts Always Required
A Target insider writes:“Starting next year, guests will no longer be able to return items without a receipt. This means that if you accidentally lose your receipt, or if your cashier doesn’t give you one, you’re SOL.
