I've worked in a call center now for long enough to know how things are done where I work, and from what I've heard from other call center workers who work for other companies, I have heard nothing to suggest that the call center at which I work is any different from any other company.
So here is my top five list of pointless things to insist on when you speak to a call center. The particular company I refer to is Sprint; but feel free to substitute the corporation of your choice.
1. Never ask for a supervisor.
There's a common misconception that only supervisors have the authority to get things done. Let me assure you now - that's rubbish. Supervisors are there for one reason and one reason alone - to keep the drones who actually take the calls tightly held to performance statistics, such as call handling times, customer satisfaction surveys or dollars collected. Supervisors do not take phone calls. Ever. Period. If you ask for a supervisor, you might get an escalations lead; equally you might get the call dropped on you. The one thing you won't get is someone with the authority to make decisions. Those people are called managers, don't ever work in call centers and certainly never sully their ears with incoming calls. Reluctantly they might call a customer if it gets landed in their laps, but even then it's a decision by a higher manager to make them do that, it never comes as a result of a caller asking to speak to someone in authority.
2. If the corporation offers insurance, don't expect a fair deal.
This one's a doozy at Sprint - they have an insurance company called assurion who will, for $7 a month, insure your prize mobile phone. Now you might think that insurance meant that if you paid on time, every time, and then got your phone stolen then the insurance company would provide you with a new phone, especially given that they also apply non-refundable deductible charges for every claim. Guess again. You will ALWAYS receive a reconditioned handset. More than half the time this involves further replacements, which are then subject to further non-refundable deductibles. New phones are for people who pay for them. Those that have insurance, get repaired second hand phones.
3. Learn the jargon - more importantly, learn the charges that go with the jargon
There are two levels at which service is withheld in sprint. The first is an interruption which occurs to a single line on an account as a persuasion to pay. The main account holders phone is blocked, everyone else is free to run up higher bills. An interruption doesn't cost anything to reconnect from. Suspension is the desired state from Sprint's point of view - if you're suspended, call center agents are actively encouraged to offer a payment arrangement and unsuspend your account. Why? Because it costs $36 every time it happens. So if an agent can give you a seven day extension and unsuspend your account, you can be suspended again more than once in a month. Those fees add up. By learning what you can and can't do without being charged, you will be better equipped to deal with the situation, even to know to plead for a waiving of the suspension fee if the answer to the question "Am I interrupted or suspended?" is the bad one. Publicly, Sprint like to infer that they try to work with everyone. Privately, agents that can charge a lot in suspension fees are valued by the corporation.
4. Sprint - and any other company - does what the law requires them to do... but if the law lets them get away with something, that's fine by them - especially if that something gets them money.
All too often mobile phones end up being used as weapons. Parents grounding their children use the mobile phone as a means to try and impose discipline; couples involved in nasty divorce situations order hundreds of dollars of equipment that is then charged to their soon-to-be-separated significant other. The fact is, the security details to your corporate account at a call center are as important as your credit card number. Sprint and other companies are required to ask for account verification, but basically anyone who has the right password, pin number or details can access the account. You can tell a call center agent not to let your son or daughter ring up and unblock their phone until you have no more breath left. You can even get assurances that it won't happen. It will. The ONLY way to secure an account is to declare fraudulent use, and demand no access to the account except in person, at a corporate store, with government issued photo ID. Legally all a company such as Sprint has to do is provide reasonable proof that they thought the caller was authentic, and they can claim that the new $500 phone that got ordered by your ex is legitimate.
5. Last but not least - remember that the person taking your call isn't to blame
Chances are, your call isn't even processed in America. After 5pm you will usually get a call center in a different country. Customer care and finance for Sprint is handled in Canada, technical support is handled in England or in India. The person you talk to is likely to be earning whatever the minimum wage is where they live, under pressure from their supervisor to collect a certain amount of money per call (averaged out) and given a set of impossible performance goals to achieve (my particular favorite is to give outstanding customer service and satisfaction on every call, yet limit every call to under five minutes - the failure of either goal losing performance related bonuses) - so in short, although it may be frustrating to deal with agent after agent and get different responses each time, chances are they are poorly trained, not actually given any support by supervisors or management and probably semi-suicidal from hoping that the long hours they spend on the phones earns enough to pay the bills on minimum wage, given that the performance bonuses are deliberately difficult to ever achieve.
So there you have it. Top five tips for surviving your call to a cellphone provider, bank, health insurance company or other entity that uses call centers. Thanks for your valued custom, and have a great day!