Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I am enthusiastic about using quality call centres and I value the service. I give the respondent respect. A niece who worked in one told me some firms give staff a daily discretionary spend to make small problems go away and I believe it's worth it, and it's worth being respectful to the person trying to help you, if they have this ability then it reflects their autonomy, your value as a customer and how nice you are.

She said dealing with the live shark lost in the mail was a highspot (a lot of strange delivery issues in the modern shop from home world)



I’m not saying we don’t need them. Obviously they provide a valuable service and I wish the best for our agents and customers.

But the problem is about as boring as they come. There’s nothing exciting about making a callcenter operate well, even though it’s often done wrong. Probably why we can (apparently) eat the market.


I'm not an entrepreneur, or want to be one but I think There’s nothing exciting about making a callcenter operate well, even though it’s often done wrong is a bit of a call-to-action signal. Somebody should feel passionate bout this, it has high value (social) outcomes.

I would think that giving staff some agency to intercede, plus improved scripting support and process-flow improvements could be huge here. The stories I hear about helpdesk who can only add file notes and not actually fix things like gas-meter address/ID mismatches (and the consequent debt collector problems for people who genuinely are NOT the user of the phantom gas meter) is just huge. There's a process-improvement opportunity here.

"computer says no" is about the worst possible outcome. Measuring helpdesk effectiveness on time to close call feels like the problem (in part)




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: