Posted in Calling on 03/02/2006 11:39 pm by
This was one of the most hillarious calls on our floor..And the entire floor was rolling with laughter by the end of the call.
People involved : Raza , Tarun , Layats & Me.
Raza : Thanking u for calling AT&T…………………
How may I help you today?
Remos: Hi, I am Remo here…I am unable to log on to the Internet.
Raza : Sir, Could you tell me what error message do u get?
Remos: It says, huh!!..sometin like “Invalid username or password”
Raza was damn happy, this was one of our most common & easier issues which could be resolved in approx 5 minutes. And getting such an issue meant, Quick resolution , save on AHT(Average Handling Time) of the call & Satisfactory survey results.
Raza : Ok, Sir I would help you reset the password.
Remos: I donot want it reset. What do you think must have happened?
Raza was frustrated now. When he could quickly change the password & provided a quick solution, Remos was adamant on knowing why his old password was not working.
I, Tarun & Layats were having no calls till then as there was low call volume that day.
Raza had gone mad for the past 15 minutes trying different ways of asking Remos to enter the password, with Caps On & OFF. It didnot help.Finally he removed his headset & put the speakers on. Now all 4 of us were listening on the call.
Remos: Tell me what must have happened?
Raza (gave a rude look & finally said in the sweetest voice): Well Sir, did u share the password with anyone?
Remos: NO !!! I have never shared my pwds.
Raza: Ok! Did you change it through the settings option.
Remos : Oh NO NO NO !!! I never touch there. My administrator told me never to?
Raza: Who administrator?
Remos: The guy who did my connections.
Raza was really mad. He was calling a cable fixing guy the ADMINISTRATOR . And why didnot he ask this guy to come over for help rather than calling us.
In a much Sweeter Voice..
Raza: Ok!! So do u remember anything that must have happened in your absence like, kids fiddling with the keyboard or so, which might have resulted in a change of password.
Remos: Naah!! I dun have kids here. Its only me & my old wife.
I , Layats & Tarun looked at each other & gave an amused smile.
Remos: Hey I remember now….You know, just yesterday , ‘My Cat Pissed on the keyboard, do you think that could have changed the password ? ‘
I had fallen off my chair, Tarun was hitting his head & Layats just couldnt stop giggling. Raza desperately searched for the MUTE button on the phone & the minute he had hit it we were bursting with laughter. The entire floor was standing by then & we could’nt control at all. Remos kept shouting from the other end ‘ Roger are you there?’ Roger was Razas nick name. And then Tarun had a brainwave. He whispered something in Razas ear & Raza took over the call.
Raza: Sir that could be a possibilty…
Remos: Ahh..I thought so the damn cat !!
Raza: Do you have a DOG ?
Remos: No !! Why?
Raza: Thank God ! Coz if a dog shits on the keyboard, your account with us would permanently be cancelled.
The whole floor was rolling with laughter now. But yes, it was a big mistake on Raza’s part to have said something like this to a customer.Tough it just meant good humor for those idiots, Raza was whacked real bad after this call.
As, for Remos, he still thinks he did a brilliant job in getting this to Razas notice & might keep his cat away from the computer forever.
Posted in Calling on 03/02/2006 11:13 pm by
Its very Hard to forget the first things, in modes of life. Then be it your first day at school, 1st day a college, 1st crush, 1st job, 1st car…& all those things which are 1st in queue. I can’t forget my 1st call.
All of us were anxiously waiting for the beep on our headsets. All 40 new joinees on the floor & ‘BEEP’..Why am I always the Unlucky one?..Mine was the first to hit the call on the entire bay of 40.And up I jumped with my hand waving in the air. One of the floor walkers saw me & came running by.
“Has the call started yet?” He asked in whispers.
I was soo nervous , I just nodded.
“Then say your opening line !!!” , he looked at me with big eyes.
‘Ohh i dun remember the opening line . And wheres that paper. Someone from the side bay picked it up’.
Without even recollecting the opening line , I said “Hello !!”
Oh! OH!..thats mistake number 1…never say a Hello at the opening, its unprofessional.
Somehow I managed to blutter out my opening line & with a lot of help from my floor walker finished my 1st call successfully.
As the months passed by, I started meeting the 3 kinds…….
Posted in Calling on 02/22/2006 11:32 pm by
The Big day was there in just 45 days. The training days went in a Jiffy & it was time for the real thing. No mock calling, no trainers abusing(to make us get the feel)..It was all gonna turn true in just 10 seconds.
40 of us.. all trainees were taken to the floor..Its a place where only Agents are allowed & we werent even allowed to get a glimpse of it until that day ( when i say Agents I aint talking about ‘007′, but the security at the place can deffinately give u the feel of a top CBI company).
We were given a hands on training on the Phones & the headsets in the Training room. And as we walked in through the huge glass doors on a floor with hundreds of bays, that looked like tiny cabinets with computers & a lottaf decorations all over( well the cabinets werent tiny at all & we realized that soon, when we couldnt grip each others collars in case of help) i gulped in all the decor of the place.
There were 10 guys standing on the floor and the Grin on their faces made it clear..that they were on the top step of an elevator, where we had just begun. We were introduced to all the 10 tenure guys who were the floor walkers, to guide us in case we required any help.
All of us were given a computer each and then asked to check the headset.
” OK Guys, Just 10 seconds to go & you hit the ‘Auto In’ button on your phones”..
i just glanced around, my heart beats were racing, the look on my face declared i was dead nervous & i wanted to know how my co-trainees were doing. Some of the smart ones were really excited; the rest, well they were in worst cases, than I was. And I was seriously relieved to see the horror look on their face, atleast it made me feel i was not the only one at the verge of a nervous breakdown. A quick Xeroxed paper with the opening line was passed to everyone & it also contained a list of the first few lines to start off the coversation before beginning the actually troubleshooting. I was a technical representative & was on a job to fix any computer with modem, virus, internet issues.
We were also given instructions to raise our hands incase we didnot understand what to do next so that the 10 senior fellows sweeping the floor for a confused trainee would run upto him for support..
10 — Ok!! get ready Mana…
09 — Shit where’s the paper??
08 — Ohh Gosh the map is soo small…
07 — Wheres the damn clock with the EST, CST, PST & MST timezones..
06 — I hope my headset is clear…
05 — Let me quickly have a look at the rest…
04 — thumbs up signs flying all across the floor…
03 –Ohh SHITTTT…Am I gonna faint ???
02 — DHAK, DHAK
01 — Why is my seat wet??
“AUTO IN” …..
Posted in Calling on 02/22/2006 10:26 pm by
How I got thru’ the company? Why did I ever choose to work there? Why only 9 months? …are’nt really important questions.
Lets just say ‘ I was trying something new ‘.
The people i met right from the first day have left their impressions too BOLD.
And the training period was another memorable serious. Not only are people in America funny, but their accent is equally twisted.
You dun say a ‘Telephone’ , its a ‘The-le-phon’ …Its not a ‘Picture’. its a ‘Phic-chure’..And the ‘R’ goes on forever in a word..I wonder how would they pronounce ’Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrromm’ and yea!, u gotta ‘Bite the V’s and Kiss the ‘W’s’ to get a word correctly pronounced if its starting from a V or a W (trust me I had bloody lips & two guys smiling in the attempt to get it right ).
Nonetheless, in one line (& this one’s a big line),
‘ I lost my amazing talking speed of 120 words/per minute to less than 60 words a minute (they understand language only when its slow, but i think its coz most of them are deaf), I forgot the real spellings of most words beacuse of their so-called ‘prominent pronounciations’ , the ‘t’s are ‘thees’, the ‘P’s’ are ‘Phees’ and i still cant get to say the word ‘Potty’ any more coz it got converted to a ‘Ph-a-tty’ (someone not knowing the accent might assume I am inviting them to a party with my niece if i wud say “Taking chottu, to a ph-a-tty”) and finally i curse them from the bottom of my heart for this, coz whenever someone says ‘PARDON !!’ .. i start saying the entire line again, IN PHONETICS.’
whoosh!! i am done with my one line.
By the way, they would never understand the line above, coz they are used to frequent ‘full-stops’. They prefer using smaller lines for easy readability & understanding ( i assume here once again, that they just dont understand bigger words said together).
Posted in Calling on 02/21/2006 11:32 pm by
Hmm.. I know what everyone’s thinking at this moment..
But do not worry, this is no imitation to Chetan Bhagat’s ‘A Nite at the Call Center’.
This is no fiction story & no words collected on a survey.
It is a genuine & original effort to put u guys through the many learnings I have gone through in the most thrilling 9 months of a BPO industry.
The view point of many youths & moreover the older generation of today has a NO-NO for the Call-centers. But trust me guys, if only it was a day time job the other industries would be employeeless.
And there’s lot more to ‘Calling’ here. The best thing you learn is “CONTROL over your TEMPER”. The rest of things like customer satisfaction, amazing voice quality, accent are just background scores.
The best thing I have learnt so far is “I AM PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN”. No I aint the nice girl from the series “India Calling”…but there’s a reason why i have pronounced the line above.
And to compliment that, the 2nd best thing i have learnt is ” THANK GOD I AM NOT AN AMERICAN”.
And this is how we begin…………
i am not a rationalist, nationalist or anything to do with going against a Country.
But thank God!! I am not an American…
In 9 months I have learnt a lot about their culture, their favourite sports, festive days.. but the most important thing I have learnt is their categorization..
There are 3 kinds of Americans:
1. The Rich & so-called smarties,
2. The Dumb and
3. The Dumber…
And as you go through the most hillarious experiences I have had, lemme quickly give you an introduction to these 3 kinds..
1. The very first kind , are the Corporate Americans. They are a little rich than the rest & anybody owning a computer in their office knowing the ALT+CTRL+DEL keys is a techi for them.
They assume they are the smartest & would tell you atleast 3 times on a call ” i’ll Sue you if u dun get this fixed.”
2. The 2nd kind would be ‘THE DUMB’. They are usually the 50 plus age group retired American Citizens who have no life(i assume) & their sons or daughters gift them a computer every Christmas.
They too assume that they are smart enough to operate a computer & when they arent able to switch it on ( this is mainly because they never put on the power supply ), they would open up the entire CPU and then call up the toll-free number for support, “hey Sonny, I have a small issue with my computer, can U help me out?”..YEA RIGHT…U screw up the CPU & call us & then finally end up saying ” Are u in India? I hate Indians”.
3. The last of its kind are “THE DUMBER”. They are the sweetest of the lot. The minute they call you and before you can finish the opening statement, they would exicitedly tell you that they do not know the ABC of a computer.They are the easiest to handle & the best part is, they never SWEAR.
Jus’ remember all 3 types as i tell you through my upcoming blogs, ‘My shocking Rendevous with Americans’…
…………………….and before I finish this blog lemme say my opening statement so that u guys get my introduction too…
“THANK YOU FOR CALLING AT&T WORLDNET TECHNICAL SUPPORT. MY NAME IS MONICA ANDREWS. MAY I HAVE YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME PLEASE…”
