At work today someone asked us to list our funniest customer service moments, whether we were the customer or the rep, so here is what I listed:
A client once called our department when it was about 2:00 in the afternoon.
The client said, " I need to let you know that at 8:00 this morning we got an error message. I don't remember exactly what it said. It said something about how I should write this message down and call client support immediately."
What was remarkable to us in the client support department is that she was able to correctly remember only two things about that error message, and clearly she hadn't acted on either one.
One of my very first calls I ever got in client support was this.
"The message on the screen says 'If you wish to continue, insert new back up tape and press Y,' I've put in a new tape, and I do want to continue! WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW?"
I thought, wow, this new job is going to be so easy! I almost never got one that easy ever again.
One customer was all upset and out of breath and kept reputing, "I can't get my white stickies on the fly! I can't get my white stickies on the fly."
Clearly this was going to be another case of a clinic with its own unique terminology.
I remembered my old cultural anthropology professor, as I so often do, reminding us, "To get the most information from the informant, don't ask for meaning, ask for use."
So I picked one of the words in this sentence I didn't understand, "What do you use those 'stickies' for?" She answered , "We stick them on laboratory specimens and chart notes. They have the patient's name on them." OK we call them "lab labels" in our department. So, one down.
Then I asked, " And what do you use the fly for?" She answered, "No, no! 'On-the-fly.' I don't get them right away. They usually just print out as soon as I make an appointment!" Now I knew that she was really saying that her lab labels that normally print as soon as the appointment is scheduled, did not print, and I was able to investigate and determine that the printer itself just needed to be restarted. I wonder where that fly is, today? I hope he gots his white stickies.
Back when I was a collector, I neede to call the provider services of various insurance companies all the time. It got to the point where I frequently got the same representataives from the same insurance companies, often enough that we remembered each other, similarly to how many of our clients know each of us now. But I got a lot of complaints from them at first, that I talked to fast, and not clearly enough. So I slowed my speech way down, on the phone, and did my best to enunciate more clearly. One day, later in my career as an insurance collector, I called provider services at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota. I introduced myself to the provider services rep, and I heard him cover the phone with his hand and say something to his co workers. I could hear them all laugh. He came back on the line and explained, "I just told everyone I got the 'Time Lady' again. We all know you and we think you sound like the recorded message that tells everyone what time it is. You know, 'At the tone, the time will be eight fifty-two, and ten seconds. Beeeeep.' "
To this day I don’t know how I should have responded. I guess if I'm just a recorded message, I don’t have to reply, do I?
Another provider services rep from another insurance company said she would only answer my question about an unpaid health claim if I could tell her what the name was, of the van that the teen agers always rode around in, on Scooby Doo. It's The Mystery Machine, duh. Who doesn't know that ? She explained that they were having an argument about it in her department, and needed a tie-breaker. And the frustrating thing is that when she turned around and told her co workers my answer, I could still hear some of them disagreeing with me! I started to forget my original business reason for calling , and, on company time, started arguing about a television cartoon. I do have my priorities, you know. I may not know all the fields on a 837A electronic claim fomrat, don't argue with me about 70's TV.
A client once called our department when it was about 2:00 in the afternoon.
The client said, " I need to let you know that at 8:00 this morning we got an error message. I don't remember exactly what it said. It said something about how I should write this message down and call client support immediately."
What was remarkable to us in the client support department is that she was able to correctly remember only two things about that error message, and clearly she hadn't acted on either one.
One of my very first calls I ever got in client support was this.
"The message on the screen says 'If you wish to continue, insert new back up tape and press Y,' I've put in a new tape, and I do want to continue! WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW?"
I thought, wow, this new job is going to be so easy! I almost never got one that easy ever again.
One customer was all upset and out of breath and kept reputing, "I can't get my white stickies on the fly! I can't get my white stickies on the fly."
Clearly this was going to be another case of a clinic with its own unique terminology.
I remembered my old cultural anthropology professor, as I so often do, reminding us, "To get the most information from the informant, don't ask for meaning, ask for use."
So I picked one of the words in this sentence I didn't understand, "What do you use those 'stickies' for?" She answered , "We stick them on laboratory specimens and chart notes. They have the patient's name on them." OK we call them "lab labels" in our department. So, one down.
Then I asked, " And what do you use the fly for?" She answered, "No, no! 'On-the-fly.' I don't get them right away. They usually just print out as soon as I make an appointment!" Now I knew that she was really saying that her lab labels that normally print as soon as the appointment is scheduled, did not print, and I was able to investigate and determine that the printer itself just needed to be restarted. I wonder where that fly is, today? I hope he gots his white stickies.
Back when I was a collector, I neede to call the provider services of various insurance companies all the time. It got to the point where I frequently got the same representataives from the same insurance companies, often enough that we remembered each other, similarly to how many of our clients know each of us now. But I got a lot of complaints from them at first, that I talked to fast, and not clearly enough. So I slowed my speech way down, on the phone, and did my best to enunciate more clearly. One day, later in my career as an insurance collector, I called provider services at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota. I introduced myself to the provider services rep, and I heard him cover the phone with his hand and say something to his co workers. I could hear them all laugh. He came back on the line and explained, "I just told everyone I got the 'Time Lady' again. We all know you and we think you sound like the recorded message that tells everyone what time it is. You know, 'At the tone, the time will be eight fifty-two, and ten seconds. Beeeeep.' "
To this day I don’t know how I should have responded. I guess if I'm just a recorded message, I don’t have to reply, do I?
Another provider services rep from another insurance company said she would only answer my question about an unpaid health claim if I could tell her what the name was, of the van that the teen agers always rode around in, on Scooby Doo. It's The Mystery Machine, duh. Who doesn't know that ? She explained that they were having an argument about it in her department, and needed a tie-breaker. And the frustrating thing is that when she turned around and told her co workers my answer, I could still hear some of them disagreeing with me! I started to forget my original business reason for calling , and, on company time, started arguing about a television cartoon. I do have my priorities, you know. I may not know all the fields on a 837A electronic claim fomrat, don't argue with me about 70's TV.
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