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This Call May Be Monitored ...

Posted by michael on from the important-to-us dept.

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."

3 of 443 comments (clear)

  1. Big Brother? Not quite... by Lindsay+Lohan · · Score: 3, Informative
    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
    Listeners are primarily interested in monitoring the agent and his/her adherence to support protocol--not the caller per-se, as some sort of eavesdropping effort. IMO, that doesn't equate to "Big Brother"... however I'll keep my finger near the mute button :)

    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.
  2. Re:This call may be monitored or recorded by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Informative

    Um, since when did you need their permission? You're a party of the conversation you can record it all you want.
    There are twelve states that require permission from both sides of a phone call for it to be recorded. This site has the list.

  3. Advice for calling Tech Support/Customer Service by chrisG23 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.