I wanna cancel my service but
Posted by Malfeitor1@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 65 comments
Customer gets misrouted to me in tech support saying they want to disconnect service. I inform them I’m with tech but would be happy to assist getting them to the appropriate party and ask for their phone number to get their account information. They refuse to provide it and just want me to transfer now because they keep getting misrouted. I advise that’s precisely why I need their information so I know where to transfer the call. They go back and forth with me for another minute or so as I stress to them that I can’t transfer the call until I know where to transfer it to. At which point they said “I’m just going to call back”. I once again state all I need is a phone number but they will not budge and hung up.
They waste their own time arguing and calling back. For all I know they weren’t even a customer.
K1yco@reddit
People get protective of their info at the worst of times. You're calling us so we would already have your so call info already, you're just confirming you know it.
Old-Class-1259@reddit
Not IT but a local government services call center. Got a few "I AM NOT JUST A NUMBER I AM A HUMAN BEING" calls. Well your name and address doesn't bring up anything so call back when you change your mind, yeah?
We also got a couple of people who refused to pay taxes because they didn't feel like they were getting their services. Well I hear bin collection is much more reliable in the next county over, by all means sell your home and move 30 miles if you're threatening to "switch to a competitor".
Top_Box_8952@reddit
Imagine if they don’t get their bins collected if they don’t pay the taxes that fund it lol
bob152637485@reddit
Honestly, I'd be all for that!
z500@reddit
I got on some police union or something's call list once asking for donations. This may or may not have been me after they called for the 100th time lol
bob152637485@reddit
I get the same one, it's a recording. It's a really good one, but it's still a recording. Once they start the script, you can straight up talk over them, say all sorts of shenanigans, and they don't even miss a beat.
Top_Box_8952@reddit
Make pigs jokes
Ignem_Aeternum@reddit
Some people is just too stupid to even place a call and act normal.
Malfeitor1@reddit (OP)
Pretty much
radraze2kx@reddit
They wear crocs.
DeciduousEmu@reddit
On their heads along with their pants.
__wildwing__@reddit
Makes me think of the Sandra Boyton book Blue Hat, Green Hat.
nymalous@reddit
That brings back memories! I read so many children's books in college (I had a children's literature course).
TypewriterChaos@reddit
And drink Brawndo.
shapeshifterotaku@reddit
Cause brawndo got all the electrolytes a plant would need.
I really should give it a shot to watch.
Langager90@reddit
You sure that all the holes aren't confusing them?
"How am I supposed to know which hole to put my foot in?!? I am not a croc person and you are not helping me!"
Minflick@reddit
And some of them have NEVER worked somewhere that needed routing for internal calls, so can't begin to understand that the concept even exists. Limited exposure to things, low curiosity for how the world works.
Malfeitor1@reddit (OP)
Oh yes low curiosity. For years I stressed the idea of teaching critical thinking in schools, but I think an even more important lesson is be curious! Curiosity breeds critical thinking.
WildMartin429@reddit
I feel like many children lose their Natural Curiosity due to inattentive parenting and/or constrained teaching environments when the children are very little.
Minflick@reddit
Follow down rabbit holes can be highly educational! Good or bad, but you see things you would never have seen without that curiosity.
tinselsnips@reddit
Some on Reddit described this as "low consciousness" and it explained so much of the last 20 years.
action_lawyer_comics@reddit
I mean, I also don’t really have much curiosity about how an average company routes phone calls. I don’t think that counts as “low curiosity.” But also I would give the person trying to help me my number so…
Eichmil@reddit
But then they would know who you are! gasp
creegro@reddit
"why do you need my information? Can't you just disconnect my services? What do you mean to you need to know who I am to disconnect me?!"
DaveAlt19@reddit
Same attitude I get when I ask people if they'd like an email copy of their receipt.
"You've already got my email" sure, but I don't know who you are.
Confident_Chipmonk@reddit
why do you need their phone number? why isn’t the purpose of the call, to disconnect their service enough to determine where to transfer them?
Malfeitor1@reddit (OP)
Phone numbers are the best way to look up an account. I need the account to know what service they have. I need to know what services they have (or even if they are a customer at all) to route the call correctly. It’s a big company. And here’s the thing, everyone understands when you call a company they will likely ask for identifying information. This person is that one person in 1000 that’s like, naw
ArdvarkMaster@reddit
Doesn't your system pull the number they are calling from (assuming they are calling from the number on the account)?
EuphoricTravel1790@reddit
This is a bad user experience design, you shouldn't need the customer's phone number to know that if they want to cancel service, you transfer them to the account service department.
WaytoomanyUIDs@reddit
OK which account service department? Personal accounts, business accounts or enterprise accounts?
EuphoricTravel1790@reddit
Yes that's the bad design, fragmenting service departments at the type level. A customer service representative should be able to handle all account services and be location dependent instead of service type dependent such that a customer deals with one person that has authorization to handle all aspects of their account.
WaytoomanyUIDs@reddit
The needs of various clients can vary wildly. You cant expect someone to know how to service for example personal and enterprise accounts.
EuphoricTravel1790@reddit
Yes I can.
WaytoomanyUIDs@reddit
You've obviously never worked customer support or first line tech support.
Lords3@reddit
The fix is a universal cancel/concierge queue plus smart lookup so agents don’t need a phone number just to route. Build a cancel option in the phone menu that lands in one team for all segments; do caller ID lookup first, then ask ZIP or last bill if needed. Give that team permissions to pause/cancel/schedule, and warm-transfer only edge cases. Track transfer rate and misses weekly. We used Twilio Flex and Zendesk for this, with DreamFactory exposing legacy billing data to one screen. One queue with smart lookup beats maze-y transfers.
Malfeitor1@reddit (OP)
We have numerous services that we provide. Each has its own “account department”, if I would’ve blindly transferred an already frustrated customer to the wrong one, I would not be doing my job. If you refuse to provide your account information I can’t help you and we can’t comply with your request.
EuphoricTravel1790@reddit
Yeah that's bad user experience design. The entire system is a bad design.
fishknight@reddit
You cant just ask a customer what kind of account/services they have. They are almost always wrong (or they may outright lie if they think theres a specific answer that will make you able to do what they want)
Wolphin8@reddit
it's designed intentionally hard to cancel... as that would be the company no longer getting your money.
paishocajun@reddit
I was thinking about how something like Teams for example would show the incoming number but if the customer is calling from a diff number from what’s on the account (their own cell for example when the acct is tied to their SO’s) it’d still be a good procedure to verify it
EuphoricTravel1790@reddit
Sure, once you get to the right person, but not before. That is a forced disclosure of personally identifying information.
Y_arisk@reddit
I used to take calls for a couple different major centers, if I'm dealing with a "director" personality type who wants it their way it the highway I usually point out the futility in a polite but firm tone, not aggressive just matter of fact, most of the time they think caller ID transfers in-between call centers, I've even mentioned this to customers who've been cold transfered several times.
If a continued no
WinterFilmAwards@reddit
The customer has likely been bounced from person to person and had to give their phone number to the robot and to each person before getting misrouted again. Don't blame them for being angry. Why can't your system give that information each time the call is routed?
SecretlyCrayon@reddit
Because that would be efficient. Most call centers are not designed to be efficient. They're designed to make it so painful you give up on whatever you're trying to accomplish.
In our example it's cancel service. If they make it so painful, you might give up for the day and not be able to call back for a week so they have a 25ish% chance of squeezing another month out of you.
Another example is if you have a billing error happens say for $20. They want you to weigh calling in and dealing with it versus the $20. If they make it suck enough. You'll just give them the $20. Now scale that across all their customers. It's more profitable to have bad customer service especially in saturated things like internet where everyone is using that playbook.
WaytoomanyUIDs@reddit
Very often they are calling from a different number and sometimes the system doesn't display the number, especially after multiple transfers.
blackswordsman91@reddit
I understand the customers frustration, and to answer your question a lot of system pull the number that the call is coming from, and if it’s a transfer, a lot of them will pull the internal number being transferred from. There are a few that don’t, but in my experience the majority of them work that way
K1yco@reddit
It's also possible the number they are calling from is also not the same number as the account.
Another possibility there's two accounts, one with the one the customer is calling from, and a different number for a different account the customer may also have for a relative / friend they are cancelling for, so cancelling using the one they don't want to cancel can cause issue.
WinterFilmAwards@reddit
Yes, but they likely already told the robot and each time they were misrouted. I've been there - had to recite the same information a dozen times to a dozen different wrong people who routed me incorrectly yet again, or, even better, dropped the call and made me start over.
Geminii27@reddit
Not to mention the cases where you can't get to a person, you just go around and around in circles with the robot.
WinterFilmAwards@reddit
Yes, but if I recite that to the robot and to each person I talk to, why doesn't the system hold it and carry on to the next person?
This poor customer wanted to cancel their service and got bounced around to the point of rage. Seems like a problem with the vendor and not the customer. No wonder they want to cancel.
Malfeitor1@reddit (OP)
I get the frustration of dealing with imperfect call routing systems but all I was asking for was a phone number. If that’s enough to put them over the edge, wait till they talk to a customer service person, who’s gonna try to talk them out of canceling their services.
AngryCod@reddit
If I had a nickel for every time that happened, I'd have like $4.37.
mendel42@reddit
Which is actually a lot, but it's still weird that itb happened... Like 87 times.
robsterva@reddit
I'm intrigued about the 2/5 of an experience...
TheLazySamurai4@reddit
Had this happen when I worked for my national postal service. We had a 4m32s handle time metric, and it took me nearly 1 hour to get the bare bones info from someone just to escalate their case; which I knew was necessary within 30 seconds.
The person who got them came over and told me that they were so thankful with how patient I was with them, and that they understood that I really was trying to help. I quit the next day
Complex_Spend_2633@reddit
I had a customer that called in and asked for 6 modems. I informed them that their service only requires 1. After multiple probing questions, I found out that they were needing burn treatment ointment due to a grease burn. What do you think was the key question that I asked to find that out?
K1yco@reddit
Honestly I don't think there would be any key question to ask unless you just decided to ask anything not related to the job at all.
Complex_Spend_2633@reddit
I asked if there was a barcode on the one she had and asked for sku number. Then googled it.
WhenSummerIsGone@reddit
How did that lead you to a grease burn?
Complex_Spend_2633@reddit
I googled the sku number and asked if it was an ointment for grease burn and she confirmed. So I informed her of who she called and sent her her merry way!
Rathmun@reddit
They gave the sku from the tube of burn treatment ointment, instead of from the modem. So when Complex googled it, they got burn ointment instead of a modem. Presumably they then informed the customer "No, I need the sku from the modem, not your burn ointment."
ibondolo@reddit
They really actually wanted the loyalty department, and wanted you to cut them a deal to keep them as a customer. But you were only willing to help them get their service ended, which they didn't want.
Malfeitor1@reddit (OP)
Unfortunately I’m just the “fix it” guy not the “please don’t leave” guy. I can hold the door open but they have to walk through it.
Bakkie@reddit
Don't you have caller ID with at least the number?
Apparently not.
Malfeitor1@reddit (OP)
Yes, while they were bitching I look it up. No account found.