That’s exactly what my American customer told my supervisor early this morning. After more than a year in the call center, this is the very first commendation that I got. Her computer problem was not really difficult, it was just a blank screen which was resolved in just three minutes. All I did was to disconnect everything on her computer and then restart it. Voila, the BIOS came up and it loaded to Windows.

My commendation was taken by my incoming new team leader, who also held a meeting this morning. My team mate and seat mate thought that it was an escalation. I just hope that I would get that raise, he he.

During the troubleshooting, another common issue on Windows Vista came up. According to this customer, her friend made some Windows update and turned it off. When she powered up the machine again, that’s when she experienced the blank screen. When it finally POSTed, it went to the screen that says “configuring updates.” Since I have received calls before about this, I just told the customer that she just have to wait for that update to finish, and that the computer will restart after the update.

Microsoft has provided a lame work around on this. Their support bulletin 932141 or “Message when a Windows Vista-based computer takes a long time to restart or to shut down: “Windows is configuring updates”” just says this:

“To work around this problem, wait for the process to finish.”

Although I am a technical support rep for a brand of computers, we have been gathering credit card information from consumers when we need to, like purchase of some computer items. I have been using the computer’s notepad to gather the CC info so that corrections could be easily made once the customer gives a wrong entry. This is so unlike the previous company where I worked more than a year ago. We always gather credit card information from customers who want to purchase items they saw on TV, newspaper or heard from the radio. We just use the the call center’s shopping cart system, without any notepad, either virtual or actual.

The notepad which contains my logs everyday has the credit card information. I send the logs every week to my After reading the news that a call center representative in Chicago was charged of identity theft for using the credit card of at least four customers. This is on top of the widely circulated email/news article on a Filipino agent who was sentenced for a tw-year imprisonment. This followed after he was found guilty by the Philippine court of making online purchases amounting to $ 655.19. The goods were then sent to the former Sitel agent’s address.

Perhaps this is the reason customers ask where an agent is located at. Asking the name and the location of the agent somehow shows a mistrust and a disgust by the customer. They are sometimes suspicious of the person taking their financial information. They have every right to do so. Identity fraud in the US now amount to $ 49.3 billion. Some call centers are very strict on the English accent of the agents so that they can be heard as someone speaking in the mainland.

The reason for sending my logs to my personal email is for me to review the troubleshooting steps I have been making. Since some support websites are blocked in the office, it would be better if I will do some research on my own.

Prevention is better than cure. I don’t want to blame myself for being so careless if ever those credit card information will be stolen. The best thing to do perhaps would be to delete them.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance, an insurance and financial services company , fired the employees who worked in their Des Moines, Iowa office.

“I didn’t think it was fair that they could keep transferring all of their work over to us,” she testified. “So when I would see on the phone that it was a transfer from them, I would just hang up.”

“I didn’t think about the fact that it could be someone that was needing help right then and there, that their daughter may have just got in an accident and was in the hospital and they were needing help,” she testified. “I wasn’t really thinking about the customer. I was thinking about myself and my stats.”

More on this at the Des Moines Register.

Our unit could run in Vista Business, after 30 minutes of downloading the advisor. I was asked to download the 6.75 MB advisor, but was prompted to download and install first the 22.9 MB of dotnetfx or Microsoft.net. Here are some of the screenshots:

The summed details could be found here.

Unless there is a compelling reason to shift to Vista, I am staying with XP.

My very first customer in the call center where I am currently working is a Filipino. I was then deployed in a special project. There were questions that we need to ask the customer before we could assist them (including the name, phone number, if the call was a transfer call or direct call, etc). He said “I was transferred by your kababayan.”

That made me smile a little bit. In March, I also had a Filipino customer, this time, calling from the Philippines. I was able to trace the phone number (thanks to Google) to an advertising company based in Salcedo Village in Makati. Ms. Rivera is a staff of an American who owns the computer, and is complaining because the repair center in the Philippines did not fix their computer but did more damage to it. Since it’s a complaint, I have to refer her to our complaints department, but since it’s already 9 am, the department is already closed. So she has to call us at night.

This morning, Mr. Ferrer wants to order a reformat disk. What happened was that his friend tinkered with his computer which is capable of viewing and recording television show. He said that what he only does in his computer is to watch The Filipino Channel. He wasn’t able to order the disk because of invalid credit card. He offered me a cheque but we do not accept that so I asked for another card. He said that he could not provide one because he hasn’t paid the balance yet.

What made our conversation even more interesting is that he kept trying to find out if I am a Filipino. Had he asked me directly if I am a Filipino then I would answer him. But I have to follow the script.

“When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathe’a, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. – Matthew 27:57-58″

For the second time, I spent the Holy Week in a call center, answering calls from Americans. I had a weird caller last Good Friday (Black Saturday in the Philippines) who asked for my name. I can only laugh after the call because even if the customer was irate, he still found time to be religious enough to know of that part of the Bible, which I have quoted above.

We were supposed to have a meeting last Friday after our shift (most of us are logged in 5 am to 2 pm). It was reduced to a quick meeting because we might have some difficulty going home. It’s Good Friday and we might not have public transportation to take. I went home in Baras since I have to take some pictures on the images in the procession. It wasn’t difficult for me though, to get a ride last Friday.

Not that I am boasting, but I seldom got customers who were not happy with the information I provided them. In the present company, there was only one instance that I escalated the call to my team lead (because of the wrong information provided by the previous agent). I escalated another call about a week later but my TL wasn’t able to take the call since the customer already hang-up.

In my previous call center company, I was dinged (read: coached) because I refused to escalate the call to the supervisor. What happened was the customer called in and immediately asked for a supervisor. Common sense tells us that we get the concern of the customer and try to resolve the issue, without the call being escalated. But our QA, who is also the client, said that I should immediately transfer the call to sup. What happened to the one call resolution?

Currently, we have four or five new team members. Since our TL handles a new batch of TQs (transition queues) agents and we have different schedules, we try our very best to assist the new agents. What I noticed, however, is that whenever our TL is around, she takes sup calls from the new agents. But when she’s not in our shift, there are no sup calls.

How to avoid sup calls?

• Product knowledge. The more you know about the product, the more confident you are to answer the customer’s question, the more they trust you.
• Relax. If the customer is yelling at you, maintain your composure. Don’t let them to control you; you as the agent, should take control of the conversation.
• Let the customer talk. Make an impression that you’re there to listen and help him. Do not interrupt.
• KISS. Keep the explanation short and simple. Some of the customers are s-t-u…
• Keep with the pace and tone of voice of the customer.
• Shortcut. If the customer sounds like he doesn’t want to repeat the information given (name, phone number, etc.) and he does have a case number, ask the customer for a brief description only of the issue. Customer’s concern is more important that the name, which you can verify later.
• But if the customer doesn’t want to give any information, tell him that you are there to help him but you need an understanding of his problem so that you could make appropriate actions. Tell him that he needs to cooperate (without sounding that you are making a threat).

1. Compared to Filipinos who like doing things by themselves, Americans want everything to be spoonfed to them.

Since we are the frontliners for the American account of the computer company, we are the first persons customers call when they are having problems with the computer. Some of the customers I handled immediately report the error message they encountered, which may be both positive and negative. In a positive note, the technical support can immediately troubleshoot and diagnose the problem; however, sometimes, the error message are not that serious and all it would require is a restart of the computer or clicking the cancel option. Which brings me to my second point:

2. They seldom make research on what they paid for. I was a seatmate once of a tech support guy, and according to him, the old lady asked him how to use the computer. With their AHT (or average handle time) pegged as 12 minutes, it is difficult to explain to her everything that she wants to know on how to operate the computer. My seatmate told me that there should be a policy banning senior citizens from buying computers since they are not tech-savvy enough to know learn how to use the machine.

Unlike us Filipinos, where we would research first and will make sure that we are buying the right product, Amercans think that it is our responsibility to teach them everything.

3. Speaking of the old lady, it’s a practice of Americans to purchase something that they themselves would not use, or they will just buy it as a give to someone. Well, I wouldn’t be surprise since they have a strong purchasing power. And if they encountered problems with the product, in this case a computer, they call the manufacturer and not the person who gave the product. Sometimes they would ask us to reset the Windows password when they can actually ask the person to give them the password.

4. Even if they know that the problem with the product is not caused by the manufacturer, they blame the company for whatever damage, and they will say that it’s a product defect. One time, a male customer said that suddenly, one of the keys popped off. When I checked the database, the last incident reported on his computer was two years ago, and by the time he called, the warranty already expired. My philosophical instinct tells me that this is not a valid concern, since it has been two years since a problem occured. Why is he blaming the company?

5. They are loyal. If they liked a certain product, they are faithful to that brand.

6. But if they feel unsatisifed with the product, they will call the manufacturer and will tell the agent that s/he will make the world know how defective the product is.

7. They are willing to wait to have something repaired on their product.

8. They seldom get tired of giving their contact information like name, phone number and state, unless they’re already pissed off with the company.

9. They will complain to the company if they feel that they have been mistreated by the store who sold the product.