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This Call May Be Monitored ...
Iphtashu Fitz writes "We've all heard it. The recorded message when you call technical support or your bank or credit card company: 'This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.' But has it ever occurred to you that people actually DO listen in? Approximately 2 percent of these calls are listened to either live or after the fact, and it may come as a surprise that Big Brother even listens to what you may say while you are on hold. The people who monitor these calls routinely hear arguments between spouses or parents and children, people yelling at pets, and all sorts of other domestic disputes."
And, as always, my question is this: how is it that this is related to my rights online when I call up a remote location, with no idea what's on the other end, and my call is recorded when I speak INTO THE PHONE *after* I'm told it might be recorded?
Is there a problem? Is the phone being tapped causing it to malfunction on the original caller's end in such a way that it picks up sounds that should reasonably be expected NOT to enter the phone circuit otherwise? No.
No, this is another example of where some idiot somehwere might have gotten pissy because he's so lacking in the basic knowledge required to operate a telephone that he somehow thought that if he's standing there yelling at his wife to get him a beer and not give him any lip, that somehow his voice was not going to go into the uncovered receiver on his phone and be picked up by whatever happens to be on the other end.
Then, michael, being a socialist prick and probably the biggest slashdot troll in history, saw an excuse to plop "big brother" down on the front page of the venerable "news for tards" site that is Slashdot, label it "Your Rights Online" and watch the ensuing flamefest as people bite.
IHBT by Michael Sims.
IHL.
I will HAND.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Just pretend talking to your friend while on hold, discussing the option to switch to another competitor "if this call doesn't solve my problems", that might get you something.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Is it ok for me to monitor their calls as well. Would be helpful for escalating support calls with clueless techs?
So the FBI and CIA know my mother's pissed that I haven't given her any grandkids yet? There goes my presidential hopes.
What part of "This call may be monitored" did you not understand?
$^@@%&&^%& god @#$%^%@ phone system, I #$%#@$%#$% had to wait 3$%#$%#$% 20 minutes just to punch in the numbers to get #$%#$%^#$%$ put on hold for another #$%#$%@%@#% hour just to have some @#$%#$%#$^$^ tech read from a script, when I know what the #$%#$%#$$^ problems is.
You'd think that if 2% of the calls are monitored for quality control purposes... then QC would actually improve in the long run. In my experience, phone support/service is generally about the same (or less) quality as it was many years ago.
I always loved telling people they were on hold and listening to them for a while... People seem to lose all sense of reality when you tell them they are on hold.. Some of the names you get called are quite.... entertaining.
"Carpe Noctem"
So what? I am glad somebody listens....Hello???....Heellooo....???
This call may be monitored or recorded? Ok thanks, I'll just hit record now then.. thank you for your permission.
No todo lo que es oro brilla
> it may come as a surprise that Big Brother even listens to what you may say while you are on hold.
I'm actually glad to hear that, because I usually spend the time telling them how crappy their service is and how much of my time they're wasting.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I don't get it.
My rights: I'm told that the call may be monitored. I can hang up if I object. No 'rights' are being violated.
Online: You mean "on the phone", right?
Seriously, where's the BIG BROTHER story here? Slow news day?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I pretty much assumed that was the case, so I usually make a point of complaining verbally about the wait, the music and te service during the hold period. :)
I think that it should be illegal for the other party to record the call without your explicit consent... after all, even though they mention that the call may be monitored, often it's a few minutes of hold time before you can actually tell the human responder that you don't want to be eavesdropped on.
Tricky dilemna:
Forego the service, or lose your rights?
Sure, if they want to listen in on my cursing while waiting for their tech support than sure I have no problem with that. Maybe, just maybe, they might do something about it.
Although probably not.
-Teiresias
I worked at Stream last summer...believe me, the QA people listen to lots of your calls.
Being evil to the customer is a surefire way to get fired.
Some states require consent from ALL parties, and I don't think merely staying on the phone after being notified of recording, is legally considered consent.
Has anyone in a two-party state tried suing over this? I know it's legal in one-party states, same as I can record all calls I am part of in such states.
I don't know about Iphtashu Fitz, but when I hear a message saying "this call may be monitored", I generally assume it is there for a reason, i.e. this call may be monitored. Are there really people who are suprised that some of their calls are in fact monitored?
This is fairly universal among call centers, because call center managers never trust their employees to do the right thing without first-hand supervision.
To be fair, I was suprised about the on-hold part. What is the point of listening to that?
Generally when I'm on hold, I'm either bitching about the f'ing annoying voicemail system that won't properly connect me, or about the idiot who has put me on hold for the fifth time while "helping" me. Great, I must have a lot of black marks on my "record" with Cingular, because I curse like a sailor when I'm on hold...
And yeah, they can hear you on hold, so do be careful.
I'd be placed on the other side of this debate - I manage the callcenter phone systems and I'm in charge of the call recording systems. Our system takes approx. 25,000 calls per day with hundreds of agents - we could care less about what you say to your kids while on the phone. The systems are in place for our/your protection - when you call and say an agent was abusive or told you incorrect information, it's the call recording we listen to that will tell us how the call went. When we need to monitor live calls, it's for the agent's performance review - you're just a prompt they respond to. We're listening for the agent's attitude and ability to solve the problem. As paranoid as I am in my personal life, we really can't make this about "Your Rights Online"...
Not only do they have people listen, but the same people are also employed to say in identical tones every 90 seconds for hours on end "Your call is important to us...". It's a thankless job. I also feel sorry for James Earl Jones. No matter where he is, or if it is o-dark-30 in the morning, the poor sap has to call up the CNN headquarters every 30 minutes and say "This is CNN" into the phone, at which point it goes out over the air. It's enough to make anyone turn to the dark side.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Dammit... that was my first date this millenium, too. No wonder she told me off when I called!
Is it legal to tape the call [yourself] while they put you on hold?
I mean what license do you have to those classic 1983s hits?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Well my question is if these people say hear arguments, death threats and what not and now someone gets murdered, should they be held liable because they knew something could happen but didn't act upon it?
Of course they won't be but all I'm saying if you are gonna eavesdrop, you should take ALL responsibilities that come along with it....
I used to work tech support for a major ISP back when I was in highschool and our calls where monitored as well. The calls were mostly monitored in order to insure proper instructions support were provided...BUT...there where notes and logs of each transaction taken and *Very Often* there were notes and warnings about horrible and abusive clients. Not that any frequent /.'er would ever call tech support.
I'm curious if they've ever listened to me utter, "bunch of assholes..." while I was waiting for help?
That explains why I never actually get my questions answered... Nobody's listening!
"For quality assurance, your call may be monitored, quantified, duly mocked among coworkers, used in training courses as an example of a psycho user, or outright ignored."
Intelligent Design: because MATH is HARD.
This takes me back to the bad old days while working in a phone center for Cross Country Bank. On my last day I told everyone not to sign up for the Visa because the company sucked and the customer service number was long distance.
I really wanted someone to be listening to that, but I didn't get a response form the mysterious back room. I just hope they heard it on tape.
manda
What I don't understand is not that *shock* a call is being monitored after I hear a recording saying that it is being monitored. No, what I don't understand is how these recordings have not seemed to improve quality / customer service. I keep getting the same tech droid giving wrong answers as before. Typically I'm thinking to myself, if someone is monitoring this call for quality, please speak up and help!
On more than few occasions then, they must've heard me muttering things under my breath while on hold:
"grr...what's wrong with this stupid company..."
"stupid asshats, I'm never buying their widgets again"
"HELLO IDIOTS, I'VE BEEN HOLDING FOR HALF A FUCKING HOUR!"
*click* *boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooop*
*silence*
This space intentionally left blank.
I make it a point to curse the company, the big shots, their kinfolks, pets and homelands, all the children they may ever have and their children, etc...
I never call anywhere just to say "Hi! I'm so pleased with your product/service that I just wanted to call and say thanks!", when I call anywhere about something, I"m pissed and I make sure they are bloody well aware of it..
Like anything will change. But it does feel good to let them know how I feel about their crappy, offshored/outsourced product/service...
and it may come as a surprise that Big Brother even listens to what you may say while you are on hold.
I've always hoped that they listen while I am on hold. That way they get to hear my frustration of being on hold and calling their machines stupid and a bunch of other names. They also hear that I want to talk with a crazy person and not a machine. Bring on listening to while I am on hold, I don't care.
Being an unofficial supervisor in my tech support job, I did my share of monitoring calls. It's pretty uneventful. You're just checking out if your tech support rep guy is doing his/her job right. You fill out a form in regards to the call, and send it to his/her manager.
Heck, I once got a super-irate customer yelling & screaming at me, and told a coworker(who had supervisor priveledges too), and he asked me "What's your extension?", and I gave it to him so he could listen in on the fun. When you work tech support, you have to make the job fun.
You technically are volenteering this information because you could mute the call. I think this blurs the line as to what the company can use against you: i.e. insurance companies overheading what is said while your on hold...
What if you just got a DNA Test for a life threatening disease in the mail and you were calling to update your insurance policy and somehow they overheard that you were positive?
The same might hold true for cases against abuse, misleading the company, and mindlessly whispering your password.. Could ID theft be made an issue with this kind of system?
-my 2 cents
What our beloved and svelt Mr. Simms doesn't understand (because he's never worked in any customer support capacity; ignorance=strength), is that this is not news. Calls have been recorded for um, a long, long time.
.
Maybe mikey can post my new sumission: This just in: THE GOVERNMENT CAN NOW RECORD WHAT YOU SAY OVER YOUR PHONE LINE!!!!1111 8r4nd n3w tech' a110w5 government agents to tap your phone line & you won't 3v3n no it!!!11 WTF!!!!111 LOL!!!!11
Yeah, right.
Aren't there enough people that have worked in call centers at one time or another that this is just common knowledge? I spent 9 months doing tech support. If you called, there was a tiny chance your call would get monitored. Where I was, it meant you were likely to get the best possible service, too; our supervisors warned us (especially those they liked) that they would be doing monitoring in the near future. It usually happened on a quarterly basis and would consist of a couple hours of their listening and taking notes.
I'm sure the details vary from place to place, but there's no conspiracy here.
They've gotten ridiculous.
I kept a young, hopeful MCI rep tied up for forty five minutes during a routine "would you like to try our internet service" call. Playing the role of a slightly mentally retarded teenager, I actually had the guy explaining to me that I could check my email when the computer wasn't connected, and that their install CD would work in my blueberry IMAC even though there were four other discs jammed in it already. The person monitoring the call broke in and asked the young man to "please terminate the call." He called me back when he realized what was going on and gave me a royal cussing, also informing me that he'd switched my long distance service to MCI's most expensive plan. I stayed in character the whole time, actually putting the phone down to go take a leak and returning to his angry yammering. When I returned, I explained to him (in my best "retard voice") that I'd set a pick lock on the line and he was full of crap. I got a call back the next day from the manager (who had broken into the previous call) and he explained that the kid had been disciplined. Whatever that meant. He probably got a few paid vacation days and an MCI tote bag.
Occasionally it is explicitly stated in the message, most often not, but you can usually, at the start of the conversation state that you don't want your call either monitored or recorded. It is surprising how often the person at the other end will agree and do something about it (I regularly make a request to not be monitored or recorded in such situations). If they refuse... well, just demand to talk to someone who will allow your call to not be monitored.
As to whether they actually do stop any recording or monitoring... You can never know. They are legally bound to warn you that you may be monitored or recorded however, so if the person at the other end agrees to turn off all monitoring and recording and fails to do so, that has consequences should it ever come to light. It's the same as monitoring your call without telling you... which many places may be doing anyway. If you want to be ultra-paranoid, don't use the phone. If you just want a little privacy, ask for any monitoring to be disabled.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I used to work at a brokerage firm and one of the more senior assistants told us the time when she was calling someone within the organization about issues she was having with an account. She was placed on hold and while that took place she was talking to the assistant across the aisle from her, basically saying how much of an idiot the person on the phone was and other related matters.
After a time the person came back on line and provided the information that was needed and then told her that she had heard everything that had been said and then hung up.
Needless to say the assistant was very redfaced and made it a rule never to talk when on hold.
I too have followed that advice and have been very careful to say either nothing if I'm on hold or to say nothing incriminating.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Big Brother even listens to what you may say while you are on hold.
When I'm on hold, I put other people on hold. My habits related to paranoia go back a long way, freak that I am.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
...and it really was for quality assurance purposes. When I trained be a customer service rep for CoreStates bank, they would have you tap into various reps phone calls and listen-in to learn how the job gets done. Sometimes you would even physically sit next to that rep and listen-in, unbeknownst to the customer. The supervisors would also listen in to random calls to make sure everyone is being friendly, helpful, etc.
Call monitoring is a quality control function of the customer service department of the company you do business with, not the CIA/FBI/NRO/Freemasons.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I work at a support center (one where there is no punch menu system other than "if you wish to leave a voice mail" [and get ignored[) and this is very important for us as if a customer flies off the handle we can record it...and then threaten to cut the customer off internet until he behaves nice.
Other than that, mostly it is employee review, etc.
RoundTop
They don't seem to be a state, according to the linked site. However Washington D.C. has been elevated to statehood.
Merde, il pleut encore!
*ding* i get a call.
this can and has protected the customer.
also, when an employee gets complaints, they raise the % of monitored calls. if a customer calls in, swears, raises hell, etc, there isn't going to be anything done to effect that customer's service adversly - i mean cmon - that's bad for business. These things REALLY are used for training. If you don't like being recorded - don't call. Either that - or don't act like a jackass on the phone - simple enough.
As far as what's heard while on hold - I know for a fact that customers here are NOT recorded while on hold. However, it is normal for them to call in, as soon as they get connected to you - they ask YOU to hold and then procede to ream out children/spouses.
Remember - it takes all kinds to make the world go round - you never know what you'll hear on a call.
All the posts I see are comdeming the public for not knowing that your hold time is being recorded. But honestly, why would you EVER think that it would be? When they say "this call may be monitored for quality control assurance" or whatever -- wouldn't that apply only to what the operator says? It seems to me like it means that.
Also, remember that most people think of hold as the hold that you have on your phone at home -- you can't listen to someone while they are on hold, they are just sitting there waiting for you to pick up.
Stop being elitist pricks and saying that its stupid to think that no one is recording while you're on hold
I think my principles are reachin' an all time low
I used to work for a company that contracted out a call center to AT and T so maybe this is why I'm not surprised at all, because new trainee's regularily "tap" into a conversation that another employee is working on and listen in to gain experience. I did it myself when I was a trainee too. I actually enjoyed it because someof the things people said when they were on hold could be quite amusing. Especially when it was obvious that the person on hold had no idea that "on hold" only disconnects the employee in teh call center, not the recording equipment or the trainee or Quality assurance manager who is also listening in. We even had to report in a man who was talking to someone about killing his wife.
It's safe to assume ALL calls to a bank for example are taped. Rather than be afraid of your rights etc - you should know that at all times the taping is done in order to ensure you're being given proper service, information, and in a nice friendly way - the main reason is "call coaching". I used to work at one of these bank call centres and certainly I had never heard of anyone getting into trouble *Except* employees who stepped outside the box, or thought too much, or simply tried to deviate from any sort of scripting protocol... Oh yes, and these employees often got into trouble in the 'coaching review sessions' - where they replay samples of your calls - for NOT SELLING ENOUGH PRODUCT. Take it as a 'law' that even if you call a bank and ask for your account balance - the person answering the phone is being compensated or at least graded (ultimately affecting pay) on how much they sell you - ALWAYS.
heard on QA'ing a Tech Support call at Earthlink Tech Support
Woman on Mute to man yelling in background:(on MUTE, not hold) I don't know what you're bitching and screaming about, I just sucked you _____ for two hours...so shut it!
yeah, man, bong tokes, parent/children arguments, weird giggling/slurping sounds, heavy breathers, its all out there, on whatever Customer support center's HD's you call into. If they have CS, tehey have QA, if they have QA, they've heard it all.
Quality coaching is absolutely essential at the call center where i work. a majority of agents have extremely limited technical abilities when they start (its isp tech support) and the training (a whole 2.5 weeks) is less than useless. without quality coaching, the place would fall apart.
I knew one president of a company who noticed one day that every desk in the office had a recorder to record the telephone calls.
So he went to a local store and bought a bunch of casette tapes, took them back to the office, and put a tape in each recorder.
After that, about once a month, he'd go through the office to pick up the old tapes and put in fresh tapes.
He would then put the tapes he collected in a box in his car trunk. While driving around Houston, he'd listen to the tapes to see how his employees were dealing with the customers.
His wife actually ran the office. He acted more as an idea man and met personally with the customers whenever necessary.
One day his wife borrowed his car. She picked up the tape off the seat and put it in the tape player.
It was her telephone calls.
She thought her husband was spying on her and filed for divorce. As part of the divorce settlement, she received $1,000,000 paid in equal monthly installments over 5 years.
His lawyer screwed up royally. He didn't include a stipulation that she couldn't use the money to compete against his company.
So she used the money to start up a company that competed directly against him.
Without her running his office and without him delegating the authority very well to an employee to run the office, her company pushed his into bankruptcy in five years. At the time they filed bankruptcy, he had only one remaining payment of the $1,000,000 left to make.
These are hilarious
My favorite is Screamer.mp3
I hope someone was listening the time I administered the Turing test to a female synthetic-voice / voice-recognition self-help system, in the form of an attempt to solicit phone sex... (Telus customer assistance robot: 1-800-400-2598)
I'm glad they get to hear what I really think of their fucking forever wait times. Goddamn phone monkeys.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Your neighbor is listening to your conversations through that baby monitor. If you value your privacy, turn off the transmitter AND the receiver when you don't need to keep an ear on those tots!
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
I guess "supporting the troops" has been redefined by conservatives as "sending troops into battle without sufficient manpower or equipment under pretense while lowering their combat pay and family benefits and forcing them to stay indefinately and all this while keeping one's head firmly placed in one's butt about the potential that some people in Iraq might not like us being there."
If this is SUPPORTING the troops, I find it hard to believe that Kerry/Edwards could have done worse, other than randomly selecting some military personnel and personally killing them on primetime television. Or maybe I just missed my govt-sponsored ration of logic-altering substance today.
FWIW at Dell it worked this way; the phone system would randomly select calls to record or your manager could silently listen in at any time. And yeah, these calls really were used for training purposes (coaching). We didn't have access to people on hold either, now mute is a different story. But this is really simple to detect on most systems... if you hear music you're on hold, if you don't...you're not! Not fail proof but that's what you're hat is for!
They could be using software from NICE http://nice.com/ called NICE Perform which allows companies to do all sorts of analysis on what's being recorded.
I used to work for a company (now out of business) that built some of the first touch-tone-directed ordering systems. One of them was a system that Michigan liquor retailers used to reorder stock from the Liquor Control Commission (the state regulating body).
We had listen-only handsets we could plug into the modular sockets on the front of any of a row of several dozen cards and listen to calls in progress. We did this while debugging systems in the field so we could see if the system was working, what sort of problems people were having, etc.
I've seldom heard the equal of the language used by old liquor store owners who are trying to order a hundred various bottles of liquor by typing touch-tones into a fully-automated system that wasn't cooperating with them. I'm surprised the phone didn't melt.
I had the opportunity to work for a company that collected tons of this information from their consumer side and used it extensively for speech recognition training data in their research department. It seemed like every talk I attended by a member of this group was started by the speaker playing an excerpt of one of the more humorous or frustrated callers. Customer> I can't believe they have me talking to a f#$king machine! System> I'm sorry, I don't understand what you said. Did you want information about your bill? Customer> No! I want to talk to a f$#king person! The moral: If you curse at a machine be prepared to be laughed at by people for years to come. Of course you probably don't know them and they've all signed NDA's...
some people are forced go to work because big brother makes them pay for their accomodation, food, and power.
fuck off.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
Are these tapes (digital or analog) destroyed ever? If my credit card #, SSN or other personal details are mentioned, then it should be.
On the other hand, if it really isn't my voice, then the recording protects me.
Am I supposed to have a problem with this? I don't...
This is yet another reason to use the "mute" button while on hold.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
so he won't hear a thing I say about those bastards while I'm on hold.
Big Brother? Please. Try "lower-middle manager" inside a pissant company within a bottom-feeding industry. The Orwellian factor is so weak I'm not picking up the signal.
Hell, if I can amuse some lacky with a clever blue rant, then I'm happy to oblige. If I had to monitor calls all day I'd probably want to drive my car into a tree.
One:
When I'm on hold, and can't hear them, I have an expectation that they can't hear me, because that is how 99% of phones work when you press the hold button. And there's no reason they should be recording stuff when on hold and I'm not talking to their guy.
Two:
"The call may be monitored." is NOT the same thing as "This call may be RECORDED." If I hear that the call may be monitored I have always assumed that meant that someone might be listening in on the call AT THAT MOMENT. And monitoring != recording.
As a former phone customer service person, and phone tech support person, Id like to let everyone know to STFU when you are placed on hold. If you don't hear hold music, (and sometimes even if you do) the phone tech has put you on mute while while he/she curses the series of life events that led him/her to have to *try* to help you (and/or just researches the issue). The phone tech can hear what you are saying, and one thing we are not fond of is people talking thrash about the tech support. This may lead to you not being helped out.
A general rule of thumb is that the nicer and more reasonable you are on the phone, the better the quality of support you will receive, and the faster you will be off the phone with your problem solved. Its fucked, but thats reality. Also, most call logging systems have a section for "Technician comments", which can be anything from "customer follows directions well" to "customer is an asshole". This can influence greatly the way you are treated by future technicians. Sometimes I've escalated calls for a callback (in 1-2 days for one company I worked at) just because I won't deal with a rude fuck. At one company, this was unoffical policy.
Not so long ago, my wife had been tricked into buying a cruise in Florida - I can't remember the name of the company, but it's a well-known rip-off. (She's from northern Europe where consumers' protection is more decent than in north america, and she hasn't been raised to distrust people calling at home...)
When I got home, I called back the company (that wouldn't refund me) and used the on-hold time to start a phony conversation with the local police that was listening to the conversation (in fact, it was my brother - not in the police - that was on another phone.)
Sure enough, after the "detective" had confirmed that he had enough evidence to arrest both the agent and her boss, and that he would place a call to the local authorities, the agent came back on the phone to apologize for the mistake...
I know someone who has a job listening to recorded telemarkers calls for a large telemarketing firm.
.. marketer presses 'yes' button on the PC to give himself the $12 bonus for that sale
The reason? The young guys making the calls like to cheat the system.
They usually get bonusses based on 'sales'..
marketer: would you like to sign up for this free credit card?
person: for the last time, NO!
so.. they pick random succesful calls and listen to them after the fact to make sure their employees aren't cheating them. Also, any complaints that make it back to them (ie. I told you guys 'NO' and you still sent me this) they will actually make an effort to review the call.
at least at his company, as he described it to me, it's all for customer protection.
..mork
If that is the case, I wonder how many of these people lock their doors at night, and set booby traps. I'm sure I'm not the only who has ever simply lost it when put on hold again for the billionth time... or spend 45 minutes listening to that music that makes me think of inserting pointy objects into small furry woodland creatures.
At least the recorded insanity can be used to desensatize new workers.
Sure, you should expect that your conversation with the person at the other end will be heard by some total stranger (in addition to the total stranger you're talking with). But it's not entirely clear that sound from your end goes anywhere while you're on hold. People tend to assume that, since there are no operators available to take your call there aren't any other people around listening to you. So they turn on the speaker phone and go about their business while they wait. Really, phones ought to have a mode where you have the handset hung up, it plays out the speaker, and has no microphone (but you can press buttons for touch-tone sounds, or pick up the handset).
Actually, when I'm on the phone with a bank or financial institution, and I hear, "This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes", I wonder if they'll record the conversation to ensure any instructions I give them were actually said by me, and I gave verbal authorization for the transaction to take place. It would be like a "voice signature". Does anybody in the industry know if that's the case?
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Statistical sampling of our calls has shown us that our customers would most like us to: "Get off there, damnit, stop eating that NO! BAD DOG GET OUT OF THE - GODDAMNIT"
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I always talk to my imaginary maid, asking her where is my ferrari's keys, asking for more champagne and caviar and things like that.
Theres a problem with your thinking. We dont need a reason to mod people down, comments start out low enough.
When a comment is not particularly good at what it was inteded for, and moderated to, the best thing to do is moderate it overrated.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
I work at a technical call center and call monitoring is a daily thing with no suprises involved. Most of the time, the folks monitoring the calls couldn't care less what the customer has to say (unless an extreme issue present itself). The monitors are checking up more on the technicians rather than the callers.
Those funny calls with the drunk guy or the yelling folks are generally glanced over while they critique the technician's style and friendlyness.
-Lucas
i suppose if you enjoy reality shows, scary news programmes and comercials than this work is for you!
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
They recorded every order from customers to be on the safe side that they processed customer orders right.
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
Actually you don't have to, at least not in Pennsylvania. If both parties know the call may be recorded it's perfectly legal to record it. Of course they never expect *you* to record the call.
I bought a handy device to do just that, and it's already paid for itself: I foolishly signed up with what turned out to be a fly-by-night phone company. Our phone lines would cut out every morning for between 5 and 20 minutes - no outgoing calls, and incoming calls would receive a message saying "could not be completed as dialed."
I reported the problem to them many times, and they could never fix it, so I tried to cancel the service. They refused, claiming the contract hadn't been fulfilled. So I switched to the old phone company and all was fine with the service.
A couple months later I get a letter from a lawyer demanding $1200 for the cancelled contract. I played the totally legal recordings (after all, they said "this call may be monitored or recorded") back of me reporting the shitty service to their techs, and voila, the lawyer went away!
As the services they sell become identical between different companies, the only thing they have left to retain customers is customer support. There is usually little difference for most people between banks, phone companies, cable companies, and even computer manufacturers. Especially since I deal with my bank through the Internet or ATM, if I had a problem and customer service didn't help me, I'd look for another bank to sign up for.
This is why sending call centers overseas is such a bad idea because if laptop breaks, I want the problem fixed quickly, not have to translate what the guy in India is telling me what to do.
As more companies only deal with their customers through customer service, this will become a much more important role in where people buy their products and services from. Companies that build a reputation now will benefit in the future.
If they were unsatisfactory, we would send them to the "callback" department. I had to spend some time doing callbacks when they were under-staffed and needless to say a lot of people would get angry about not getting "free X" or "free Y". Then all of the callbacks would be recorded too.
If you've been recorded, you shouldn't worry to much or at all about domestic disputes that could be heard in the conversation. We were more interested in getting other people working in the company fired.
I work in a call center and we can listen to and record any call that we want. A few years ago a customer unhappy with the performance of the software we support and our inability to perform miracles called back several times, threatening to bomb our call center and threatening the lives of several of our agents and their families and pets. We recorded at least 3 of his calls and we had his address, which we were able to verify thanks to the ANI system we use to id incoming calls. The angry caller was prosecuted in federal court on several felony counts of harrassment and making terrorist threats.
You mean the agenda of trying to rid Slashdot of idiot "editors"? Sounds worth while to me.
...the phone company has a book that has all your phone numbers listed in it!
FLEE!
I used to work at a call center activating voicestream cell phones. Of course they are recording and when they say they are going to put you on hold it really means they are going to mute the phone. They still have a headset on listening in.
But I don't get where the person gets off calling me Big Brother? I just worked there! And the recorders were all internal agents who had a seperate audio casette tape for each agent. After one call was recorded and evaluated with the agent, it was blanked and recorded over again. Any Big Brother here? Nope.
I used to monitor calls for a bank. Its not big brother. Its exactly what they say. I monitored calls not to hear what the problem was, but to assess how the reps handled the call and if we made in any errors in processing, order taking or being friendly or knowledgeable.
It was more important that we took orders correctly and entered them in the system. We also used the play-back for problem/conflict resolution and training purposes. In fact, I'd hope that most people would want their banking interactions recorded. In one case the recording made a difference of almost 100k to a client because of interest rate promotions and how we took the order.
Again, no one's rights were violated. Its actually a tool that helps clients get better results (this may be argued at length) then to listen to personal information.
# nohup
Michael loves to snack.
Anime and Cheetos rock.
Doc says: "not a rash"
An abusive call made by two prominent radio jockeys to a call centre in India has outraged listeners and prompted demands for the duo's resignation.
The live call, made during the Philadelphia-based morning show of RJs Star and Bucwild, ended with one of the RJ's repeatedly calling the female call centre employee a 'bitch' and a 'rat eater' and threatening to choke her.
Star, whose real name is Troi Torain, initiated the call under the pretext of inquiring into an order he had placed for a product known as 'Quick Beads', hair beads marketed primarily to girls outside the black community (Star and Bucwild are black). Midway through the call, Star became aggressive with the call centre representative, Steena.
And its not just about the abusive language! Broadcasting it live for many American listeners will obviously spread hatred for Indians. Such racist activites are the reason why you see some American teenagers burning up Sikh Gas Stations or murdering/assaulting Indians in Night. Will someone take any action?
Support the troops
Encourage desertion
It's an entirely different thing when these calls are being used as proof of transaction. Proof of transaction implies that the recordings are stored in a register/database with personal data "connected" to each call (Tape A of 11.01.05 09:30:12 - tuxette), whereas quality assurance recordings can be "anonymized." In Norway and most likely with all EU/EEA countries, these recordings must be created and stored according to privacy laws, meaning informed and explicit consent to making the recording for proof of transaction purposes. You end up with a lot of things you need to prove - that tuxette is reallythe person you spoke to, she was legally able to enter the alleged contract, etc.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Customer service operators should be near the top of the list. When people call with a problem, the last thing they want is someone that probably hasn't even a clue to as the problem I'm going through. (This is coming from an American perspective). Most Americans have/had a credit card and many have run into problems with it. If I call that toll free number because I'm having a problem with the card, I'm gonna be pretty angry if someone answers the call that knows nothing more of credit cards than the pamphlet his employer showed him. And this applies to just about all products/services. Not to mention I'm gonna feel pretty lousy if the operator is silent when I crack a bad joke. I expect at least a courtesy laugh.
Paul
That action led to this particular guy's firing. He was a typical arrogant MCSE who's shit was ice cream and nobody could tell him anything he didn't already know - unless it was wrong and he would certainly let them know without hesitation.
Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com
Monitored or unmonitored I am finding that more and more customer service standards are falling. Sure Dish Network ripped me off, and sold me something completely different than what I ordered. But when I call them can they do anything about it? Hell no. My customer service issue could only be resolved by someone in a position higher up the Eccostar ladder than a customer service center. But it will never go that far. So instead I am accused of lying, locked in a contract, and shrugged off.
Maybe big brother will read this. Doubtful, because 1 100$ a month satelite bill less is not going to break anyone.
This also goes for fast food, and pretty much any other customer service. The people doing all the work could care less about you're problems. And will rarely go above and beyond.
A less addressed concern is that this is yet another instance where the employees are put under more pressure. Helldesk work already has a typical full turnover roughly every 5 years. On the bright side, people with both the extrovert people skills and modest technical skills that Helldesk work ought to demand, and who make customers happy by solving their problems, may start getting better rewarded than those who simply focus on high-speed turnover of call volume.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
They might not be monitoring the call right when you call, but you can bet they keep every recording just in case they want to have their lawyers come after you.
I always thought we should put in a law that ASKS for explicit permision before they are allowed to record you.
As soon as a real person gets on the phone, I always tell them they do NOT have my permission to record me, and ask that they stop or give me a number to call where they do not record. You would be surprised how many companies do NOT have a procedure to not record.
Problem is that YOU can't recorde THEM.
Trust me; i've tried. Trying to iron out problems in billing for my DSL service, i found that the closer i got to getting my problem solved, the more likely it was that i would get forwarded on to somebody else, forcing me to start from scratch. After talking to a handfull o them, it had been agreed by one or the other person that each disputed part of the bill had been as a result of their error. But nobody was willing to clear all of them. Were i to have a recording of previous people i had spoken to, i would have been able to clear the whole thing up.
Promises are made just to get you off the line, then simply broken. If the consumer doesn't have the right to record the call, the corporation is not accountable to what they tell the customer.
-j
and they complimented me on my guitar playing... which was wierd but very flattering.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I use to work at a call center, and the funny calls where passed around the office and played for everyones enjoyment. And you really do here all sorts of crap, when I use to place people on "hold" when working on my computer I would just use the mute button, the best is when they say how much they hate your company or ask how much the competion was again, even though you are solving there problem. I had one of call me some choice words, I just un muted and said how all that was very interesting, and how I didn't know I liked to yeah to fuck goats. Good times.
Im guessing if you're in Europe you can ask for a copy of those recordings, they'd be classed as personal data?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Yah such is life this is 100 percenttrue. I do tech support and completely understand both ends of the equation but it is an extreme rarity that someone sees it from our side. Everyone complains that tech support is a joke or everyone wants level 2 right off the bat or people calling in cursing so loud at u that you can hear there spit hit the mic. What is that people? Everyone got a jobto do. You are not asked the questions at tech support becuase theu dont know what they are doing but rather becuase ther boss said they had to or they dont get paid!
Please understand that the majority of what they put us through is not cuase of our intelligence or witt to find a problem or not that they dont trust you that you know whats going on, But of the fact that as a rep I only talk to about 3 out of 40 calls a day of actual people who know whats going on and thats out of 50 percent all calling in saying what they think the problem is and half of them tell me how i should fix it and only like 3 of those 40 are right. We are graded and paid based on our call times If you were in our shoes would you follow everything every aller said or listen to the problem and seek resolution. Basiclay go aon a wild goose hunt for 90 percent of time or risk pissing off the 3 people per day.
Understand that and maybe you will understand what we deal with. Its bad enough we have to endure raging lunatics and the verbal abuse all the time wich is the sole reason we have such a high turn over rate wich is exactly why we have to monitor all tose calls to ensure everyone does the right thing to resolve the problem.
BAH!!!! I can rant about this all day if i dont watch it
As someone who uses the bank's phone service regularly, I want someone to monitor my conversations with the operator. This'll hopefuly make the operator act nicely. But, I don't want someone to monitor the noises coming from my end when I'm on HOLD!
That's what's wrong with the world today. People can't seem to see the difference between a conversation and being on hold. And people don't use courtesy anymore to avoid eavesdropping on a customer on hold, even though it doesn't break the letter of the law.
So why exactly are they listening in, when they could instead be responding to my actual question? Is that why I'm spending so much time on hold? No, I didn't RTFA. I just thought I'd read /. while I'm waiting for the f'ing tech support to come back.
Months ago I called large company X to change my account. Listened to their hold [specially composed neverending loop so that you can't count the repeats] 'music' for 20 minutes and waited for every department in X to approve the change, then Nice Service Rep said she'd made and noted the change. I didn't write down NSR's name. Usually I would have- too tired and NSR just seemed so nice.
Next month I noticed the change hadn't been made, which cost me an extra $60. I called X back. My account had no notes, no evidence I'd changed my service or even that I'd called. [And if I wanted to avoid the $60 in charges I should have changed my account earlier, which I obviously hadn't done, I was informed.] Unless I could I give them NSR's name, as NSR'd surely remember authorizing my now wicked request (because all SR's have superhuman memories of the past 2000 calls they've taken) as proof I'm not a liar? No NSR name, no dice.
Couldn't they simply look at their 800 records? [I'd called from a land-line, not my cell, so couldn't prove my call myself] I asked. Certainly: all I had to do was get my lawyer to write the appropriately worded request letter and fill out form DZ-015 and they'd happily comply. My lawyer also has to request form DZ-015 for me. Right: spend $400 to get one bit of evidence that could potentially fix $60 worth of problems.
So a $60 lesson in recordkeeping and choosing which phone to use for calls (cell phone: has records of 800 calls. Landline: allows recording of calls. Which is better?).
What a breath of fresh air: common sense on Slashdot.
Claiming that this is a rights issue, and deliberately, and incorrectly, using the hot button phrase "big brother", is simple evidence of the pandering to bias and bigotry that Michael and the other phony editors at Slashdot have stooped to in order to keep up their count of page impressions.
The only difference between this and the stereotypical radio talk show hatemeisters are their political leanings. Slashdot is otherwise down in the cesspool with the best of them.
These calls are recorded to monitor and evaluate the performance of the employee who is talking to you. Since those people are hired specifically to speak with people on the telephone, it seems reasonable that their supervisor might listen in on occasion to assess their performance.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
That's why I make it my prerogative to say as many stupid or weird things into the phone while i'm on hold... or sing crappy songs (badly i might add) JUST in case someone might be listening on the other end. As soon as someone picks up, I'm back to being normal and polite so i usually know if the person answering heard me before taking the call (when they've been listening, they're thrown off to hear me speak normally).
My ISP even has a neato feature where they get you through to a person instead of their Answertron 2000 if you swear loudly while on hold. It's just much faster than waiting for the slowpoke machine voice to speak out it's menu.
From TFA: ...Recently, Pike stumbled onto a call where a young male customer was flirting with a female service agent at a cell phone company. After some giggles and banter, the woman relented and gave her personal phone number to the customer. Pike quickly alerted the cell phone company to the phone date....
How the hell else is a Nerd supposed to get a date? I mean, like, which girl in the office is ever gonna give me the time of day?
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Then they'll here me cursing out the fact that their company sucks, as I sit on hold waiting for their attempt at customer service!
Seriously, I worked in a call center... Some calls are listened to by internal (and sometimes external) Q(uality) A(ssurance) staff. If most call centers are like ours (and I may be biased, but I think most are worse than we were), very few calls are listened too, when compared to the total # of calls taken.
There's simply far more calls than staff. Think about it... If you have 500 people taking calls all day, then you would need 250 people listening to calls all day, just to catch half of them.
Add to this the time needed to re-listen to certain parts, the time needed to grade the calls, outline pro's and cons, and then the time to actually meet with the phone rep to discuss their performance....
It just ain't going to happen. I would say 2% of all calls are listened to, at a maximum. The real # is probably far fewer. And of those listening, most will skip through hold times to again get back to the "meat" of the call (the customer/rep interaction).
I work in a call center, and when we had long hold times, we would get calls where the customers were doing any number of things. Very common to hear snores, but occaisionally you would get other nocturnal activities. The worse was when they took the phone into the bathroom.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
A friend was selling some shares and the broker screwed up his order. The friend attempted to query the trade and was blown off. He asked for the tapes, he was blown off again. The next time he called he revealed that he was head of equities at another bank, he requested the trading supervision and then said they should listen to the tape, if not he was going straight to the regulator. The broker backed down very quickly.
Other problem is that it really used to be tape (usually videotape with about 4 to 16 lines) and find the right conversation was difficult. Now it goes onto HD and the HD gets backed up onto CD-R. Much faster to access.
See my journal, I write things there
If I hadn't already posted I would have modded up that up because it's absolutley correct.
I have worked in various kinds of tech support for 6 years and it's just simple human nature; if people are nice to you - polite and helpful you are much more likely to be the same with them.
Whenever anyone in the office got a call from a particulary abusive, annoying or arrogant customer they would make sure everyone got the name so regular callers did get very definite widespread reputations.
People who were constantly annoying got a pretty awful service from us since no one saw any reason to help those people whilst people who were polite and helpful would have everyone going out of their way to be helpful to them - they could even have the odd tantrum but we'd understand because usually they would apologise afterwards - unlike the assholes.
Just remember it costs you nothing to be polite to people and you will always be able to find out a lot more about what is happening with your query if you are polite than if you spend your time cursing the person you are talking to, their company and life in general.
I always try to curse out the company I'm holding for while I'm on hold. It's really satisfying to know that someone might actually get to hear this negative feedback - because Service Sucks these days. Considering the fact that the US has moved to a 'service economy', this is a really bad thing.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
I call bull crap. You made this retarded story up just so you can get more geeky friends on slashdot. Get a life idiot.
That is not an outsourcing issue. I've dealt with American operators who were dumb as bricks. Your average Indian call center rep can be trained well enough as your any American call center rep.
Most of the Indian people I've talked to are fairly friendly and understand the same jokes we do.
I think you need to get out more.
Must be a slow news day when front page has a troll post designed to shock us with the revelation that our conversations are being recorded by companies who warn us in advance that we are being recorded....
Next we'll be covering the nefarious practices of companies who charge our credit cards after we sign sales slips and utility companies who send us bills after we request service...Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
Just be aware that 'hold' doesn't necessarily mean what you think it does. Perhaps only 2% of calls are recorded/monitored, but I can tell you, someone's hearing you a lot more of the time than you think. Play with it. Next time you're on hold, mutter to yourself, "OMG, this man/woman has the sexiest voice I've ever heard. I'd do him/her in a New York minute." (Results will vary according to the perceived sexes of the two parties.) :)
Sig not available, please try again later. If the problem persists, then the submitter is an idiot.
Telus Tech Support? You mean this place? http://www.fastfoodmall.com/adsl/ Please, it seems you are as much assholes to each other as the customers are to you.
About five years ago when I got my Dell laptop, I noticed that if I blew in to the phone it seemed that my hold time was greatly shortened. Blowing in the phone seemed to overdrive the audio into anoying distortion. I came to the conclusion that either a) someone is hearing this, or b) they have some sort of system that tries to gage how upset a person is by autio levels on hold (possibly more complex even, as I tried cursing at teh hold music several times with mixed results). :-)
This wasn't a once or twice thing, I probably called tech support 100 times while my laptop was under warranty for 4 years. I was very rough on it and finagled a warranty repair for everything I did to it. I ended up with almost 10K in repairs on a $3500 laptop, and at one point got a whole new laptop for a fried mobo with cracked plastic
All these techniques stopped working when dell switched to Indian support near the end of my warranty. Last thing I called in for was more cracked plastic... the nice, yet clueless Indian man suggested I check my hard drive for errors and possibly have it replaced... That said, no more Dells for me!
"It seems that when people become desperate they consult the gods, and when the gods become desperate they tell lies." -
I tried, but my number is always busy.
paintball
"She added that some Indian call centers show their operators episodes of "Seinfeld" and "Friends" to teach them about American culture." I hope they don't show them the episodes with Babu Bat. Babu: You are a bad man! I very very very bad man!
kind of funny they have time to listen to you on hold, yet cant take your call? I remember calling Netgear once, holding, then put on only to hear the distinct sound of a rocket launcher in Q3 for an instant, and then being put back on hold.
Peep that
I'm more thinking what pthisis said: I don't consider the services that they provide a 'right'. It's more the right to receive the service that you are already paying for.
After all, you are paying for service, and they then infringe on your privacy as a condition of providing you with the service.
I group it into the same category as shrink wrapped EULA's. Aren't they illegal now (in some places)?
I had a discussion once with a UPS or FedEx phone guy about having them come to pick up a shipment. I attempted to pay with a credit card and the gentlemen told me that the card had been rejected and that there were no other ways that I could pay. After being annoyed for a few minutes I gave up and hung up the phone.
A few minutes later I got a call back from the guy's supervisor who told me that everything the former guy told me was completely incorrect and that I could go ahead and pay with the credit card. It was great. I love call monitering.
--
RumorsDaily
I worked for a large call center that did support calls for both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard (different support contracts, same building). As part of our training, we heard several phone calls that were recorded from previous agents to teach lessons on how to handle extreme situations. It was chilling to listen to domestic disputes.
There's also the practice of "jacking in", where an agent allows a trainee or a supervisor to hook a headset into the agents phone and listen in to the call. During my stay with the company, it was very routine for agents to be on a call, press mute, and talk about the customer without them being able to listen.
Call centers are a tough, tough job. They have a high turn-around because of the stress. If you get angry with a support agent, chances are they will hit the record button on the phone so they can keep a record of your call should there be a need to follow up a complaint.
Bottom line: be polite, be patient. Support techs are just people. If you're rude, then chances are you'll be laughed at or mocked behind your back.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
"This call may be monitored for quality purposes."
The software randomly records an agent X number of times per Y period. The recordings include the phone conversation and the agent's screen during the call (real-time screen capture). The recordings are used to make sure the agents are not screwing up their jobs or pissing off the customers or wasting time. It's also used for training. Sometimes it is used for legal reasons. Usually in that case though, they explicitly ask for permission. One example, is financial transactions. Often the agent asks to record confirmation. That's part of the software as well.
The software is usually used in one of three ways:
1. Random recordings of the agents for performance.
2. On-Demand recording of priority calls and agent requested recordings. (ie, big customers that you want to make sure get good service or if the agent needs to record the call for any reason.)
3. Continuous Recording. This is also called logging, and every minute of every call is recorded. This is found in big financial call centers where transactions and money tranfers are taken over the phone and any screw up is worth a lot of money.
No one expects privacy on these calls. You are explicity told you might be/are being recorded. There are laws governing this behavior and some states don't allow it. I have had to check incoming ANI (caller id) to determine the inbound area code and match against states that don't allow you to record their citizens. If you are that concerned, move to one of them.
The following are companies that sell this software if you want to get the sales pitch. (I don't work for them, but I once worked for e-talk.)
www.nice.com
www.aspect.com
www.witness.com
www.etalk.com
I think that our morals and ethics should be based upon those of our leaders.
If they're recording me and listen later, whatever, but I would be seriously pissed if I was on hold and a live person was sitting there listening. Its one thing if the rep goes off to find something out and puts me on hold, but it really sucks when I'm still waiting for the first contact with a person during the call sitting there on hold for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, whatever. Now, to find out that maybe there's some QA person listening pisses me off. How about instead of paying someone to monitor the calls for QA, hire another friggin' person to answer the damn call so I'm not sitting there for an hour? I always assumed the calls were just recorded when they give that little disclaimer at the beginning.
Hmm... I don't know the law in the US, but here in the UK, that would be a gross breach of the data protection laws regardless of any call recording legislation. The bank would probably wind up in very serious **** if it was discovered. (If Slashdot post the story I've just submitted about the biggest ID theft case in history, the potential consequences of this sort of negligence will become pretty obvious, too.)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
...as many have pointed out, even more often, they are recorded.
Most large financial institutions have some type of permanent or long-term call logging (recording) function. While this may have privacy folks in an uproar, this situation can also be turned to your advantage:
Several times my bank or insurance company told me something once, only to have it found to be incorrect or untrue later. Of course you call back up and argue with the Rep, but they don't believe you. I've merely said "I know you record these calls", and demand that their supervisor pull the recording from the conversation. This has resolved several disputes for me!
If you really want to be a prick, this stuff (the calls, their records or notes on any coversations, etc.) are technically discoverable in legal proceedings too. Small Claims Court case anyone?
When I'm on hold (If I'm unhappy), I'll scream and yell at whoever I was talking to, the company, even the product. I'll swear off ever purchasing anything from the company ever again. I'll make comments about the support technician's mother's ancestry and what orifice he or she may have come out of.
Do I think that they listen to me (either recorded or live)?
I really, really, have always hoped so.
George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
Right!
After an earlier story on /., I started swearing fouly in a loud tone of voice while I was on hold. I got through to tech support much quicker. One can't always do this, it depends drastically on the circumstances, but when one can it's an interesting effect. The problem is turning off one's foul temper when one reaches a tech. (It's not THEIR fault.)
OTOH, they generally can't do anything helpful, either. And knowing that while waiting on hold makes the wait even less bearable.
To me it often seems that the help lines are designed to discourage customers from seeking help in getting the product to work. I'm about to change my ISP over this very matter. (I don't really think the opposition will be able to offer better service...that's in the hands of SBC...but they may at least provide a reasonable support line.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Whenever a marketer starts their spiel with
this "Your call may be recorded..." I immediately
say: "I object to this." Throws them off their
script, and they don't know what else to say,
and they hang up the phone soon after without
delivering their pitch.
Notifying someone is mostly a courtesy, but can be used to imply consent.
If at the same time a company which has put me on hold is playing their "this call may be monitored" etc. etc., I play a message that says "I do not consent to this call being monitored, your acceptance of this fact is noted by you not hanging up" what right do they then have to monitor my call? Is it fair for them to be able to play a message and assume I heard it, if I don't get the same courtesy? How would the situation of two machines talking to each other get resolved if I were to somehow find out that my conversation was listened in to, and took them to court over the issue?
Most do. It's called a mute button.
-- Dave
Making fun of dumb people since 2009
I only ever complain about the crappy customer service while I'm on hold :)
Doesn't the NSA already do this?
sounds like a plot to Dallas or Dynasty
I work for one of those faceless, nameless companies in the uk that employ the "your call will be recorded" mantra.
Many of the things that they direct us to do really seem at odds with the company vision.
They, as a member of previously gisc, and now the fsa (uk financial ruling bodies) are required to monitor all calls, and announce that fact.
With the transfer from gisc to fsa at the beginning of 2005 this procedure has marginally changed.
We were required to specifically tell clients, at point of contact that their call was going to be monitored. Now, it has been decided, that the recorded pre-answer message is an adequate warning.
I regularly have to put people on hold, and i am scrupulous about using my hold button, rather than the mic cut out button. This is because i have listened to my own calls, and unless you press the hold button, rather than the silence button, your boss will inevitably hear the one call, in which you called them a name while having someone on "hold"
This use of available tech seems to be, rather than for the customers benefit (we always defer to the rules regardless of whatever may have been incorrectly said by staff), purely to catch out unlucky us.
And i am also aware that the 2% mentionned, regarding calls actually listenned to, are only the 2% used when disproving a customer, or doing a monthly witch hunt on the staff.
Fortunately. I always know when my calls will be listened to.
Unless I have done something wrong, which has resulted in a complaint (it happens) or it is the beginning of the line managers working month, my calls are by and large, completely unobserved (or unheard if you're being specific (not pacific)).
I know therefore, that the cancer sufferer i coached, in order to guarantee a successful household claim, will be able to claim, when they should have been refused.
I felt for this person, and could sympathise, as i am a part of a family suffering (and suffered) with the bleakness that cancer impresses on your life.
I was able to provide them with the information that could lead to them getting replacment of the furniture that was damaged as a result of their chemo induced illness.
This is something that was insured, only if they had made a point of including accidental damage to their household insurance, which nobody knows to do, unless they have worked in insurance claims.
This is of course not relevant to the post.
It does also show, that not only is call recording a hazard to customers, but for compassionate staff. This is a hazard to existing and future employment of staff who are also subject to this supposedly protective use of technology.
ps, please apols for spelling issues, i'm *compromised*
Long before I read that acting like one was pissed off got one through the cue faster, I felt a disturbing correlation with my anger. Get angry... Voila! Customer service. So, I have made it my habit these last couple of years to simply act angry.
Oddly enough, this seems to not be working since the articles were published describing the monitoring.
A friend of mine got an extremely rude and unprofessional CSR when he called Comcast to change his service to his new address when he moved. He quickly got tired of her attitude, and gave her some back. She went off on him, and then hung up on him.
He promptly called back, immediately asked the CSR who took the call for a supervisor and told the guy what happened. During that conversation, the supervisor retrieved and listened to the recording of the call with the rude CSR. He then apologized, told my friend that this woman had a history of such behavior and that this was the last straw.
So yes, they aren't kidding about the calls being recorded, and someone who did a poor job apparently got fired over it.
I got banned from AOL in 1995 because teh rep had the phone on mute instead of hold and while they were away we were calling them every name in the book....but, you know, every cloud has a silver lining, and in the case of AOL banning, the whole damn cloud is silver
"La la la laaaa, company can't answer phone,
Sha la la la laaaa, answer the phone,
(The phooooooone! La la la!)
Pick up pick up pick up the phone
(The phoooooone! La la la!)
Customer service is ignoring my call;
Someone better listen while I'm callin on the phone!
(The phoooooooone! La la la!)
I could probably release that on BMI or Sony, along with my hit rap, "Take my s**t (Offa tha list)"
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
Having supervised call centers for pretty much most of my professional (sad?) career I can definitely say it is possible to monitor callers on hold.
I'm familiar with both Avaya and Aspect ACD systems. Both feature the ability to monitor the "trunk" or the "agent". When you are monitoring the trunk you are tapped into the inbound line as if you are a customer. If the csr puts you on hold, you hear hold music. You experience everything from the customer's point of view. That INCLUDES hearing everything that goes on while the customer is on hold. I've heard plents of fights, toilet flushes, etc.
Agent monitoring is different. You are tapped in to the agent's end of the phone. This means you DO NOT hear the customer that is on hold, but you do hear everything that goes through the CSR's microphone (whether or not they are on a call).
In all of the companies I've worked, the quality monitoring was *never* more sophisticated that a radio shack phone splitter with one end going to a handset and the other end going to a cassette recorder.
I work for Convergys, a major outsourcer of Microsoft, USPS, and other major company telephone support. I myself work "for" eBay. (Even though I am not paid by eBay, this is what we say to people on the phone). We are required to say this on all outgoing calls when we get past the gatekeeper. (Ghostbusters) Apparently, it's a legal issue. On top of that, while I have never had anyone ask, they have the right to say No and we are required by law to stop recording and monitoring. Oh, and for our monitoring, I would say it is closer to 20 percent of our calls. We have our team lead listening, the computer system recording (even with screen capture!) and a QA agent who does this all day long. Our team is only about 30 people on a given basis. So, I figure, about 20 percent of my calls are recorded on any given day, though sometimes they tell me that my calls will be recorded all day long. I try to be on my best behavior....
lies, lies, all of them lies. No one listens to me, I'm sure of it.
im not saying its not possible (we use aspect)just don't think we do - all the calls i've heard, when on hold, depending on which side listening to, u either hear the csr or nothing.
A long time ago when a device called Snappy was still for sale. I called up their tech support for a problem that I had. They put me on hold and after 30 mins of holding I got pissed, and just started singing cusses to myself. I guess they got sick of hearing me, so they hung up.
This happens on inbound calls as well.
Just last week I got a call from a Police fundraiser, who being a charity is exempt from anti-telemarketing laws. After introducing himself he said "this call may be recorded."
Now I realize that the intent was probably just to do QA on their fundraisers. However keep in mind two things: 1) recorded, not "monitored", which leaves no restriction on how long they keep it on file and 2) This is the police here not just some random charity.
Anyway I asked the guy if he didn't think it was a tad bit intimidating to call people up on behalf of the authorities and record their call. Which was pretty much an excercise in being rhetorical, because what's a dialer jockey going to say, and politely informed him that I do give to charities just his isn't one of them at the moment.
Someone had to do it.
No kitty, thats a BAD kitty !
Go grab those torrents.
We've outlined a process on how one can easily record phone conversations of VoIP calls made through a SIPphone.com softphone in Linux. Linda Tripp would have had it easy with a VoIP account with SIPphone.com and Linux---imagine if she was savvy enough to do this, i.e. digitize her phone conversations and made it public years later?
Linux at home
Also, most call logging systems have a section for "Technician comments", which can be anything from "customer follows directions well" to "customer is an asshole". This can influence greatly the way you are treated by future technicians.
About halfway through my stint in tech support, we all got a reminder from management that those records can accidently be included in call logs sent to the customer... or subpoenaed... or otherwise put in a position by which the company could get in hot water.
They're still used, of course, but I just want to remind tech support folks to watch what you say in those "internal viewing only" comment blocks.
That company mentioned in the article, HyperQuality, is like totally awesome. They other day, I ordered a pizza from Dominos, and a samosa arrived instead. I was stoked. Rock on, HQ!
Even if they are not listening, it still serves as a cathartic moment.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Once on hold for half an hour, I just swore at them for 15 minutes... in the off chance that the little message meant they listen to on hold time as well. I also sang songs for a while. Read to them from a book. I gave up after an hour. Good times....
Anytime I hear that I usually think to myself "It may be monitored or recorded, but not necesarrily answered...", especially when sitting waiting on hold...
Step 1: Go to your local Radio Shack store and buy a telephone-to-cassette adaptor for under $20.00.
Step 2: Then pulg it in to your AUX-Input port of your PC.
Step 3: Before you speak on the phone, turn on the microphone recording program.
Step 4: After Step 3, switch on the adaptor.
Step 5: Talk, and LISTEN.
Administrative Note: It is common knowledge that ALL electronic communications are monitored. And I'll bet that you've been told more than once, "NEVER say anything that you don't wan't printed on tomarrow mornings newspaper; ON THE FRONT PAGE!."
businesses to monitor phone calls that are business related when the monitoring is part or the ordinary course of business. When the content of the telephone conversation is of a personal nature, the monitoring must stop.
So, when the recording stops just say "Did you know I have three testicles?". Then they HAVE to stop recording it.
Free Beer!
What the article doesn't state, is that we can also see what was on the agent's screen during the call.
:-)
That includes browser windows, emails etc.
I worked in the same building as the people I was monitoring, the team of monitors knew who was bonking who and all the goss because of emails that agents sent to each other during calls. To be honest, I usually didn't want to know and tried to ignore the goss and focus on the customer interaction (after marking the agent down for sending/reading personal emails when they should have been giving undivided attention to the customer - they should've left personal emails to between calls).
Now I'm back on the phones (at another call centre) and I'll get pinged for typing this
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.