Did you get the call center or did you get the actual business?

@capirani (2732)
United States
December 28, 2008 2:25pm CST
How do you know if you are talking to an operator in a call center or if you have reached the actual building you intended to call? The call center I work for receives almost all the phone calls that come in to buildings in locations covering many states. Almost everyone who calls thinks we are actually in that specific building. Actually we are all in our homes, maybe even in our jammies while talking to our callers. Everything we need to know is at our fingertips on our computers or reachable by phone extension if we need assistance with a call. We have the capability to transfer callers to any person with a phone extension in any of the various buildings. We also have the capability to check into information specific to each building as needed. It is hard for the caller to know if they are speaking to someone "in" the call center or in the actual building. Most are not even aware that there is a call center answering the calls. What do you think? Should businesses let their customers/clients know that they have a call center answering all phone calls? Or should they keep that "secret" as we do. We are allowed to say we are in the call center if we are asked. But we are not allowed to say we are working from our homes. We have to pretend we are in a central location at the corporate offices. If the call center personnel you are speaking with can answer your questions without bothering people on the floor, is that satisfactory for you? If you are actually in the business itself and being helped by an employee in person, would you rather have callers be routed to the call center for assistance or have the employee helping you be distracted by continual phone calls?
1 response
• United States
28 Dec 08
As long as my question gets answered I could care less about the environement that the person on the other end of the phone. There have been 2 instances in my life where I was irritated with the fact that the call center was not actually in the physical location. I worked for a rather large corporation that decided to outsource it's help desk calls to india. We had an IT department in-house, but they had the calls routed overseas. The majority of the time you would get someone that didn't speak english very well so it was difficult to make yourself understood and in turn to understand them. My teammates often tried to turn to each other for solutions rather than call the helpdesk. the other instance was when I calle d Pizza Hut. I placed the order with whomever answered the phone. about 10 minutes later the actual location called me back to let me know that they wouldn't be able to fulfill my order because they were out of one of the ingredients. I thought that was pretty dumb to have something like a pizza order re-routed like that.
@capirani (2732)
• United States
28 Dec 08
I can sure understand the frustration with call centers out of country like that. It is hard enough dealing with a problem to have to add foreign languages and thick accents to the issue. I agree about the pizza hut. I don't understand why they would have call centers. I like being able to call and talk to my local pizza hut. Of course my son works there so if he ever answers, I know it is local.