PSA from an Outgoing Call Center Agent
I worked as an Outgoing Call Center Agent. We did customer service surveys, political polls, and other things like that and I have a few things to say.
These call center agents are just doing their job. Please be nice to them. Fairly often they don’t know or can’t tell you how the company got your number or why you haven’t been put on the No Call List the last time they called. It’s a very good chance that they got the number from what ever company is paying for the survey and someone else called you last time. They’re probably not having fun because it is a really boring job. They also don’t always know that you hung up on them right away. Don’t hang up on them without telling them, otherwise they waste time and begin to doubt the goodness of humanity. Don’t swear at them. It’s not their fault. Please just be nice to them.
If you want the survey, but don’t have the time at that moment, and you want to be nice, jump in as soon as possible and suggest a time someone could call you back to finish the survey. At my call center, at least, callbacks were encouraged.
If you don’t want the survey, jump in as soon as possible and say “I’m not interested in taking the survey, thank you”. If you just hang up that is 1) rude and 2) not going to stop them from calling. Telling them “not right now” will also not stop them. The company needs to get responses, so they will keep calling you until you say you won’t take the survey.
If you never want them to call you again, ask to be put on the “Do not call list” or taken off the “calling list” or some variation on that. Please be polite about it. There is a ver good chance that it was your wording that made it so the agents kept calling you. They are required by law in the United States to take you off the list if you ask to be taken off.
DO NOT demand questions of the agent. If you have questions ask if you can speak with a manager or the customer service or public relations departments. Agents are actually told not to give certain information and don’t know certain things. Some of it is ambiguous, for example I was calling from one state and doing surveys in another and I felt unsafe when one of the respondents was hostile while he questioned me about where we were located and what company I was working for. Please just ask for someone higher up.
Don’t be surprised when they start to stutter or sound less confident sometimes. They are reading a script, which is why the data is usable. Please be patient and bear with them when they try to pronounce your name (it often doesn’t get put on the screen until they are speaking with you) and give you clarification that doesn’t normally come up. This is another reason you should not ask the agents questions.
DO NOT LET YOUR CHILDREN ANSWER UNKNOWN NUMBERS! Do you want to know how many times I called a number and a kid picked up, but I didn’t realize until a little too late? I started doing a survey with a ten or twelve year old because "are you 18 years or older” was not one of the filter questions in the script. A four year old asked me how I was doing when the father didn’t accept the phone. Kids home alone have answered the phone and told me what time their parents would be home. If the kids claimed I said something inappropriate on the phone to them, I would have been in deep water when nothing happened. If I had been a kidnapper, you would have had to call the police when you got home. Please teach your kids about how to be smart about answering the phone. Don’t let them pick up on numbers they don’t recognize when they’re alone and don’t have them relay messages to you after you find out who is calling. PLEASE DON’T DO IT!
Finally, don’t mess with the agents. If you don’t want to do the survey, just say so. Their employers may actually watching to see how many calls they make per hour, so don’t waste their time. They know what you’re doing and you will still get called if you don’t finish the survey.
I know not many people know what goes on in companies like this and working there changed the way I think about a lot of things. I know some scams pretend to be surveys, so be smart, but also be kind. When people said they were not interested in taking the survey I made sure they didn’t get called again and I really appreciated it when they were nice. The ones that said cursed, were hostile, or were men that called me “honey” made the job difficult and were part of the reason I quit. These phone agents often hate the job more than fast food workers hate their job, so please, please, please be nice and smart when you talk to them.
