Work Schedule at Its Best! + Worst Customer Service Ever - Follow Up

This month is not a good month for me. Why? Oh I'll tell you why.

I've been posting in my blog time and again that I ain't a morning person. This fact has also been well-known to all my colleagues as well as supervisors so that whenever anyone of them need to change their work schedule or if any needs arise for emergency case, they can buzz me in to work in the noon shift or anytime but morning shift. In return, I'll also "gladly" change my morning shifts that I've available in that month's work schedule with whoever that needs it.

But, things never go as smoothly as one expected. When I opened up the work schedule for this month couple of weeks ago. I've got a shock of my life. I gotta work almost half month of morning shift! WADAFAK is wrong with these people sitting on their big fat asses above?!?! 13 fucking days of morning?? You don't believe me?? Here's the summary of the work schedule of this month. Names and exact schedule time has been edited to prevent any legal issues.




That's not it. In the middle of these work schedules, I'll get my deserved off days. You might be thinking, "Nah, it ain't that bad afterall. You're stil getting your off days." Yea, rite. What if I tell you all my off days are being splitted?? As in one off day at start of the week, and another off day might be placed on either middle of the week or perhaps end of the week. It's goddamn tiring if those off days are being splitted like this. I got sooooo fucking exausted for the past few days when I got home, that I knocked myself out on bed around 9pm everyday.

But recently, words have it that something might change on our department's work schedule starting April 2009. I just hope that this current stupid, retard work schedule feud that I'm facing at that moment can be resolved when April comes.

On a side note, on my previous post about worst customer service ever over HERE. I've gotten a reply from the financial institution today on my complain about their customer service in the evening 2 days ago. It took them fucking 2 days to reply me with this stupid, standardized reply. Here it is:

Thank you for e-mailing us.

We would appreciate if you could allow us sometime to investigate on below claim and we will update you accordingly.

Thank you.

Rite. It seems like my 'feedback' has gotten their attention afterall. After my goddamn long email to them 2 days ago, they replied my complaint with a simple 2-liners. Wonder how long will it take for them to get back to me on this. It's gonna be weekend already. Sigh. Feck it! I'ma enjoy my weekend and let those retards crack their head on it.

And about my mate's complaint to the local fast food delivery company. Seems like her complaint went down the drain, sinking without a trace already. It's been almost a week since she provided her mobile phone number for their further 'investigation' already. Talk about efficiency eh? How ironic!

That's all from me. sinoffire, signing off!

Worst Customer Service Ever?

Told y'all I'm gonna 'meet' you lots very soon rite?? Initially, i intended to write something else in here but after I left the office today, I decided to call up to one of the local financial institutions to check on the status of my renewal card that I yet to receive to date. But it wasn't a very pleasant experience for me. Hence I wrote them a goddamn long complain email in their website. I'ma copy/paste the content of the complaint herein my blog. This email virtually contains everything that I wanna say about the joker who picked up my call. Here goes:

I’m really dissapointed today when I called up to your customer service earlier. Here’s the incident.

I called up to your customer service today around 4:45pm to enquire about my renewal card that I yet to receive todate. As usual, after hearing & pressing all the buttons through the IVR, ie option 1, then option 1 again, then option 0 to speak with customer service executive. A male agent picked up my call. There was no proper call opening, which is an essential for any customer service centre. That’s fine, I was in a hurry, therefore I duly gave him my cardnumber to ask on the status of my renewal card.

Without notifying me at first, I was put on hold (I presumed that he was putting me on ‘mute’ status at first as there were a moment of dead air in the midst of it), listening to some advertisements from your bank, while he was doing some checking at the background. Few minutes later, he came back to me and informed me that my renewal card will reach my billing address within this week or latest by next week. Fair enough, just what I needed. I then further asked him on the reason why the delay as my card expiration date was back in Feb2009. Again I was put on hold without being notified at all. Another few more minutes passed by, the line got cut off just like that.

I never bother to call back because the ‘agent’ has got my cardnumber and he should be returning my call to advise me further on the enquiry that I was seeking. It’s close to 6pm now. There’s no sign of the ‘return call’ from that agent that entertained me.

Noticed what is missing here in my complaint?? Verification! Where on earth is the verification?! He didn’t even bother to ask any verification questions at all! I’m surprised that such mistake could happen to such major financial institution as your goodself. What if I’m a fraudster that is calling in at that point of time and request to change the billing address? Am I supposed to bare whatever cost later that incurred onto my credit card? I’m truly disappointed. I was going to ask a few more questions about my account, but I gave up on it. Don’t ask me about his name, ‘cos I didn’t have a chance to do so with him busy putting me on hold for every single question that I asked him.

As mentioned earlier, my renewal card was expired back in Feb2009. Shouldn’t it be that my new card arriving during the month of Feb09, before the existing card expired? There weren’t a lot of public holidays during the month of Feb2009, my mom is at home 24/7 to receive the card on my behalf. Will someone please enlighten me on the cause of delay?

I never call your customer service for few years already and this is the first time I decided to speak with your customer service. Guess what? It wasn’t a pleasant one.

I’d like an explanation on this. Please retrieve back the call that I made yesterday at the time given above, and what kind of action are you going to take to solve this matter.

There you go. The exact content of my complaint to the local financial institution. I'm expecting a reply from them, be it via email, or phone call. Will update in here once I gotten the reply from them, hopefully tomorrow.

Here's another incident that happened to my mate the other day. She called up for some fast food delivery service into her apartment as it was almost 10pm and we didn't have the intention to go out and hunting for food anymore. But, the outcome was really disappointing as well. Therefore, my mate sent an complain email to their customer service online. Here's the exact content of the complain:

I had made a telephone delivery on 07March2009 (Saturday) around 10pm to make an order. A lady operator had then requested my address details. Obviously, she doesn't know which part of my residential area is, and therefore assured me that she would called me back in 10 minutes. I never asked for her name as I assumed that she would called me back. However, 10 minutes had passed, and not a single call from her or anyone from your company. She should have the courtesy to call us. We have waited for over an hour for her call. I never bother to call again since it is your responsibility to call back your customer as promised. If this is the kind of treatment you have been giving your customers after all these years, I doubt that it will leave a good impression on your company. I, for one is truly disappointed.

And she received a reply via email from one of the agent the very next day, here goes:

Thank you for your feedback and for sharing with us your concern. I apologize for the inconvinience you have experienced; this is not typical of our company's and we take this issue very seriously. Unfortunately we are unable to investigate further on your concern as we lack your telephone number, and need further details for our investigation.

Please call us back on our direct line to enable us to assist you better.

OK. That's the end of the email reply. My mate then provided the agent her the exact phone number that she used to make phone calls for delivery on that day for their "checking" purposes. It's been more than 3 days now. Stil nothing from them. Bunch of suckers I'd say.

Customer Service at its best eh?? *sarcasm detected*

Don't worry lads, I'll update you lots on the outcome on both incident once gotten the reply from respective agents.

sinoffire, ranting off.

Book By Its Cover? Definitely Not!

It's been an awwwwwwww~~ful while since I last updated in here. Yea yea yea, I know I know. THE story eh?? That's the main reason why it's abit deserted in here. 'Cos I was busy "collecting" information here and there about this matter. As per my previous post, I promised you lots that I’m gonna tell y’all a mind-disturbing story soon. I know it has nothing to do with call centre, but I just want to share this story with all my beloved readers, just to beware. Without further adue, here goes.

Just recently, my friend, (let’s just give her a name a’ite??) A, met with this guy and started go out with him. Couple of weeks later, things started to get serious between ‘em. Therefore, as a normal couple would do, they’ll start live together, go out on a date, everything that they do will always be together, well, love is blind when all these “love” stuff starts kicking in, rite? Cool.

Well, the guy is a rather traditional thinking kinda guy. Why am I saying this? On what ground? Based on what? Now, he loves to relate everything to his parents; he can do whatever he wants, but his ‘girl friend’ can’t do whatever that she wish to do; he wants to know everything about his ‘girl friend’ but he can keep secrets from her; he believes that his ‘girl friend’ must prioritize him on top of all others including her job. She must be always available whenever she’s call upon by this guy, these are just some examples that I can think for now. You know the drill.

This IS exactly what my friend, A has encountered currently. When it all first started, this ‘traditional-thinking-guy’, **nicknamed S** seems to be a very good ‘candidate’ for whatever that she seeks of so far, caring, loving, sensitive, bla bla bla……but as things go along, she found out that this guy is not as simple as she thinks. S is MORE than what she expected. It’s WAAAAAAAAAY more.

On a daily basis, S will comment on the way that A dressed up, be it to work, or out on casual dating. If he doesn’t like it ie. Too revealing, he will command A to return to the bedroom and change to another not-too-revealing attire. *FYI: A is almost the same age as mine, and S is almost...err...who gives a flying fark about him here?!* A female working lady should know what is best for her to wear on any occasion by now. No advise should be needed. What makes S think that his sense of fashion is anything but above the rest??

Just one general question to all my readers: Is wearing a mini-skirt with jeans material paired with normal tee-shirt during shopping on a normal weekend consider “revealing”? **see picture below for length of mini skirt** For me, I DON”T THINK SO! But this guy, S certainly thinks that IT IS F**KING REVEALING!!!! FFS, what century are we in now?! It’s 2009 going into 2010 soon, what the fuck is he thinking?! And you think that is all?? WRONG! More to follow.




During a recent public holiday, this friend of mine, A was invited by S, to join him for reunion dinner. For us, this ‘reunion dinner’ is supposed to be held among family members and its next of kin, but not outsiders. Knowing this, my friend politely turned down his request to attend the dinner. When S got to know about this matter, he went haywire and start doing those unimaginable stuff onto A, ** I ain’t elaborate much on this here ‘cos it’s really mind-boggling on those stuff that S did onto A** claiming that the reunion dinner is a compulsory attendance and he won’t accept NO for an answer. All my friend said was: “Sorry, I ain’t going to the dinner ‘cos this is your family reunion dinner. I’m no one to you, just your new girl-friend. We’re just started going out for a couple of months. It’ll be a different matter altogether if we’re married.”

Is that reply rude? I certainly don’t think so. A is just trying to talk some sense into S’s big, thick skull, and into his puny, worthless brain. But yet, her words don’t seems to have any effect onto S.

Being a persistent bastard as he is, without notifying A, he drove his pathetic car and fetch A right after she got outta office block and drive her over for the “compulsory reunion dinner.” Furthermore, she was somehow ‘force’ into promised the bastard’s parent that she WILL be there on the very next day after the reunion dinner, and there’s a dress code in force by the parents ie no blue or black attire allowed during the gathering on that day. WTF?!?! DRESS CODE?!?! Are they still living in the 80s or 90s?! WADAFAK is wrong with these people? It wasn’t a very pleasant experience for A at all.

In work, as both of ‘em working in the same dept, and in the same goddamn MNC company, they tend to come across each other’s work daily. As a marketing executive that they are, he still thinks that he is the BEST above the rest. He teaches A how to deal “effectively” with customers, and all the DOs and DON’Ts in handling a customer. In fact, this bastard is one rank lower than A and he’s not even meeting all the sales targets on a monthly basis. *LMAO* Expert?? I doubt so. Expert in Bullshiting, yes. Thought so.

As months go by, things didn’t go well between both S & A. Since day one they met, S somehow found out that A is having some minor financial difficulties. Not that she wanna let him know that she has that problem, but she just thought that this is her own problem and she would like to settle it off herself. Again, S went berserk after he found out this incident, raising his voice over A on how couples/lovers should be faithful to each other & shouldn’t keep any secrets and bla bla bla…she told him the truth. She DID NOT expect anything outta it as well. She just wanna voiced it out to her loved ones since that S knew it off hand himself. I know A for a long enough time. She certainly not this kinda girl that will go around asking people for $$$$. She would rather keep it all to herself instead of running her mouth to the whole wide world saying: “WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR $” like you see on local tele show.

Outta nowhere. S came out and ‘lend’ her some $$$ to get through the tough time. A turned it down at the first place as she doesn’t need it at all. She wanna settle this all on her own albeit she knows it’s tougher to do it. But when S insisted, hey, why not? A told S that she’ll returned the $$ to him ASAP. S said that there’s no hurry for it as they’re couple (for now) and it is him who lend the $$$ to her on his own free will.

Another few months passed, things got sourer amongst them. A finally couldn’t stand it after all the abovementioned matter happened to her on a daily basis. Put yourself into her shoes. What would you do? Of course you will ask for break-off. S promised A that he’ll curb his anger, change all his aforementioned behaviors and turn over a new leaf just for A. But heck, old habits die hard. Bad stuff repeated itself and this time, no more excuses. A decided to take it up onto S and break this relationship off once and for all. And S duly succumbed to it.

Tell me lads, when a relationship turns sour and a break-off is the final resolution to it. What would one do, be it from male’s perspective or from female’s perspective. Let the humble me analyze this for you in point form:

Male’s perspective:
- regretted
- get on with it
- get another new girl friend
- consider the previous relationship as another ‘stepping stone’ to one more better relationship

Female’s perspective:
- regretted for knowing this bastard
- cry for at least few days on bed, wetting the blanket/pillows/bolster in the process.
- Get on with life.
- Concentrate on job
- Make oneself busier than before to forget the whole breakup.

But in this case. Things seem to be different. The guy apparently asked the girl to return whatever shit that he gave her during their relationship period. Flowers, home decorations’ stuff and most of all, $$$.

Fine. The girl, A, returned everything to the bastard. Due to the fact that both of ‘em are office mates that work in the same department, in the same room, it makes thing even easier when this kinda ‘awkward’ situation arises. A returned everything to the bastard in the office. What makes A abit surprised is that, all the stuff that she returned to the bastard, he dumped it all into the dustbin. Not that she cares or anything like that, but she’s stil surprised by his action afterall those stuff are his, and this is what he did. Owh well, those are his own stuff bought using his own $$$, to hell with it what he likes to do with it, rite? That is not all. Remember earlier I told you lads about the $$$ the he lent to her? S wanted her to return the $$$ to him at that point of time without delay. If she can’t do so, he wants her to sign an “IOU” letter in front of him as a proof.

Now, this is where a stupid joke comes into my mind. An “IOU” letter is supposed to be signed upon transfer of funds instead of after the transfer of funds, correct me if I’m wrong on this. But this joker/bastard/whatever-shit-you-wanna-call-him asked her to sign “IOU” few months after the transfer of funds, and after all things went wrong amongst them. How daft can one be?? In addition to that, those stuff that A returned to S in the office are just portion of what he ‘gave’ her in the office. There’re stil afew ‘leftovers’ in her house. One fine day, outta nowhere, this bastard showed up in her doorstep requesting to take back all the gift that he gave him. How low can a male go on a situation like this??

With these days’ advanced technology, the internet is really an essential tool in one’s life. There are loads of social network kinda websites available eg. facebook, myspace, friendster, Tagged, Hi5 etc etc. Why am I bringing this up? Well, so happen that both of the ‘actor’ & ‘actress’ in this true story have an account in one of the social network websites. This ‘actor’ started to message everyone in actress’s friends’ list about the bad things that she had done throughout the whole period when they were together. FFS, he’s a guy. How low can one be, bad-mouthing a woman who has done nothing that serious to harm him, and yet he went to the extent to announce it to the whole wide world about the bad things that she had done, instead he left out the good things. I’ve got nothing to say on this. He is just a disgrace for all male species.

Alrite, my rants over for now. A is stil getting harassed off and on now after breaking off for almost a month now. For those who intend to go into a relationship, please beware. As the old saying goes: “Do not judge a book from its cover”. You might be wrong to a certain extent.

It's midnite now, I gotta hit the sack now. I've got few more stuff to rant about recently. Bloody work schedule is taking a toll on me now. See 'ya guys soon, and I mean REAL SOON.

Phone/Call Routing - End

Remember about my numerous rant about how rubbish it is, that the phone/call routing in my office? In case you haven’t, please, puh-lease head on HERE to read it first.

Now, just couple of days back. One of my mates was working nite shift with one of the supervisors that is very close to us, albeit from other department. She, *yes, it’s a SHE. Stil single and available. Those who are interested, please drop me an email. I’ll hook you guys up, for free!* is a goddamn GOOD supervisor when she was with our department. She is capable of making the impossible into possible. She’s got it all. Hats off to her. I ain’t gonna do a background check on her herein my blog, like my current supervisor that I wrote about previously in HERE. Reason being, well, there’s no reason for that. It’s my fuckin’ blog. I have my own reason for not writing a background check on her in here. So, stop pestering me for that.

Slightly went off topic already. Ok. My mate is complaining about the same thing that most of us encountered – calls got into his line, but not his midnite shift partner. Therefore, this lovely supervisor did a number of test calls. And you know what? The end result of the test call on my mate’s first nite shift of the week, 20-5. That’s 20 calls ( all test calls) got into my mate’s line, while the other 5 went into his partner’s line that nite. Put yourself into my mate’s pity shoe. Imagine you’re answering all the goddamn calls on majority of the nite, while your partner is snoring at the other end. How’s that sound to you? Of course you will be pissing your head off by now.

Once M, *ok. Let’s call this lovely supervisor M, shall we?* obtained all the necessary data throughout the nite, she sent an email to those nerds in I.T. department for their analysis. The next nite, my mate sent me a copy of the email containing the reply from those nerds. Here’s the content of it:

Nice preliminary work and findings which make our job easier and faster to narrow the problem. I wish your other colleague has similar work ethic and practice like you whenever they report any issue to us.

All the routings condition were set to deliver call to CSE with minimum ready time. (Ready time = time when the agent is ready to receive call) This caused CSE that just answer a call receive the next call in queue almost immediately than the other CSE with the same skill which has longer ready time.

Solution:
I have modify the routing condition so it will deliver call to CSE with high (max) ready time or in other word call will be distributed to most idle CSE . With this condition, CSE who is idle longer will be the receiver for the next call in queue.

Ok. There’re 2 things to note in this reply from the nerd:

First paragraph: Nicely put by the nerd. Good opening, brilliant with a lil bit of sarcasm at the end. Wait! That means there were similar complaints being raised on the same goddamn fucking issue previously??!!! WTF?!?!

Second paragraph: It’s pretty much self-explanatory. That means all these while, we were answering calls like a mad dog, one call after another non-stop!!! Jesus Christ! How stupid can that be!?!?! This is the very first time in my call centre tenure that this kinda call routing system exist in such big company. I’m gutted to be honest with ‘ya.

Now that the problem is solved. There won’t be any more rant from me on the call routing system in my company, for now. ‘cos I don’t know if their system will screw up one fine day and every changes fall back to its original state. Finger cross.

I’m working nite shift now. So far so good. The supervisor *nop, not M tonite. It’s another supervisor* that worked with me tonite is very ‘good’. She did something no one has done before so far. She ‘took the initiative’ to turn off the lights in my department, allowing me and my midnite partners to work on our own, without getting ‘disturbed’. Owh hell yeah!!! I like this place, for once. *laughing like a mad dog*.

I’m gonna doze off in a short while. Sinoffire signing off now.

I promise you lots, there’ll be a new story that happened to one of my female friends recently. It’s a mind-disturbing story. So stay tuned.