Numptys of the world Unite!

Part Three in my master class in how to deal with Call Centres

When making a serious complaint you need to keep going … and I mean REALLY serious (how angry can you get over a trouser press – come on – it ain’t that bad) - keep going until you coax a senior manager out of his hermetically sealed office.

It is quite tough and it requires a significant degree of patience and you need to feel that your complaint is significant enough.

To use a rather fishy analogy: Call Centres are like drag nets – if your query is not picked up, then who cares? There’s always another customer waiting. If you behave like a herring, then you’ll be treated like one. On the other hand, if you see your complaint like a majestic whale that is worthy of a massive harpoon, then you’ll need to make sure that someone is worthy of wielding the weapon.

Unfortunately, you’ll need to make do with Captain Birdseye rather than Quint from Jaws.

Behind the scenes, the Call Centre will be thrown into a tizz. Panic alarms will be pressed and a huddle of Team Managers will be drawing straws to determine who will tell the Office Manager that they need to speak to a customer.

He will draw a diagram on a sheet of A4 to get a ‘pen portrait’ of the situation and come up with some glib response and send one of the Team Managers on the phone to say, “I’ve just caught him on his way to a meeting, he’s agreed to the following …”

If you are still not satisfied… keep going.

Eventually he’ll speak to you with the telephone technique of Ozzy Osbourne playing Wembly without a microphone, or else will sound like he’s speaking through a heavily togged pillow. Half way through the conversation he will press the wrong button and cut you off.

When/ if he phones back, start asking for HIS manager. In the words of Mr White in Reservoir Dogs, “… after that he’ll tell you if he wears ladies underwear.”