Entry bubble Calling the 800 Number

By: Joanne | May 06, 2009 | Category: General

Bloggers at the Government Customer Support ConferenceHave you ever had a good or bad experience with a call center?

Sometimes good stories come out of call centers: An employee call center received a call late on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Her personnel office closed for the day and she needed proof of insurance because her young daughter died and the funeral home would not perform the services until they had proof of life insurance. The agent started calling personnel offices to find someone who could help. Because the agent wouldn’t give up, personnel found the information, contacted the funeral home and sent the appropriate documents. The agent stayed on the line with the employee until they heard from the personnel manager that she succeeded.

Sometimes the stories are not so good: A friend once told a story where the director of a software manufacturing company was recorded informing a caller to send a product back for a full refund as the caller was “too stupid” to use the product. Luckily for all future callers, the chairman directed a personnel change so this director would no longer be taking calls.

What contact center managers have to know is, how do you make the contact center experience a good one?

A few ways that come to mind: One way is to ask probing questions so if someone called and asked how to do a name change, we might also ask a follow-up question like, “Is that due to a marriage or another situation where you might need to change your benefits?”

Or maybe if someone called with a question and the answer could be easily found on our website. We might stay on the line and guide them to where the information is shown.

Both these examples make the caller feel like they had a valid question, and that someone cares about their situation. Usually the caller might even say to me, “Oh, thanks I didn’t know that was right there.”

What makes your call to the 800 number a good one?

Note from Joanne: I just did a workshop with government contact center managers about using social media. As a workshop exercise, we wrote today’s blog post as a group. You can see my group of brand new bloggers in the photo above.

| View Comments [7] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: 800   call   center   contact   joanne   number  

 

Entry bubble Poison Help: Just a Phone Call Away

By: Stephanie | March 16, 2009 | Category: Health

skull and crossbones, with the word Poison Did you know that unintentional poisoning causes more deaths than car accidents and house fires in the United States? And that the death rate from poisoning has been rising in this country in recent years?

This is National Poison Prevention Week—and an important part of poison prevention can be found in a toll free phone call to Poison Help, a free service of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Poison Help—1-800-222-1222—automatically forwards you to a poison control center in your area, where you can talk with an expert in poison emergencies.

Call Poison Help, for example, if you took a medicine incorrectly, used a strong cleaning product without gloves, ate food that was left out too long, or were bitten by a spider.

Also call if you think your child swallowed a poison such as a cosmetic or personal care product, a cleaning substance, or a part of a plant.

Don’t wait for signs of poisoning, the experts warn—they’ll help with any possible poisoning, even if you aren’t sure it’s occurred. They say that often your problem can be solved on the phone. (If a victim isn’t breathing, call 911 first.) The poison expert also might call back to check on you.

If you need a doctor or ambulance, the poison expert will tell you right away, and he or she may also call your local hospital to give treatment information ahead of your arrival.

Poison Help recommends that you keep its number near your phone (call the number to receive free magnets), or enter the number into speed dial. It also offers tips at its website on preventing poisoning, and how to help in a poisoning emergency.

Have you ever had a poisoning emergency, or called Poison Help?

| Post a Comment | View Comments [4] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: call   emergency   expert   hotline   national_poison_prevention_week   phone   poison   poison_help   prevention   stephanie  

 

Entry bubble The Do Not Call Registry

By: Jake | February 25, 2008 | Category: Money

You can now make those mid-dinner telemarketing calls a thing of the past.

The Do Not Call Registry allows citizens to submit their phone numbers to a list that telemarketers are not allowed to call. When the registry was set up in 2003 the program required people to re-register every five years in order to keep the numbers up to date.

Now users will not have to re-register since earlier this month President Bush signed the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007 which prohibits the removal of numbers from the registry.

You can verify your registration or register your phone number online. Keep in mind that it takes 31 days for the updated list to be submitted to telemarketers and even then you may still receive calls from political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors or companies with which you have an existing business relationship. If you do receive a call from someone you are not supposed to you can file a complaint with the registry online or with the Federal Communications Commission.

| View Comments [0] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: call   commission   do   federal   jake   not   registry   telemarketers   trade