Have you ever called about a technical problem and talked to someone in a call center but they didn’t quite solve your problem? In that case, you’d probably eventually call back, and you might talk to someone else who may or may not solve your problem.

If you talk to multiple people at the call center before your problem is solved, who should get credit for solving the problem? That’s the question in today’s story.

See what happens what the call center procedures change and change again…

Oh we’re changing procedures, again? You got it

I work in tech support, but basically a call center fixing computer problems. So when someone calls, we record their information. Everything from their name, to the reason for the call, to the solution.

During a team meeting, one of my higher ups (we’ll call her Paula) announces if a client calls back about the same problem in a short time, whoever ultimately fixes it gets full credit for the work.

For context: I’m not here to be “Super IT”. I don’t care about the credit. I work my 8 hours a day and collect my check. That’s it.

A customer called needing help.

One day I get a call.

The client says they were just on the phone with someone else, and they told them to call right back.

I look up the coworkers name (John); he just went to lunch. I ask the client if they want me to transfer them to the John’s voicemail.

They say, “Can you just help me?”

Np. I’m familiar with their problem and fix in it 20 minutes. I adjust the record for the problem to my name. I add John’s name as a footnote so he still gets partial credit.

John is furious!

Fast forward: John gets back from lunch. Comes up to me and demands to know why I took his name off the record. Tells me he spent an hour on the phone with that client and he would appreciate if I would let him know if I touch his records

(Mind you, John and I don’t speak. He’s cold towards me and we only interact when absolutely necessary. Today, he doesn’t even say hello. He just starts in on me.)

I wait a moment and calmly explain how I got the call, the client didn’t want to wait, and how I followed procedure. I also pointed out that I added John’s name as a footnote for partial credit (which is not required to do).

John says “Oh, I didn’t see that” and leaves. No apology, just a mumbled “thanks” as he walks away.

The rules have changed!

In our next team meeting, our boss tells us from now on, whoever speaks to the client first gets full credit.

I asked her to please clarify because Paula told us otherwise.

She reiterates the announcement, says “this is how we’re doing it, I hope that makes sense” and quickly moves on.

I can see where this came from but I hold my peace.

John has a completely different approach to calls than OP does.

More background: John’s approach is to rush through calls to increase his “calls taken” metrics.

My approach is to make sure the client is taken care of before the call ends.

So a few weeks go by, and things took an unexpected turn for John.

(When a client calls back for a problem that was previously marked “fixed”, I restart the record and only add my footnote. This causes the record to go back into the original agent’s workflow for processing.)

John has to do more work than ever before.

Since John doesn’t take the time to read the footnotes, he’s reaching out to me for updates before he marks the record “fixed” again.

I take my time to respond, because I’ve already made the info available in my footnote. Not only that, some problems require him to call the client back to confirm the problem is actually fixed.

He went from talking to me once a quarter to once a week. So now, he’s doing twice, sometimes 3 times the work, all because he wanted full credit for partial results.

Oh, John! If he wants credit, he needs to do the work!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

As a customer, this is what I would want.

This reader offers a suggestion…

It’s stupid that this employee was considered good at her job.

This advice does not deserve a reward.

I think the malicious compliance was more work for John.

Call center employees really need to read all of the notes.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.