Call Center Stories, Part Deux

Ready for more fabulous horror stories from the call center? Today’s pair of doosies come to you from the support line of a large cable ISP. Let this be a word of warning: coon dogs, shotguns, and the Internet do not mix …

An anonymous Gnomie shares his stories of mirth and woe:

The two strangest calls I got were both on the same day … in fact they were both on the first day I started as a Tier 2 technical service rep.

The first call was from a man in Texas. I could barely hear him over the loud noise in the background. Apparently he was calling from his basement using his cellular phone. He had no electricity or cable connection at the time but wanted his Internet service restored immediately. Apparently his house was struck by a tornado even as we were speaking on the phone. He was upset that he couldn’t contact his buddies and his insurance company to show them live streaming video of his house being torn apart by the violent winds. (HE thought it would be neat to put on the Internet while it happened.) He proceeded to berate me for not IMMEDIATELY returning his Internet service THAT VERY INSTANT. After all didn’t I realize that he was a very valuable customer. I tried to explain to him that his safety should be his first concern but he wasn’t having any of that at all. I either returned service right then and there or he was canceling his Internet. I informed him that service was out ALL OVER his area at the time due to bad thunderstorms so he had me cancel his service �but not before hearing his house being ripped from the foundation.

The other interesting call was from a man in Tennessee who had lost his cable connection. Again he wanted his service restored IMMEDIATELY. There was only one problem. His coon dogs had eaten four feet of the connection cable to the modem as well as having pulling the physical connector right out of the modem box. I tried to explain that it would take a day before a technician could come and fix the problem and bring out a new modem box etc. I guess he was upset as the next sound I heard was explained as a shotgun blast to the modem and then he said to cancel his Internet subscription as he had taken care of the problem …

And don’t get me started about people that actually kicked their computers when asked to reboot the system …

Reboot? I got your reboot, right here!

The best help desk software in the world can’t prepare you for that, right Toto?

If you have an amusing call center story you’d like to share, by all means, keep those cards and letters coming our way!

[tags]call center[/tags]