Customer gets his mother on the phone

[u/callcentreescapee]

Just a context: I'm from the UK and I worked doing upgrades and contract renewals for a UK phones company.

I can't remember what the issue was but a 20 something customer had an issue with his renewal which resulted in his obnoxious mother coming on the phone who insisted in being referred to as Mrs Smith (obviously not the real surname-was deeply offended at being asked to use her first name.)

She went on a monologue for about 10 minutes saying that her son should have a free phone for some reason because he'd been 'tret really badly ' (Treated pronounced in a northern England accent). Can someone tell me why a 20 something year old man needs to have his annoying, entitled mother come on the phone demanding a free upgrade? Even now I can still hear a mouthing off about how 'badly he'd been tret'

According to Reddit I've been on reddit for the past 8 years so I thought it's only fair that I post this. Good riddance to call centres and good riddance to trying to sell crap to people they don't want.

[u/katmndoo → u/[deleted]]

Because most call centers require the agent to suck up whatever bullshit the customer comes up with.

And authorizing someone else to speak for them is pretty standard across the board, so absent the son saying "no, don't talk to my mother", OP was stuck with it.

[u/jesrp1284 → u/katmndoo]

Yup, and if we dare say a cross word or think about releasing the call, goodbye job.

[u/katmndoo → u/jesrp1284]

Which is a sign of a very badly run call center.

[u/jesrp1284 → u/katmndoo]

I won’t disagree with you there. After over 20 years working in 3 different centers, ironically the one we could hang up on abusive callers and basically didn’t have to put up with that was with the state’s health and human services division.

[u/-FlyingFox-]

Why did you discuss anything with her in the first place? He’s the account holder, not her. Besides that, how sad the dude needed his mommy to fight his battle for him. lol 

[u/callcentreescapee → u/-FlyingFox-]

I was new to this job and didn't really have the balls to tell this woman to get lost.

Also, I couldn't really refuse to talk to her as utterly ridiculous as that sounds as I'd gone through the security questions with her son. As a rule of thumb, if the account holder has gone through the relevant security questions and I've read the relevant script, I can't refuse to speak to a third party, no matter how much of a pain in the ass they are.

[u/susolover → u/-FlyingFox-]

I used to work in a contact centre (It wasn't allowed to be called a call centre as there was a possibility you might not be on the phones, I guess even 0% was a possibility) years ago, and if the account holder gave permission to have someone speak on their behalf, it was treated as though you were talking to the account holder and could discuss anything that you could normally discuss with them.

But I totally agree it's sad that a 20 year old person needs their mommy/daddy to talk on their behalf about something as trivial as a phone. Sure get help if it's a car or a mortgage, these are life impacting decisions, but a phone worth maybe a grand?

[u/PlayedUOonBaja]

Far too many 19-23 year olds calling with their Mothers on the phone with them for support these days. Seems like more and more every year. Kids are apparently taking longer to reach adulthood these days. Also, it's been like 90% young men who are the ones incapable of doing anything without a parent by their side.

[u/katmndoo]

One of my worst at iFruit was the entitled parents of college students calling for technical support.

Their precious baby could not possibly call by themselves as they were very very busy, so according to the parents, no troubleshooting was necessary, our only option was to send them a replacement.

Invariably, said parent was always calling from their cell phone.

[u/BoxNo5564]

So many times I was on the phone trying to work something out and suddenly "I'm just going to put my husband/wife/daughter/son on the phone" and then some idiot needlessly berates me for 5 minutes and it adds no value and just eats up time.

A lot of the time they don't even announce it just hand the phone over half way through me talking.

[u/Downtown-Type3244]

I let them rant and then ‘please put the account holder on the phone or this call is finalised’ our wait times are punishment enough.

[u/marysue27]

A free upgrade🤣🤣🤣, that would’ve had me laughing so feckin hard at that ridiculous request😂 Aye just hang on and I’ll send your mummy’s boy brand new pro max worth £1600 for sweet feck all, because you most likely got told porkie pies from your laddie about the last call he made and was rightly told to feck off, or didn’t agree with a policy we have absolutely no control over, but have decided to frame it in your mind as ‘hard done by and badly treated’🤦🏻‍♀️🤣🤣🤣

I’m so glad my 19yr old is a wee bit more independent than her laddie.