Edumacate yourself!

Hey there everyone, it's time for another instalment of how you can keep yourself looking like a moron, and hopefully keep me from having an aneurysm at the same time.  For the latter my main recommendation is that you go be someone else's problem but if that's not an option we can go with the next available option which is making sure you know what you're looking for!  Lets begin.

One of the questions I recently had from more than one customer which absolutely floors me is when they ask "Is the 64 GB iPhone the fastest."  This is so wrong that it makes me wince a bit.  While you may hear the term 'gigabyte' being bandied by the tech savvy pretentious assholes at your local Starbucks, and saying how more GB is making their computer faster, they're discussing RAM.  In the case of the Apple iPhones the 16, 32, or 64 GB refers to the amount of internal hard drive space that the phone has, which can be important with the non-expandable memory of iPhones.  In basic terms, this is talking about how much music, videos, apps, pictures, etc the phone can hold on it.  The only difference between these models is going to be the price you pay, and the amount of available space to store stuff (protip: 32 GB is double the amount of space of 16 GB, and 64 GB is double the amount of 32 GB).  Just a few minutes of looking into these sort of things can help you out a long way when you're ordering a cell phone to be sure you get the phone you need and will last you for the duration of your service agreement.

Speaking of duration of service agreements, let's touch base on this one just a little bit although for different reasons than what I went into detail about yesterday.  When you're going to be picking out a new cell phone there's a few things you should consider before you make a final choice; including but not limited to the following.  Do you like the style? Is it comfortable and easy for you to use?

Wait, stop the presses just a second.  I need to interject something completely random which just occurred and never ceases to piss me the fuck off when someone shows this level of stupidity.  When I say "Call customer care at (phone number)." Your next question should never, ever, ever be "What is the phone number?"  It's not like I just read it aloud and you didn't hear all the numbers, it's literally on the screen in front of you.  Pull your head out of your ass and try using the brain between your ears!  Argh!  Frustrating!

Back to our regularly scheduled rant here...Is this a phone that wows you when you pick it up? Do you see yourself using it for a full 2 years? Is it easy to read and send messages?  These are just a few of the things you should look into, and if you have a provider like the one I work for that gives you a 30 day trial with the phone that's even better as that will let you take the phone for a test-drive of your own personal usage over the course of a few weeks.  This will help you avoid looking like a moron when you come ranting to someone who couldn't care less about how you have such a shitty phone and you absolutely hate it, but you bought it three months ago.  I find it hard to believe that you didn't realize you hated it within a week, let alone taking 3 months to get your lazy ass to do something about it.  Try being a bit more proactive in the future and these sort of things won't happen to you.

The last subject that I want to touch on today is "insider knowledge" and advanced information about release dates.  Let me be very blunt with this one and just go on record as saying we really don't know.  Honestly, it's just as big a secret to us as to when phones are being released although we occasionally get one week notice. Even when we know, unless there's a marketing campaign announcing it we still usually can't tell you though.  Any time you visit a store, or talk to anyone in cell phone sales and ask about an iPhone 5 and get told "Later this year" consider that a steaming crock of shit answer.  Here's the real answer as far as that goes: There has been no official announcement from Apple about making a new iPhone model.  This isn't surprising because Apple is a very secretive company when it comes to new device announcements.  Does this mean I don't think there's a chance there will be an iPhone 5? Of course not, there will be one as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, but don't ask me for a release date 'cause you're just going to have to be as patient as the rest of us.

Here's my little sum-up in 3 sentences or less of everything in-case you're a tl;dr type of person.  Have an idea of what you're talking about before you start acting like you know, put some thought into how you expect a phone to last the full duration of your service agreement, and don't think that sales people are withholding crucial information about release dates just to spite you.  We're real people too you know.

Rob out.

Holy No Updates! Time to fix that, and why I hate customer service/sales

Well, well, well.  It's been a rather long time since I've written anything here, and if for no other reason than I found I was going to just keep running around in circles.  It seems that no matter how high the level of stupidity gets, it boils down to the same type of problems people have day in and day out.  I think I have some new topics for people to cover today though so with that being said, let's jump right in!

To begin with today I want to speak about customers who are gullible.  I don't mean like 'The sky is blue because that's the color of God's eyes' sort of gullible, I'm talking about the 'Hey, if you say orange it sounds like gullible' kind of gullible.  The reason I bring this up is because day in and day out I get customers who excitedly tell me that they've been sent a special one time offer to sign up for cell phone service, and, omg guys, they get two FREE phones! It's like no one in the history of cell phones has ever gotten a free phone before!  Anyway, needless to say they get a little upset when it turns out that they have shit credit and they need to pay a massive deposit (Not my fault, nor my problem buddy, take it out on your own lack of ability to pay your bills on time). Now the thing about this is that I get tons of people every day who are dead set on getting the free phone they were offered, and two of them at that.  Well, not only does the phone you were offered suck, but you're a lonely person who has no friends and no one to give a second phone to.  Why do you want to pay for two?  Whatever, that's cool, I can get behind that but just remember that I'm not the person to complain to when you decide that paying $150 per month for two phones is way out of your $100 per month budget for a phone.  Oh right, you can't afford it regardless since those "free" phones are going to cost you a lot more for your deposit you're gonna have to pay.  While it seems that I'm just rambling on here I can assure you there's a point to this; What's my point you ask? Well that's simple.  Do a little shopping and find something that's going to work for you for the next two years, and do keep in mind that it's two years, not two months.

On to the next one!  Contracts!  Before I go into any real detail about this I need to explain exactly what a contract is (it appears no customers has any clue what a 'contract' entails).

con·tract

   [n., adj., and usually for v. 15–17, 21, 22 kon-trakt; otherwise v. kuhn-trakt]  Show IPA

noun

1.

an agreement between two or more parties for the doing ornot doing of something specified.

2.

an agreement enforceable by law.

Now the reason why that needed to cleared up is because I swear 90% of the customers I speak to on a current daily basis have absolutely no clue what it means.  I get it left right and center daily "I've been an AT&T wireless customer for 20 years!  This is bullshit that I bought a phone 10 months ago and I sat my fat ass on it and broke it and now you want to charge me full price for a new one!"  Let's see if I can break this down a bit and answer every bit of this for you.  First things first, you originally agreed to pay the advertised price for the phone which was heavily discounted based on the agreement that you will continue service for a full 2 years (it's actually only 18 months before you can upgrade).  If you don't want this 2 year contract you can go ahead and pay full price for the phone.  What's that? $649 for an iPhone is robbery? No, that's how much it costs before we subsidize the cost into your monthly bill....Anyway, you should probably note that 'Crushed by fat ass' doesn't get covered under your warranty and maybe you should be a bit more careful with that expensive piece of technology you keep with you at all times.  Or get insurance, which is completely up to you.  Don't get me wrong here people, I understand.  More than you believe I absolutely understand.  I hate my cell phone, I don't want it anymore, but I also understand that when I want to switch to a new one less than half way through my contract it's going to cost an arm and a leg to do so which is why I haven't yet, and won't be for awhile.  Don't worry, if it makes phone calls your phone still does what it's meant to do!

Now I'm starting to notice that this seems like I'm just sort of rambling and need to start paying some half-assed attention to my dipshit customers (Yes I do this at work) so I have just one more topic to cover today and that will be all.  While I was chatting with my customers I forgot what the original plan was though so we're going to cover lying instead.  I don't understand, but why must you feel the need to constantly lie about everything?  This doesn't cover most customers, but there's some which just seem either confused (How do I internetz?!) or just outright evasive when it comes to trying to help them.  It's the little things though, like when I'm doing everything in my power to help them and they're doing everything in their power to ignore everything I say.  If you don't want to talk to me, just close the chat.  If I could do it to you I would do so happily when you're wasting my time, but I can't otherwise I lose my job.  You really have no reason to lie to me though about what items are in your cart, or what page of the web site you're on.  I can see both, but only tell you that I can't so you don't flip out that I'm stealing your computer secrets.  Really you're just best off being upfront with me so I can do my best to help you as quickly and efficiently as possible and we can end this painful 20 minutes we had to spend together where you kicked and screamed all the way through the purchase of the perfect cell phone for you.  You'll thank me for it later.

Now that's been the long version, here's the super speed version if you really need it; Don't believe every offer you receive in your e-mail inbox, don't argue that you should be able to break a legally binding contract because you've been a customer for a few years, and don't lie to the person trying to help you.  Wow, that was so much easier. Either way, until next time Internet, keep your head on your shoulders and out of your ass.

Cheers,

Rob.

p.s. next week we'll talk about cell phone longevity and the right phone choice for you (ps, an iPhone 3GS is about as bad a phone choice as it gets)

You're an Internet tough guy. No, that's not a compliment.

Another day, another big red mark on my forehead from where it's impacted my desk multiple times.  I think I may have dented it, but maybe I've just softened up the frontal lobe of my brain and I'm starting to hallucinate.  Either way, the stupidity level seems to be climbing today with a trending topic of people deciding to threaten me with a variety of things which I'll touch on in turn, all of which amuse more than frighten me.

To begin with, don't bother threats of violence over the Internet in any situation ever.  You just look like a complete moron for thinking that your "I'm going to come shoot you with my gun! Herp derp" threat has any backing whatsoever.  If you had any clue where I was, I still wouldn't feel threatened by this since 9999 times out of 10000 whoever threatens this is just a big pussy anyway.  You're better off venting your frustration elsewhere to avoid looking like a loser and a moron (too bad you're already both).

Next is threatening me with "going to talk to competitor x".  Go ahead, talk with the competitor as much as you want.  I work for a 3rd party company in the first place and couldn't care less if you sign up with the company I'm shilling cell phones for other than making my sale and getting my bonus (it's not commission, it's a bonus based on sales volume and it doesn't matter what I sell as long as something sells).  So feel free, you probably think that I'm just holding out on you and don't want to give you the "Super Pissed Off Customer Threatens To Leave" discount which I don't have, have never heard of, and wouldn't give to you anyway out of spite because the mental picture of you frothing at the mouth pissed off I didn't discount something by $0.01 to make it free gives me a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit where my heart once was.

My next beef for today is language.  There's really no call for swearing and calling me names for two reasons. First of all I've been called much worse.  Second of all I do have it in my right to simply close the chat if you start swearing at me, although I'm 50/50 on whether I do it or not considering I get a kick out of your childish variation of the English language and poor usage of the term "Fuck".  I admit it makes me smile a bit and move on to assisting other customers, only to check back in on you after a minute or two so I can see if you've come up with anything unique.  If not, consider the chat closed because "OMG you trolled me so great, you's best troll on interwebz EVAR!" but seriously, no...Just, no...You're a loser who needs a life and a better vocabulary.

Now what else can I throw in my post today to round this whole thing out.  Oh wait, I have just the thing.  It's a bit off topic, but there is not much that frustrates me more.  I'll ask you a very detailed question which requires a multiple choice, or detailed response in turn.  I often receive "Yes" as the only answer.  Not only does this not get us any further, I'm now curious on how you managed to get out of bed let alone think about buying a cell phone.  If you would like an example, a good one is me asking "So to find the best plan for you, what's an estimate of how many calls you make in a single day?" When you respond with "Yes" a kitten dies. I swear to the god I don't believe in that is true.

This is where I'm going to wrap things up for today, as I'm noticing that I get a little long-winded during these rants that help preserve my own sanity, and help provide amusement to anyone who's reading I hope.  Use some common sense when you're dealing with other people online and it goes a long way to getting you taken care of much better, the old saying about catching bees with honey, yadda yadda yadda.  Until tomorrow, or someone really pisses me off tonight, take care.

Cheers,

Rob

No you can't do that, here's why...

Ahoy-hoy reader(s)!  After a day off due to, well, a day off I'm back and I have more tips and tricks on how you can avoid looking like a complete moron.  At least when shopping online, I'm not going to help you with your fashion sense (That shirt with those shoes? Are you kidding me?! j/k).  With that out of the way, let's get started on today's topic!

I've just told you "No" when you asked if you can do something, which is most commonly that you can't afford what you're buying, but for some reason you can afford it on your next bill.  If payday is going to happen between now and then, just wait until payday to buy something.  I'll also probably recommend that you use a credit card to pay for it since, *gasp* credit cards work like that.  In case you weren't sure this is how a credit card works.  You purchase stuff with your credit card, and you later get a bill that you have to pay to the credit card company for the stuff you have bought with said credit card.  Wait, wait, I must be insane because I have many customers insist that it's not the exact same.  Let's clarify.  You want to buy something today, and then pay for it on a later bill....Yup, I'm the crazy one here since I do this day in, day out, and have done it for over a year.  America, learn how to use credit cards a bit better and you may be able to keep your economy out of the shitter.  Oh, it's too late? Well, better late than never.

Since this is such a wide-ranging topic though, you've asked me if you can do something else.  I tell you no, and explain why.  Don't keep asking me if you can do it (yes I've mentioned this before, but it still annoys me).  I'm just going to keep saying "No.  Is there anything else I can assist you with?" until you get the point.  I never thought it would be so hard to get the "No" point across.  Asking me in a slightly different way doesn't make you sneaky, it makes you stupid.  I know what you can do, and what you can't do online.  I'll flat out tell you if you are not able to, and if you really need I'll explain why.  Continuing to try doing it is going to annoy me and frustrate you.  Don't be a moron, follow my advice and contact the department that actually can help you.

Since we're mentioning right departments here, let's get one thing straight.  I'm here to do sales.  I have no access to your account, and being that I'm not even in the same country as you and your service provider I really don't care what your issues with the company are.  If you don't like the company why are you even wasting my time by telling me? Do you think that I'll bend over backwards to kiss my own asshole and then pull out an iPhone 5 (which doesn't exist) from there with my tongue to hand to you on a silver platter because you don't understand how your bill works and are furious that you're paying so much for the unlimited everything plan you insisted that you required, even though you really, really don't.  You can type your complaints away at me until your fingers are numb but I still can't help you and don't care either.  When I told you 20 minutes prior you need to contact customer care for help and you decided you were better off to ignore me and go on a rant, I'm just going to ignore you.  Turnabout is fair play, and all.  Just to clarify, I will bend over backwards to help you if it's something I can help you with, and have done so often and frequently for many customers.  I also have directed hundreds if not thousands of customers to the right department to assist them with their needs if I cannot.  Don't throw yourself into the 1% that decides I'm lying to you for some unknown malicious reason and go off on a rant about how the company is fucking you over.  Once again, I don't care.

Going forward I do have a few other quick things that I want to touch base on.  Things like telling me I'm useless after I told you I don't have access to your account information.  By the way, before I said anything to you there was an automated message that told you the exact same thing.  Are you really so lazy that you couldn't read 1 sentence? I know you don't want to do any "work" like clicking a mouse button three times to check into what you've decided to ask me, but last I checked typing out a very long paragraph that explains your problem in detail and gives me personal information like your phone number, address and SSN, just for me to respond "No" is a huge waste of everyone's time.

I have more I can go on with today, but I need to save at least something for future reference or this is going to be very cyclical and I won't have anything new to write by the end of the week, so I'm saving it for later.  In the meantime, let's sum up what we've learned

Cheers,

Rob.

ps spellcheck says 'learned' is not a word....damn American dictionary

Wasting Your Time - Not Mine

Heyo everyone.  It's a chilly day which has already left me slightly annoyed and frustrated before I even started work today, and has given me some additional reasons to stop and stare at my monitor while I go "What...the...fuck?!" with what some of my customers are already doing.  Curious to know about it? Let's jump in!

To begin with today we have a great example of someone following the Internet dream of trolling someone.  I've been trolled at work before, and I will be trolled at work again.  Fortunately I have a pretty good sense of humor about it and I'm quite glad to oblige the person who feels they're trolling me if for no other reason than this; I'm getting paid to sit here and chat with you.  You're just a big enough loser that you have nothing better to do than try and troll an online chat rep....who's the moron now? This only gets funnier when it's a Friday night and the end of my shift (11 p.m. CST).  I can see that you're in the same time zone as me, and I can see that you quite clearly do not have a social life other than pretending to be an Internet bad ass.  I'm happy to keep you entertained until it hits that 11 p.m. time but please keep in mind that at that point unlike you I do have plans.  I will make your life a miserable hell within the constraints placed on me by my employer until you have decided you don't want to mess with me any longer and you move back to chatting with Mormons (p.s. they don't know how magnets work).

My next section today is going to be devoted to very stupid questions.  If you tell me you're looking at the phone you want to order that means you can easily see all the information you're asking me for.  If you are asking me the price of the phone when it's right in front of you, I'm going to treat you as if you have the intelligence level of a sack of bricks.  This goes for asking "Where's the Add to Cart button?".  Well let me tell you about that Add to Cart button.  It's big, it's green, and it says Add to Cart.  I'm not sure what world you live in that you cannot see it, but when you tell me you cannot find it my first response is to tell you to hit alt+f4 so the chat will close and I can get on with helping someone who knows how to read.  While I'm on the topic of stupid questions though, please please please stop and think about what you're about to ask me.  When you pop into my chat and ask "Uh...what does this 'unlimited messaging' mean." I will tell you it means unlimited messages, and leave it at that until you clarify by telling me you're a complete moron and don't know the definition of either unlimited or messages.  I would start a series of posts about common term definitions, but I already did that once yesterday and honestly I'm not a dictionary for your stupidity.  Moving on!

Knowing what you have!  This is somewhat important, as I am absolutely floored each and every single day by customers who want certain things for me like adding a line, upgrading their phone (By the way, too many people don't know what 'upgrade' means either...) or a few other things.  To help you with that information I need to know a few basic pieces of information about your plan.  How many daytime minutes, how much data, etc.  More people than I care to think about have absolutely NO idea what they pay for each month on their cell phone plan.  I can tell you off the top of my head exactly what my plan is, what it includes, what will cause overage fees, and how much it costs me each month.  If you do not know then I can only assume you never even look at your bill, and you probably need to find out exactly what you're paying for before I help you any further.  By the way, paying for things without understanding what you're getting is going to make you look like a moron.  If you're not sure, call customer care and they will be very happy to explain in detail what you are getting for your money.

My last section today....scratch that, on this post as it's early and there may be more that sends me into a righteous internet rage that results in another wall of text about customer stupidity...is going to be about Phones, plans, and the differences between the two.  "I want a phone with unlimited everything" is a question that makes me decide I need to start fucking with you.  I'll be the first person to tell you that no phone offers unlimited memory, since the plan is completely separate from your phone.  I know what you're asking me but I have lost interest in caring by the end of reading your first sentence.  Please be a little more articulate and let me know that you want a phone with an unlimited talk plan, and you would also like unlimited messaging and data.  By the way, no, you cannot have unlimited data on your smart phone.  It just isn't offered these days unless you go with another company that is "charging less per month" until you realize that they're adding on a lot of extras (roaming comes to mind...) I will do everything I can to help you, and also explain the limitations to the best of my ability, not to mention why they will most likely not affect you, but if you still don't like it feel free to go to the competitor.  I'm not paid by commission and I really do not care about your threats.  It's the Internet, dude.  If I let someone "screaming" at me in all caps lock bother me I would have gone insane a long time ago.

Let's sum up what we've learned today ladies and gentlemen.  First of all, don't be a moron.  Second of all, if you think you're in danger of looking like a moron, ask for assistance in a way that lets people know that you just require a bit of assistance to understand.  Last but not least, know what you're paying for and don't just pay for unlimited everything when you don't need it.  Waste of money for no reason at all which could be better spent on other things IMHO.

Cheers,

Rob

My Rant About Idiots on the Internet (Part 1 of many)

Well hello everyone and welcome to my very first blog post ever.  I've started this blog as a means to vent my personal frustrations as well as provide some simple advice on how to, you guessed it, not look like a complete moron.

First off, a bit of information about me and why I decided to start doing this.  I work in a contact center doing online sales support for a large American mobile phone company which will remain unnamed for now.  In the course of my day I chat with anywhere from 50 - 80 customers (3 at a time) and have seen a wide range of general typing ability, along with basic common sense.  With all that in mind, let's get started!

To begin with, we live in a digital age.  That's no secret anymore since it's 2011.  That being said, unless you have been living under a rock for the past 25 years you have absolutely no excuse for not understanding some very basic terms that are thrown around quite frequently.  This includes MB (Megabytes), GB (Gigabytes), Wi-Fi, as a few of the more common ones. While some of you may be biased and go "Oh well you grew up in the digital age, you understand this so much more easily".  Yeah, you know what else I understand? That it doesn't take 20 years to learn what a term is especially with how frequently you see it.  For the record....1024 bytes = 1 KB (kilobyte if you're still not following the bouncing ball).  1024 KB = 1 MB.  1024 MB = 1 GB. 1024 GB = 1 TB (terabyte).  These are fairly standard terms that are used as a measurement of data storage and transfer, and shouldn't be so hard to keep in mind.  Learn more, and look less like a moron.

Now onto my next part.  Quite blatant disregard for knowing how to use the language you've used your entire life.  I actually don't blame most people for this, I blame a horribly failed education system that for the past 30+ years has made it so easy to get by without knowing how to spell some very simple words that it makes me cringe.  I often and frequently in the course of my day will come across customers who are not shy to admit that English is their second language.  That's fine, I may struggle a bit with it but I applaud anyone who can carry on a conversation in a language they have not spent the entire life using, especially since I know I cannot. If you don't know how to spell (and use grammar) then you may want to invest some time into picking up a book that will help you with spelling and grammar.  Believe it or not this is going to help you get by in life since people will stop looking at you like you're a downs syndrome child that also has F.A.S., and actually treat you like you have half of a brain.  By the way, using an item like Dragon voice to text is not going to help you in the long run since computers make errors too, and if you can't spot them you're going to get in trouble with it eventually.

For my third section, if I had to title it anything I would call it "Help me, Help you".  Now this seems like it should be common sense to me but maybe I'm just a gigantic asshole.  Part of my job is asking questions designed to help me find out what you really need, or even want (yes there is a huge difference between the two).  If you *need* and iPhone so you can call your friends once a day, and use the phone for nothing else you better not complain about the price of the phone as well as the extras you have to pay for on the plan.  If money is really an issue each month you can probably get by using a phone that does everything you need without any extra frills.  For that reason alone my favorite customers are the ones who simply tell me that they need a phone that calls and sends/receives text messages.  Bam!  Easily done, and we're going to get through this process with a smile on both of our faces.  If you want an iPhone so you "Can use an iPod, but why do I need to pay data if I'm only using it as an iPod?" I get very tempted to point out that the iPod in best buy for $300 is going to be a lot cheaper than the bare minimum $1319.76 plus taxes and fees this phone is going to cost you over the course of 2 years.  Morale of the story is don't live outside of your means.  P.s. that's how you got into a recession America.  More of the same isn't going to get you out of it.

For my final little bit of ranting today, I want to touch on the subject that never ceases to frustrate me.  Insanity.  How much insanity do I deal with you ask? Simple.  At least 2 or 3 times an hour I will deal with a customer who thinks they are being clever when they ask me the exact same question in 4 different ways because they didn't like the first answer I gave them.  When you ask me the same question and expect a different answer that is being insane, as the definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing and expecting a different result.  You can avoid looking like a moron by accepting the answer you were given the first time.  If you don't agree with my answer, please tell me!  I'll gladly explain it in more detail for you in very small easy to use words that match a grade 2 level of understanding since that seems the most you are qualified to ingest.  That way we can both move on and instead of a painful 45 minutes of both of us being annoyed we can have a quick 10 minute conversation and both leave it satisfied.

To sum up this blog post, just don't be a moron.  Use some common sense, and realize that telling me you do not understand is not being a moron, it's showing me that you are willing to work with me, but I've said something that you require further clarification on and I can do that in generally 30 seconds or less.  When you assume I'm just stupid and don't know what I'm talking about remember I do this for a living and you don't know how to navigate a web page.  Who's the moron now?

-Rob