Should I appeal my case to a supervisor now?

This is one of the most common questions I get from readers: When do I give up on dealing with a customer service representative and ask to speak with a supervisor? There are actually two answers. The first applies to phone calls; the second is for email correspondence.

Let’s talk phone calls first.

In this day and age of “no” you’re likely to get frustrated with a script-reading call center worker very quickly, particularly if he or she is doing his job correctly — which is to say, reading a script. Even so, asking for a supervisor may not necessarily work. I’ll get to the reasons why in a minute.

Here’s when to consider politely asking for a supervisor.

When you need a “fresh” set of eyes. Sometimes, your case just needs a second opinion — someone to look at it objectively. Say you’ve spent three hours on “hold” to get something fixed that should have taken just five minutes. You’re asking for a modest credit in consideration for your inconvenience. The employee who just helped you may not feel you’re entitled to anything because he or she had to go through the process with you. But a supervisor might.

When it’s something a call center employee can’t offer. Waiving fees and other requirements, or bending the rules in any way, can often only be done at the supervisory level. Your reasons for asking for a special allowance might be terrific, but at the end of the conversation, a customer service associate may not be able to help. Time to call a supervisor.

When the representative can’t communicate effectively. This may happen because of language and culture — particularly in an overseas call center — or it just may be a general failure to communicate. Remember, these are people on the other end of the line, and we don’t always get along. Politely ask for a supervisor or end the call.

Even if you request a supervisor, you may not get one. One common practice at phone centers is to transfer calls designated for a manager to a co-worker, who will just re-iterate what the previous employee has said. That’s the ol’ call center merry-go-round.

The other problem is that increasingly, supervisors are being given less power to resolve problems. They’ve become little more than overpaid middle managers who can do little more than apologize for their ability to not help you.

If you’re getting the runaround by phone, hang up and try an email. More on emails and customer service soon.

(Photo: the bmag/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • Always talk to a supervisor

    Why? Because call center employees are disposable items in the corporate ledger, so they have universally high turnover, are universally inexperienced, and receive the condensed, incomplete training that goes with a disposable job.
    They regularly give incomplete or patently incorrect information, for which you, not they, will suffer the consequences. Your later protestations that you were given incomplete/incorrect information will be useless, because you have no way of proving this because they will not give you their name, and most will make up an employee number. There is no way to reach any particular person at a call center after you have spoken to them.
    Call centers are designed, these days, to give corporations plausible deniability to do whatever they want to whomever they want, provided it increases the corporations bottom line. There simply is no accountability for anything that takes place between you and a call center employee. They don’t really represent the corporation….what they represent is a rotating shield of anonymity to deflect and defeat any legal recourse you may have against a company. Same for email (which is largely inadmissible in court for Contract law).
    Always ask for a supervisor. Always record your conversations with supervisor. Always have them tell you their name and employee number and direct callback number. Keep a log of date and times of calls.

    Otherwise, you are wasting your time and breath.

  • Jeanne in NE

    I can attest to the validity of the claim that co-workers pose as managers, rather than passing things on to their supervisors. I’ll leave the company names out.

    One of my sons works for a wireless company and got extra pay for being the “phone manager” while working in the customer service department. That role was rotated among his department. Actually passing a call on to a supervisor meant a black mark on the employee’s performance record. Passing to the “phone manager” didn’t generate the black mark, since the “phone manager” would tell the customer that there was no one higher available.

    Similarly, my daughter-in-law works for a well-known online payment system. She, too, gets extra pay while she is temporarily “promoted” to “supervisor” level.

    I agree with Chris that e-mail is the way to go, or sitting down and writing a real letter to the people at the top. My son said that so few letters get written anymore that when one comes in, it gets taken seriously. My daughter-in-law just laughed when I asked her. She says no one writes a letter to online vendors.

  • Mary Graham

    Thank goodness not ALL call centers are like that! These corporations really ought to take note, we WILL go elsewhere when we get bad customer service and keep looking until we find one that’s responsive.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WKS573FPR76SGBDXRKZLQEB7WM Matt Young

    Pretty good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon.

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