CSR: Here’s the agenda. You’ll notice my name is missing from the list because I plan on going home at 4PM.
Admin: I notice [Dawn] isn’t on the list either.
CSR: That’s because I figure wherever I put her on the list, she’ll end up under the guy’s table anyway.
3601 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Overheard by: Coordinator
Customer service manager: Okay, now I’m going to grab my hipflask, hide behind the bushes, and drink myself stupid.
98 Toryork
North York, Ontario
Canadia
CSR girl: C-s-z.
Accounting girl: C-s-b?
CSR girl: No, “z”! “Z!” Like, um…”xylophone.”
Baltimore, Maryland
Overheard by: Nikki
CSR: I just got a call from a guy that was looking for a customer service number for the phone company but he didn’t want an automated number, so I told him that most customer service numbers are automated. He told me, “I am a therapist; I know how the phone system works.”
6010 Exchange Parkway
San Antonio, Texas
CSR: Today needs to be over. I’m so seriously ready to slit my wrists–
The phone rings.
CSR: Good afternoon. This is [Nelly], how can I help you? Oh…hi! How are you doing?…Oh, I’m great! Mm-hmm, yes, of course! I just have to pull up your previous order…Oh, really? Oh! Well, that’s okay!…No, really!…Oh, stop it! Ha, ha! Okay, well thanks for calling anyway! Yes…Thank you, I will! You also, okay? M’kay, bye!…Jesus. Okay, so, what the fuck was I saying again?
950 Tower Lane
Foster City, California
Tech support, ending the conversation: I'm definitely gonna come on your machine tonight.
Melville, New York
Customer: I want to ask you about the solid wood tubing. Is that
hollow?
CSR: The Solid Wood Tubing?
Customer: Yes.
CSR: No, it is solid.
Customer: Oh, I see.
737 Main Street
Buffalo, New York
Dell Support operator: OK, sir, now I’m going to need you to insert your System CD. Do you have that handy?
Irish customer: Is dat dis Pentanium ting?
The other listeners on conference laugh.
Dell Support operator: Excuse me, sir, there’s a lot of background noise. I’m just going to turn off the other microphones.
–As a novel approach to caller boredom while waiting for a techSupp droid to become free, Dell have instituted a situation where callers get to listen in while said droid deals with the calls ahead of one in the queue.
So the overhearing was actually pretty widely geographically
distributed, between:
The charmin’ Irish Callcentre colleen, who was wherever in Ireland Dell have their support centre;
Her interlocutor, who by his accent was also in that country;
The various other listeners-in, who might have been anywhere in
Europe;
Me, at Long Lane, Newbury, England.
Overheard by: CDWriter
Customer: So where in the instruction manual does it tell me to save the receipt?
Customer Service Rep.: You’re kidding me, right? You mean to say that you have to be told to save your receipt?
Customer: Yes, I do.
Customer Service Rep.: So, if you were to go out and buy a roll of toilet paper, it would have to say “Tear here, wipe there” or else you wouldn’t know how to use it? Because both are pretty much common sense, sir.
835 41st Street
Des Moines, Iowa
Overheard by: christiana (while doing remote observations on customer service calls)
Man: I’d like to change the name on the account. She’s been dead for a while now.
CSR: For how long?
170 Utopia Road
Manchester, Connecticut
Overheard by: Mellen
