Needing examples of difficult call scenarios when working in a call center????

Question

I am working on a project for customer service training....

needing examples of difficult situations that can occur when taking an incoming general customer service call. (I'm in the healthcare/insurance field if that helps). This is to improve our customer service skills when taking incoming calls.

Any experiences or ideas would be appreciated!

Or any complaints you've had about places you've called.

ie:

1. caller has had phone tree issues and is very irritated.

2. caller is upset because their request isn't being handled.

3. caller who is rambling on and on about irrelevant topics.

Thanks!!!!

Answer 1

I had the experience of working in a call center for a large financial institution. I did the impossible to transfer out of that department as soon as possible. It was not the job for me. I luckily came up big within the institution.

I assisted clients in English and Spanish. My most terrible calls were with English speaking clients. I had some calls where as soon as I greeted them, they would start yelling at me. Of course they were angry with the institution, but I was the scape goat. We were always told never to take it personal, but that is difficult at times.

Some of reasons that caused customer irritation consisted of their requests not being fulfilled the first time they called, branches putting checks on hold, or checks being returned. Some clients would be transferred to the wrong department which caused them to call again (I have gone through this myself and it is very irritating). Other customers would call and talk about their personal lives forever, this killed our time per call. In this case, we needed to change the subject with the customer to get them off the phone.

My Spanish calls were much more smooth.