Well, fuck you too.

[mstakenidentity]

If the conversation I just had is indicative of general practice, Virgin Mobile's Customer Service phoneline has gone from annoyingly hard to get through to to Plain Fucking Rude.

I stopped working in a Customer Service call centre less than six months ago, so I doubt my ideas of standards are out of date; since when is it ok to HANG UP ON A CUSTOMER?! I was being extra-polite and nice, considering the rest of the- oh bugger it, here's a transcript, to the best of my memory:

Virgin CS dude: Hello, blah speaking (note, "blah" will be used whenever I could not understand what the person was saying)
Me: Oh, good afternoon. I was hoping upgrade my Virgin Mobile plan to a $45 a month plan, I'm currently on the $30
Him: *sigh* Blah blah you blah blah cycle?
Me: Excuse me?
Him: *very quickly* Blah blah blah blah *word I only recognised as "cycle" cos I'd picked it out last time*
Me: I'm sorry, I can't quite hear you, would you mind repeating-
Him: *Huge sigh* *exagerrated patronisingly slow* WHERE. ARE. YOU. IN. YOUR BILL. CYCLE?
Me: ...I just payed a bill today, it was due on the 27th of July, is that what you need?
Him: *MASSIVE sigh* Forget it, what's your phone number
Me: 0419 *pauses to let him type it, expecting him to prompt when he's done*
Him: *barks* Keep going!
Me: Oh...kay... *rest of number, resisting the urge to give it super fast*
Him: Pin? (pretty much spat this out)
Me: Sorry?
Him: Pin! Your six digit pin!
Me: *gives pin, decides to go the route of being super polite as this usually annoys rude people*
Him: This says your bill cycle starts on the tenth of the month
Me: ...ok
Him: Call back then! *hangs up*

Grr.

I really hope his supervisor was listening in, and I wish he hadn't mumbled his name.

Comments

[ristin.livejournal.com]

I hate bad customer service. When it is caused by the customer being rude, fair enough. But when the person is rude and snobbish and treats all callers like they are stupid that really annoys me. As if getting their first stupid caller entitles them to treat all future callers like they are morons and deserve rude treatment.

[fnoo.livejournal.com]

He probably is the supervisor.

[mstakenidentity.livejournal.com]

Actually, that would make sense.

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

That's asshattery, pure and simple. You want to give them more money, damn it!

[fasangel.livejournal.com]

Call back and complain. You don't deserve to be treated like that.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_audhumla_/]

Bad customer service is especially annoying when you've worked in customer service yourself and struggled to be nice to people! He's probably the same kind of guy who would be an arsehole customer.

[mc-shamo.livejournal.com]

Maybe you need a sledgehammer!

[toley-elf.livejournal.com]

seconded. that is too shit for words.

[asmodel.livejournal.com]

Urgh! I think it's phone companies too. I have similar problems with SOUL. Everyone I speak to needs to be reminded approximately every 30 seconds to slow down and speak clearly.

They also have a problem with not giving consistent information. The last time I tried to deal with them, it was to discuss getting my phone reconnected. I was doing the right thing and making payments, but got a different answer each time. The last time I called I asked to speak to a supervisor because I didn't find this acceptable, but the girl kept talking at 100kph over the top of me. After the third time, I started shushing. At this point she hung up.

I got my back by switching providers, and putting their bill to the bottom of my considerable pile of overdue bills. As it's already affected my credit rating, I've decided my family members can get paid back first. My family members have advised that they can wait until I've paid myself back, which means by the time I get around to SOUL, they will have written it off. *evil grin*

[sols-light.livejournal.com]

Thankfully, having Worked as the sort of Customer service person you want to speak to because they finally get it right after the 6 people who misunderstood for Vodafone I can help a little.

The calls should all be logged and stored, if you call Virgin and ask to speak to a supervisor and then explain that at about this time on this day, you spoke to someone regarding your phone and that their customer service was inexcusably bad, something will get done. hey should just be able to type your number and the time into a database and your call will pop up.