Shutterstock

Imagine working in a call center and a caller is awful to you on the phone, cursing at you and refusing to take your advice when all you’re doing is trying to help them. What would you do if the caller insisted on talking to your supervisor?

In this story, the agents knew they had nothing to worry about in these situations because all calls are recorded. The caller can say whatever she wants, but the recording will speak for itself.

The caller apparently didn’t realize she was being recorded.

Keep reading to find out what happens when the supervisor takes the call and explains that the calls are recorded.

My favorite supervisor call of all time.

$Me: Supervisor

$Agent: Agent who took the call, one of my best

$ThatCaller: You know the one, the one everyone knows and dreads

There was one particularly demanding caller.

Setting the stage

I worked at a call center that serviced many companies. The company/project I was supporting was a multi-billion dollar company, so sales people were literally above the rules of other users, skip all the lines, etc…

$ThatCaller would call multiple times a week to literally push agents into doing her work for her. Need to take data in a spreadsheet and make it into graphs on powerpoint, send a copy of the excel sheet to IT with a list of demands hours before the presentation in from of VPs.

Everyone knew $ThatCaller’s name.

Here’s the latest issue.

The Call

So I’m working on reports and putting out fires when $Agent walks up to me, looking rather defeated.

$Agent: $ThatCaller is demanding to speak to a manager.

$Me: What is it this time?

$Agent: Outlook is not receiving emails. I offered to remote in but the caller started swearing at me about I was blaming them for it being broken when it’s clearly a server issue and I’m making things worse

OP asked for clarification.

Note: Company had a strict conduct policy, and while $ThatCaller was always abusive, it was never a clear violation of conduct…somehow

$Me: To be clear, what do you mean by “swearing at me”

$Agent: lists off a half dozen swearwords and context

$Me: Excellent, I’ll take the call

Here’s how the conversation started.

Call transferred to me

$Me: Thank you for calling the Service Desk, my name is KapnBanjo, I understand you requested to speak to a supervisor.

$ThatCaller: Yes, I need help with my emails but your agent blamed me instead of helping me and was rude and disrespectful, it was an absolutely terrible experience, the worst I’ve ever had.

Odd, I overhear most of the conversations on my floor, and I didn’t hear anything of the sort from the agent with practically perfect surveys etc…

OP explained how she could go about solving the problem.

$Me: I’m very sorry to hear that, we take complaints very seriously and make it a priority to provide a world class experience to all our users…

$ThatCaller: Good, that what we expect on the sales team.

$Me: So I tell you what I am going to do, I’m going to pull a copy of the call right now, send a copy to your manager to let them know why you’ve been delayed in your deliverable and that we are investigating how to address the problem.

There was a long pause, the caller’s tone noticeable shifted from irate to quiet and almost as delicately soft as a kitten’s purr

The caller tries to backtrack.

$ThatCaller: uh, a copy of the call?

$Me: That’s right, we record every call conversation, it’s part of our training and quality assurance, and from your complaint it sounds like an opportunity for training and improvement. I’m downloading the copy right now, it’ll take a few more moments then I’ll have it to your manager right away and will begin my review after that.

$ThatCaller: You… You don’t have to go that far, I… uh… I…

$Me: Sure I do, this is a very serious complaint, and I want to make sure nothing like this happens again. I show your line manager’s name is is that still current?

She asked to speak to the agent again.

$ThatCaller: Please, I really don’t want to cause a fuss, $Agent said something about being able to do a fix on my computer, could we try that?

$Me: Are you sure, I really want to make sure this issue is resolved for you, I wouldn’t want to make you talk to someone who would make you feel uncomfortable

$ThatCaller: Yes, I’m sure. Please transfer me back, he can fix it right?

$Me: I believe he can if anyone can, and if not he’ll get a ticket to the administrator.

The caller was happy to drop the whole thing.

$ThatCaller: That’ll be perfect, please drop my complaint as well, we don’t need this to go any further.

$Me: If you’re absolutely sure…

$ThatCaller: I am sure.

OP made sure to make it clear that all calls are recorded.

$Me: Ok, but if you have any other issue please let me know, all of our calls are recorded and I’d be happy to pull any or all calls you’ve made to ensure you’re getting the proper level of service.

$ThatCaller: I’m sure that won’t be needed, thank you

Transfer back to $Agent who deleted the OST file to resolve

The caller suddenly changed her attitude on the phone.

Epilogue

I then went to the project manager, explained the situation, and offered a copy of the call.

The Project Manager laughed and said there was no point, no one would care because it was a high performing sales person.

But apparently $ThatCaller didn’t know that, cause for the next 6 months after that I was supporting that project, I never got another escalation from $ThatCaller and people regularly commented how much more pleasant she was to deal with after that last call I took from her.

It’s amazing how different people will act when they know they’re being recorded.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

I think the sound is silence.

This person has a question.

Another person asks a question.

This person loved how the story played out.

I love how the caller immediately changed her mind when she found out the call had been recorded. It’s awesome that she changed her attitude after that. All she needed to know was that she was being recorded, and suddenly she was on her best behavior.