Help! I'm Too Good At My Job

Teddy917

I work at a call center. I'm supposed to keep my calls under 14.5 min. So I've been trying really hard and my average for the month is 10 min. Good, right? Not quite.

I found out from my boss that the higher-ups don't like a very low time because it looks like I'm not doing my job (which I am and he knows it). He told me that they want it in the 12-12.5 range ideally. That's two extra minutes! It doesn't sound like much but when you figure calls where they hang up or I have to transfer to another department bring down my average, that's a lot.

So my boss suggested that I chitchat more with the clients. I'm fine with doing that but there are some no nonsense people that just want to be on their way. Or people that you just can't get them talking.

Any ideas of topics to make my calls last longer? We're supposed to steer clear of religion, politics, and sports, for obvious reasons.

theartistformerlyknownas

Well that's a crappy situation.

Are there any times where you can buy some time by saying something's loading on the computer, and ask them about the weather where they are or anything? At least if it doesn't go anywhere you have a good excuse for 30 second of silence.

Although I generally hate talking on the phone, so I'm one of the no nonsense people.

missdelilah

I wish I could help. Personally I don't see the need to to chit chat when talking with customer service people most of the time.  If they instigate a chat, that's fine, but I wouldn't think to bring something up.  I'm always aware that there's a call back up and I assume their time is valuable.

FI says to listen to background noises.  If you can hear an animal, a meow or a bark, see if you can them talking about dogs and cats.  That buys him a lot of time.  Also, bring up kids if you hear them.  Apparently people like to talk about these things.  

Good luck with it!  I'm sure you'll work it out.  I think you just have to try some small talk techniques and see whether or not they work for you.

x

WinstonsGirl

Ugh.  I could never do that job.  I hate chit chat/small talk and I suck at it.  What are your calls about, as much as you can tell??  

JennyColada

I dunno man. If it were me, and if there were no minimum time that I'm required to make, then is just say fuck it and continue doing my job as I'm doing it. If they have a problem with how well I do my job and want to enforce a minimum call time then they'd have to do that.

lauraukoctober2014

In my job I'm as much target driven as customer service driven and perhaps I could be more friendly and chit chat a little more but my genuine reason is I simply cannot be bothered to I don't want to know what their dog is I don't in honesty care how they are. They've rang me for a specific reason they want to get a task ticked off their list and go about their business or worse if I've rang them I don't know what I am interrupting they don't want chit chat they want me gone.
It does sound like the sort of half baked idea my company would have really maximum call time but hey don't take that on board too much. But then moan when they have lots of dropped calls or calls waiting. Don't they realise for every 5 calls you ask about their dog they are potentially loosing a sale a client or whatever as call dropped.
At the moment we get six minutes administration time after each call I've got it down to a minute to a minute and a half as I've put some private time into pre writing text so I don't need to each call in my one to one they had a cheek to moan about my conversion calls to sales yeah love and I took 500 calls last month more than your top converter obviously I'm gonna get rubbish calls more

On my phone so don't judge writing grammar or anything else hehe

AddieCake

That's ridiculous. I would hate it if someone started making chitchat with me like that.

larrygaga

lolo883 said:

Well that's a crappy situation. Are there any times where you can buy some time by saying something's loading on the computer, and ask them about the weather where they are or anything? At least if it doesn't go anywhere you have a good excuse for 30 second of silence. Although I generally hate talking on the phone, so I'm one of the no nonsense people.

I think this is the only way to get more time and not piss off everyone you talk to 

artbyallie

Why the hell would he not just pull the recording of one of your calls to prove to the higher-ups that you're just efficient?

LadyMillil

I've never had anyone chit chat with me beyond "how are you today?" "I'm fine, how are you?" When I make a service call I want to be on the phone for as little time as possible. I don't want to talk about my cats or the weather. DH on the other hand loves it when the call person chats with him.

lyndausvi

I hate stupid chit chat with customer service people.   I have gotten a lot of "how's the weather?" questions.   I think they are stupid, but I answer just to be polite. 

huskypuppy14

Yeah I agree with everyone else, this makes no sense to me. I don't want to talk on the phone with customer service as it is. Most of the time it's during business hours, and I have work to do, and I'd rather not waste it on the phone. I want to be talking for as little time as possible. If people started talking about something they heard in the background, I'd think they were nosy, and get annoyed.

What is the point of having a minimum call time. Don't you have other customers you need to talk to?

What sort of call center is it? 

ETA: Nosy not noisy.

lyndausvi

huskypuppy14 said:

Yeah I agree with everyone else, this makes no sense to me. I don't want to talk on the phone with customer service as it is. Most of the time it's during business hours, and I have work to do, and I'd rather not waste it on the phone. I want to be talking for as little time as possible. If people started talking about something they heard in the background, I'd think they were nosy, and get annoyed.

What is the point of having a minimum call time. Don't you have other customers you need to talk to?

What sort of call center is it? 

ETA: Nosy not noisy.

Good point.  There is not thing worse than hearing "your call will be answered by the next available agent" and "your wait time is approximately 5 minutes."    I pretty annoyed that those things are a result of idol chit chat.

Teddy917

My calls are computer repair. I agree with all of you that it makes no sense to keep them on longer than necessary. If I can get your problem fixed or at least dispatched, transferred, sent to a store, send someone to your house in 6 min, you'd probably be thrilled that I didn't take up your whole afternoon.

I had one call where I tried the background noise question. It sounded like there was a duck, so I asked her if she was by a pond. She wasn't and it turned out to be her baby. Luckily she got a laugh out of it. But that could've gone really badly.

Maybe I'll just keep getting my calls low and if anybody is bothered by it, I'll tell them to listen to my calls and look at my surveys (a 10, a 9, an 8 which is not as good as it sounds, and a 5 which sucks but overall not bad). And if all else fails, I'll show them this thread to show that the majority of people: 1. Don't want to chitchat. 2. Don't want to wait any longer than necessary just because I'm chatting with another client.

theartistformerlyknownas

Teddy917 said:

My calls are computer repair. I agree with all of you that it makes no sense to keep them on longer than necessary. If I can get your problem fixed or at least dispatched, transferred, sent to a store, send someone to your house in 6 min, you'd probably be thrilled that I didn't take up your whole afternoon. I had one call where I tried the background noise question. It sounded like there was a duck, so I asked her if she was by a pond. She wasn't and it turned out to be her baby. Luckily she got a laugh out of it. But that could've gone really badly. Maybe I'll just keep getting my calls low and if anybody is bothered by it, I'll tell them to listen to my calls and look at my surveys (a 10, a 9, an 8 which is not as good as it sounds, and a 5 which sucks but overall not bad). And if all else fails, I'll show them this thread to show that the majority of people: 1. Don't want to chitchat. 2. Don't want to wait any longer than necessary just because I'm chatting with another client.

LMAO! I'd bet more often than not, your customers needing computer repairs will not be sitting near duck ponds. That's hilarious.

Teddy917

lolo883 said:

Teddy917 said:

My calls are computer repair. I agree with all of you that it makes no sense to keep them on longer than necessary. If I can get your problem fixed or at least dispatched, transferred, sent to a store, send someone to your house in 6 min, you'd probably be thrilled that I didn't take up your whole afternoon.

I had one call where I tried the background noise question. It sounded like there was a duck, so I asked her if she was by a pond. She wasn't and it turned out to be her baby. Luckily she got a laugh out of it. But that could've gone really badly.

Maybe I'll just keep getting my calls low and if anybody is bothered by it, I'll tell them to listen to my calls and look at my surveys (a 10, a 9, an 8 which is not as good as it sounds, and a 5 which sucks but overall not bad). And if all else fails, I'll show them this thread to show that the majority of people: 1. Don't want to chitchat. 2. Don't want to wait any longer than necessary just because I'm chatting with another client.

LMAO! I'd bet more often than not, your customers needing computer repairs will not be sitting near duck ponds. That's hilarious.

I've had one that was at a park with her kid, another at a restaraunt, one on a train, I even had one that from the flushing sounds was in a public restroom. At this point nothing surprises me.

lauraukoctober2014

I had a customer who was in the bath. They rang me. And u could hear the splashing hehe

charlottesmom0626

Teddy917 said:

My calls are computer repair. I agree with all of you that it makes no sense to keep them on longer than necessary. If I can get your problem fixed or at least dispatched, transferred, sent to a store, send someone to your house in 6 min, you'd probably be thrilled that I didn't take up your whole afternoon. I had one call where I tried the background noise question. It sounded like there was a duck, so I asked her if she was by a pond. She wasn't and it turned out to be her baby. Luckily she got a laugh out of it. But that could've gone really badly. Maybe I'll just keep getting my calls low and if anybody is bothered by it, I'll tell them to listen to my calls and look at my surveys (a 10, a 9, an 8 which is not as good as it sounds, and a 5 which sucks but overall not bad). And if all else fails, I'll show them this thread to show that the majority of people: 1. Don't want to chitchat. 2. Don't want to wait any longer than necessary just because I'm chatting with another client.

This happens to me a lot actually but with real ducks and others. Sometimes when I'm in big rooms with a lot of birds at work I'll answer my phone and generally people ask if I'm okay, or if this is a bad time.

[Deleted User]

As someone who worked in call centers for years (technical support), I find this surprising. I know all centers have their own criteria for stats, but both the ones I was at wanted all the numbers as low as possible so you could move on to answering the next call. Their concern that you may not be doing your job just based on comparison with the times of your colleagues is crazy! Are the calls monitored? If they are so worried, why don't they just listen to your calls? It just seems very unreasonable to me. The environment is stressful enough without worrying about something like this. 

One thing you could do (if it applies and if you don't already) is educate your customers on each call - some people really don't care, but for many if you explain why you're doing things and something about the process, they could extend your call times a bit. Plus it can help with first call resolution too.

huskypuppy14

So every time I call someone and they say "sorry our computers are slow" they are really lying to increase the time they are on the phone with me? 

Teddy917

teenabeenerz said:

As someone who worked in call centers for years (technical support), I find this surprising. I know all centers have their own criteria for stats, but both the ones I was at wanted all the numbers as low as possible so you could move on to answering the next call. Their concern that you may not be doing your job just based on comparison with the times of your colleagues is crazy! Are the calls monitored? If they are so worried, why don't they just listen to your calls? It just seems very unreasonable to me. The environment is stressful enough without worrying about something like this. 

One thing you could do (if it applies and if you don't already) is educate your customers on each call - some people really don't care, but for many if you explain why you're doing things and something about the process, they could extend your call times a bit. Plus it can help with first call resolution too.

Love the education idea. Unfortunately that is considered training which cost extra. I can do a little bit of explaining but not much. Like one time I had a really old couple that didn't know how to use Google and that was right on the border. While I'm doing something, I can say "I'm going into your settings" etc., but I can't really go much deeper. I do walk that line regularly though and my boss doesn't seem to mind so maybe I'll try doing some more educating. I don't think anyone would mind being kept on the phone for a little bit longer if it was because I was teaching them how to fix the problems themselves for if the problem occurs again.

lc07

I'm so pissed off thinking that some technical support call centers have wasted even just 2 minutes of my time needlessly!

Also, just curious but when you put people on hold do you actually put them on hold? PSA: when I worked in an auto insurance call center and would put people on hold, I would really just mute myself so I could ask a question to the person training me or pull something up on my computer, but I could still hear whatever the other person is saying to their spouse or dog or self or whatever. Because of that I'm always cautious not to start bitching about the person "helping" me when I'm on "hold".

Teddy917

lc07 said:

I'm so pissed off thinking that some technical support call centers have wasted even just 2 minutes of my time needlessly!

Also, just curious but when you put people on hold do you actually put them on hold? PSA: when I worked in an auto insurance call center and would put people on hold, I would really just mute myself so I could ask a question to the person training me or pull something up on my computer, but I could still hear whatever the other person is saying to their spouse or dog or self or whatever. Because of that I'm always cautious not to start bitching about the person "helping" me when I'm on "hold".

It depends. I'm supposed to keep my hold time down. So it depends on what it is. Most of the time I do really put it on a real hold. Some people do forget to hang up their phone before complaining to someone and it's sort of funny.