I think I like it

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

I think I like it

arbilad · Head Chef

I can see if from their point of view, of course. Each customer contact costs them money. I think if it's an American call center that it's at least $12 per contact. It doesn't take too many contacts before you're losing money on a customer. Then again, how do you resolve a problem with your cell phone bill if you can't keep calling back and bugging them?

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

Yeah, well these people were calling an average of 25 times every month. It would be hard to sustain that volume unless yer nutty. (Just a little, anyway.) ;)

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

As a Sprint customer for a number of years (on a business and personal basis for wireless communications), I have to say their customer service typically leaves much to be desired. They were far less than helpful the very few times I have talked to them for either a business or personal account.

The only reason I still have them is because of the corporate discount I get for my service.

A help desk is a sunk cost of doing business, what they are doing here is creating a variable cost to add to it as well, passing on funny money cost accounting exercise expense. Think about it... even if folks don't call, they still have to pay the wages for the folks at the help desk. They still have to pay for the electricity, the equipment involved to make the help desk functional, etc. What they've done is worked out some sort of formula to determine that all these expenses equal X dollars per phone call coming in. Well, guess what, cut the number of calls down and the cost per call suddenly gets higher... duh... This is not going to actually reduce the actual expense Sprint incurs... unless they have subcontracted their help desk to an outside company (not a subsidiary of Sprint) and the contract is based solely on call volume.

arbilad · Head Chef

Call centers typically have a high turnover rate. So, if they were getting a low call volume, they could simply not replace those who quit. Not to mention that every call center I know of stresses low call times; that is, if you spend only 1 minute on the phone per call, on average, then you are a better worker than that person that spends two minutes on the phone per call. I imagine that if someone is calling 25 times in one month, they are typically ticked off about something, and it will be hard to get them off the phone quickly.
Also, many call centers are subcontracted and paid on a volume handled basis. There's a couple in our ward who work at a call center that handles, among other customers, calls for a cell phone company.

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

yeah... subcontracting and / or offshoring level 1 or level 2 help desks are a sure fire way to lower customer satisfaction, from the caller's standpoint.

The metrics created for SLA (Service Level Agreements for you non-IT folks) are often created only to show how good the contracted help desk is doing. And, often times, the compensation structure is not a fixed rate per time period, but volume of calls or number of tickets opened and marked as resolved.

Typically, those who work at a level 1 or level 2 help desk / call center are treated like dirt by both the callers and their management... call it white collar sweat-shop mentality, particularly if the call center is not a dedicated call center to just one client. And, the more clients a call center handles, the less expertise or knowledge the person answering the phone is going to have, regardless of how many job aides or manuals are put in the cube.

I was on a level 3 database applications support team for several years dedicated to a single client, and worked quite closely with the dedicated level 1 / 2 help desk.