Call your local supermarket. Go on, I dare you. If it's a national chain, likely the phone will never be answered or somebody from another part of the country will answer. Sounds a bit odd? Not really.
My job currently involves answering phones on behalf of local stores. So if you call the Poole branch, a guy in Scotland may answer.
Sounds a bit daft really, until you think about it. Personal experience tells me retail outlets will rarely answer their own phones. Usually because most calls are pointless. Yeah, most calls are checking if we have a specific item in stock.
Ok... I'll check it for you. But really, did you need to call to check we had butter in stock? Get real, get over it and make the trip next time. I can see the point for big items (e.g. a BBQ set) but not for a loaf of bread.
This will probably give away who I work for but they are currently running an offer on wine. 25% off when you buy X amount. As I said before, I'll check if an item is in stock. However, I am not getting a small city centre store to keep their entire stock of a particular wine back for you. Remember, other people buy wine as well. Anyway, most of the smaller stores have "bulk buy" policies limiting you to 6 bottles, so you can't get 25. (WTF do you do with 25 bottles between 2 people anyway?).
Ok, I'll admit some issues will require me to speak to the store on your behalf (if I can get a hold of them that is...). For example, lost property. However, some issues can easily be handled by the call centre.
Take the example of being overcharged. Now, you certainly will not get any money back over the phone. So when I tell you that you will need to re-visit the store to get the money back, please don't argue that you need to speak to the store. I'll put you through but it will not get you anywhere.
Bad calls are part of the fun of the job. However, there are a staggering number of people who will refuse to speak to me and demand a direct number to the store. Unfortunately, you're out of luck there. Not only the 0845... numbers but the 01... and 02... numbers now get redirected to the call centre. We can then transfer you to an internal line but you cannot skip us.
Surprisingly, it's not only customers complaining about that one. Staff have had a good moan to me about it too.
Though the classic has to be job vacancy enquiries. You actually have to physically go to the store to check vacancies. Get over it, you will need to do that when you work there. I did it with previous retail jobs, and you will need to now. So when I tell you this, please don't get all huffy and demand personnel on the phone (some sneaky ones try it without mentioning they are enquiring about vacancies). I'm not allowed to and probably won't even try for you.
Thankfully, I haven't yet had too many issues with "you're not local". Though I had one guy with the cheek to say "I can't understand a word you're saying". All I said was "...<my employer> customer services, steelegbr speaking...". Not too many people happy with the Scottish accent. It also gets a few annoyed that Poole store is not answering, even though I can sort out most issues without involving them!
But with all these issues, is it worth it? Well it means the phones actually get answered and most issues never actually reach the store (most of them don't really need to). It also means we can look into stuff on your behalf and solve most problems within about 30 seconds.
Also, having just done a week of solid overtime in this call queue, most calls are not this bad. Most go well enough.
Though I have found another disadvantage to doing solid overtime. Working my way through the wired inbox after a week of not using it. A couple of hundred automated messages and almost 200 spam messages. It hurt working my way through them.
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