You betrayer!

[jackfaire]

I had an interesting conversation with a coworker last week. He said that he felt any rep that documented a customer's complaints when it applied to another rep was a fink, a rat, and someone that is betraying his fellow reps.

He feels if a customer has a complaint about one of us you should smile nod and not document it.

I don't see how this works. To me this is not an us against them thing. This is about helping my customers out. I am here as a consumer mediator. I am the one that keeps things running smoothly between the company and the customer.

I am not here to prevent you from getting coached because you were rude to a customer.

Does anyone else agree with him? Agree with me? None of the above?

[Boozy]

I am here as a consumer mediator. I am the one that keeps things running smoothly between the company and the customer.

This is your job in a nutshell. You have a very professional attitude, and I'd do nothing to change that.

The customer may or may not have a valid complaint. The rep in question may or may not have a valid defense. That isn't up to you to decide. The rep's supervisor can make that call, if it comes to that. It's none of your business. Your business (among other things) is to correctly document your conversation with the customer.

[freeatlast]

When I worked at the Call Center from Hell, I took escalated calls. I wrote up any complaints that customers had regarding our agents. Many were not a big deal, but may have been something that the agent had already been spoken to about before. We had agents who had many complaints of the same kind made against them, and it was necessary for their supervisor to know about them, no matter how small. The only time I didn't write them up was if, after talking to the customer, I found that they would have the same complaint no matter who they spoke to. The type of customer who had a complaint if they were not told exactly what they wanted to hear.

[Slytovhand]

I had a few customers say they were going to complain about me.. I usually told my sup I laughed, they didn't care (cos they knew what I was like... especially if they were just complaining cos I said 'no'). Usually, when they get escalated, the TL would end up just as frustrated... not all complaints are valid.

By the same token, some complaints, while not necessarily about a CSR, should get documented so that higher up might be able so see potential issues. If customers aren't happy with the level of service or product, then management should be made aware that they have an issue.

Also, why is this particular rep so defensive??? Oh, cos they suck at their job?

JackFaire, you're not there to be anyone else's friend either!

For that matter, what should be most important to you is making sure you still have your ethics while you still maintain your job. In this case, it means if some moron is making your job more difficult by screwing around customers (so that when you get them, it's damn hard to do your job easily and right), then yes, you make sure management knows.

Way too many times at my last job, I ended up copping the flack from the customer because other CSR's just roll over, or I wasted my time having to explain over and over again why they can't get something they've been getting for ages - because the others just don't give a damn. Or being complained about because I say 'no', and everyone else says 'yes'...regardless of company policy.

[KitterCat]

Dealing with co-workers like this is a quick way for a business to go under, or at the very least lose customers. Pretty much everyone is going to get a complaint from a customer at some point. If only because you stuck by company policy and told them “no”. I’ve always had the mindset that so long as I’m adhering to policy,
1)generally customers get better service. Yes there are exceptions to this rule, after all there are policies that leave you and me scratching our heads wondering where management thought that one up.

2) Said company finds it harder to fire you if your actually following mandated policies.

For example: Back in the days when I worked at Blockbuster the owner sent memo’s to make sure everyone’s Id was checked for credit card purchases. We were loosing to much money on what was a simple fix. I actually would check every persons id on cc. Later I got told to relax my standards a bit, let some people slide by if they didn’t have any id. Had to explain to my manager that if I did that we might as well not have the policy of checking id. That I did this to everyone, and by excluding some people we were putting ourselves in line for a suit, be it adding in cc fraud, identity theft or just your basic race suit. Further more until I had it in writing I wasn’t going to put my job on the line with the owner. My manager actually understood where I was coming from, and started backing me up when we had customers complain about it.

3)As Boozy put it its not your job withhold customers complaints and you currently have a true professional mindset. Let the persons supervisors handle the problem. If you become a supervisor/manager then you get to address the complaints, but you still cant stop them. And a good supervisor will be able to spot the valid complaints from the invalid.

[JuniorMintz]

We keep patient records, and while I do document what is said by the complaining patient, I do so in a manner that doesn't come off as me tattling.

Example: "Pt. claims he was told his glasses would be in in five days, I explained that what we actually quote is five to ten *working* days-will follow up w/ lab to check status when they re-open."

As opposed to: "Pt. says Susan told him his glasses would be here today and is furious, wants her reprimanded and/or fired... "

Since as we all know, patients don't listen when you're speaking to them, which creates all sorts of "misunderstandings" like in my example. In the first note, if you truly want to know who was at "fault" in the original complaint, you could go back into the chronological sheet and look up who last spoke to the patient. The second example, I look like a narc and a suck up, and for no reason since the original complaint was a non-issue to begin with.

[jackfaire]

We keep patient records, and while I do document what is said by the complaining patient, I do so in a manner that doesn't come off as me tattling.

In my job all calls are recorded. And telling a customer the wrong date a tech will be at their home thus giving them a day off of work they couldn't afford to find out they have to take another day off is a good reason for the person to be reprimanded.

That being said it is not my job to determine if something is worth being followed up on. If I don't document what their complaint is and who about it may not be caught.

I would hope if 50 people complain that one person keeps making the same mistake that it would be corrected.

[JuniorMintz]

Actually, you raise a good point. I know there are a couple of people in my office who could use a good ass chewing for making repeated, lazy, and seriously stupid mistakes.

There's a big difference between narcing for no good reason and raising a legitimate point, I guess.