New Employees

Most of us have worked someplace and had new employees come on board. Right? Well imaging have 170 brand new employees who have never taken a call in a call center before. They just spend four mind numbing weeks in a class room with a trainer provided by a client so they miss out on some of your companies basics such as No eating on the floor, no cell phone usage while having your customer on hold for 37 minutes so you can talk to your "bro".
Now there is generally some kind of probationary period at most jobs right? In call centers this might be described as TTU or in some cases, it could be just a case of your graduated class now go forth and take a bloody call.
While in the 4 weeks of mind numbing class they might have learned how to maybe put in an order, but no one and i mean NO ONE bothered to talk to them or tell them how to TALK to a customer. I don't know about you but, I am pretty sure that a CEO of a Fortune 500 club company is not wanting to hear someone answer the phone with "what did you want today?" or better yet "I'm done talking to you, did you want to talk to my supervisor?". I don't know about you, but I am not getting on that phone. There isn't enough pepto or k-y to settle my stomach and take care of my behind when this customer is done with me. No child, you can dial 1540 and wait for the "supervisor" to handle that call.
I am sure that when you hired in, you probably explained the the interviewer all about your customer service skills and that you probably interviewed really well. Well "lunchbox" you can't handle 14 calls in a 9 hour day and give 8 of them to me as sup calls.....who is doing your job? The last time i checked, your title is Customer Care Consultant. Contrary to popular believe, that means "you" have to explain the bill to the customer and that means you have to be able to understand it. When you don't understand the difference between video and data "Houston, I think we have a problem". I really think this job might not be for you.
When your handle time is supposed to be around 540 seconds (approximately 9 minutes per call) When you keep a customer on hold for 30 minutes, it is going to be just a tad hard to reach that goal. When asked why this representative had their customer on hold for 30 minutes...."trying to let them calm down" Really.........are you friggin kidding me....."calm down" Again, I am not getting on that phone.
When you have a new program ramping up, your immediate management group spend more time on the phones than the reps. Part of that is to be expected as they are "new" and learning. However, I am not the quick easy answer. The representatives are supposed to attempt to answer the customer question by doing research. When a supervisor goes over to ask the rep how they can help,the rep says I can't find the account. Okay, the the conversation goes something like this:
"the account number didn't pull up the account" "no" What's the customer's name?" "I don't know" "Can you ask" "A, yeah, hello? You got a name?" The supervisor is deep breathing....."one moment" "Chris" "Can i have the headset please" says the supervisor.....and people say parenthood is tough.