From: Steev Klimaszewski (steev@steev.net)
Date: Tue Jan 22 2008 - 14:30:09 EST
Sean Jackson wrote:
> I had seen a conversation about putting people on 'hold' but really
> listening to the other side.
>
> My recent experience:
>
> I called a credit card to work out a payment plan (grrr) and had to enter in
> my account number and last four of my SSN. Then I wait and am sent to a
> person, and she asks me to verify my name, address, SSN, etc....then she
> says she's going to put me on hold and send me to someone who can take care
> of my account, CLICK, .....and silence. I'm on hold. Well, I'm pissed,
> because I just spent another two minutes verifying what I thought I had
> inputted through my phone. Why do it twice, only to find the person you're
> talking to can't even help you? So I said out loud, "If you couldn't help
> me, why the hell did I have to verify my account info?". Click click,
> "Excuse me, sir? What were you asking?"
>
> She was listening to me while I was on hold. I said I wanted to know why I
> had to verify with her if she couldn't help me, she explained it's to
> expedite the process so the actual account representatives can spend more
> time with the clients, blah blah balh.
>
> She was listening to me while I was on hold. She heard my question I was
> just blathering to the ether while on hold, and she came back on and asked
> me to repeat my question.
>
> I was so excited I had found an instance of this happening. And I've since
> closed my account.
>
> Sean Jackson
Honestly, this has less to do with them "listening in" and more to do
with them keeping their job... When you work in a call center, you have
what is called an "average hold time" - or AHT. If this number gets to
be large (dependent on where you work/parent company) then you face
reviews, so a lot of call center employees simply hit mute as average
call time is typically less important than AHT. A high AHT can mean a
lot of various things, but to most companies it means more pissed off
customers...
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