A word from a T-Mo Tech Care Rep

Educating customers isn't just about giving them Self-Help options. It's also to show them the way the company they've chosen works, to set the expectations of the service they will get.

I work on the T-Mobile Blackberry/PDA Queue, as well as the Sidekick/DDC Queue.

I gotta say, I had a desire when I first landed on this forum tonight to actually reply to people's posts honestly and helpfully.

But what I see here is a bunch of people slamming T-Mobile for not handing over everything on a silver platter. So I'm making this one post, off the top of my head, to have my say from INSIDE the phone banks that you guys love to complain about. Just a few points.

1) We aren't here to make your life horrible.
2) We usually really do want to fix your problem.
3) Seriously, there is a HUGE emphasis at T-Mobile for "One Call Resolution". We get penalized if we cannot resolve your issue or don't know what we're talking about. I have co-workers who have lost their jobs over "customer mistreats".
4) Hanging up on you without warning is a customer mistreat & we can be fired for it. We just don't do it - if your call drops it is absolutely not something we "did".
5) If you want us to help you solve your problem, please express yourself clearly and accurately. If you don't give all of the relevant information, such as that error message you saw and didn't bother to read, then we can't always solve your problem no matter how much we'd like to.
6) Don't yell at us. We want to fix your problem when we answer the phone. When you yell at us - suddenly it becomes much harder to actually care about your problem.
7) Yes, there are reps that are new and are just learning. There are also a few reps who really just don't know anything about your issue. If you believe that to be the issue, don't just immediately ask for a supervisor. Ask them if they could clarify for you their understanding of the issue, and what steps will be needed to resolve it. Give them time to research - honestly there are a billion things to know in this job and NOBODY knows them all.
8) If your rep really is stupid (it does happen) just hang up on them and call back and get a different rep. Yelling at them doesn't really do any good.
9) We are human and cannot fix every issue. Sometimes, your phone is just broke.
10) Know the terms of your contract, your warranty, and your service. There are 14 days after an upgrade - 30 in California - if you don't like your device to exchange it. THAT IS IT. We cannot make exceptions. We want to fix your problem, and making you wait past the 14 days is really not our goal. If you honestly don't want to bother anymore with T-Mobile, quit calling us and just cancel before the 14 days.
11) If you dropped/broke your phone, don't yell at us for something that's your own fault.
12) A Blackberry is not a basic phone. If you're not comfortable using a computer, you shouldn't really own a blackberry. I love helping intelligent, inquisitive users discover the new features of their Blackberry. However, some people really would be better off with a Samsung T229 (or even a Sidekick) and if you are one of those people, it's not our fault you can't figure out your Blackberry.
13) If you're a friendly, easy to talk to person on the phone, we will literally go out of our way to help you out.
14) Some problems are beyond our control as reps to fix. Network issues happen, and we do not always have an ETA on them. We, as reps, do not always know WHY there is an outage, nor can we find this information, no matter how much you demand it.
15) Speaking of outages, if a rep tells you there's an outage - ask them for the ICM reference number or Insite trouble ticket number of the outage. This will go a long way in helping research the problem if you have to call in again.
16) If you feel you've been mistreated by a rep - called names, called stupid, being forced to dance in your underwear, etc, then definitely ask to speak to their supervisor and request a voice ticket be filed on them. However do not stretch the truth - ALL calls are recorded and can be reviewed in such a case to see what happened. Being asked to do necessary troubleshooting steps is not a mistreat.
17) If you feel you got exceptional service from a rep - ask to speak to their supervisor and specifically say "I would like to file a KUDOS for this rep". This usually has to be done by the rep's coach - and if the coach is not available the rep will tell you as much. You can always call back to another rep who can file the KUDOS request. The rep cannot of course file this on him/herself. This really goes a long way in rewarding quality and ensures that the best reps are motivated to keep working at T-Mobile and help you out.
18) If your blackberry trackball has quit responding - and the PDA Tech requires you to reload the software to the blackberry -- kindly inform him/her that the PRIMUS ARTICLE on the issue has CHANGED and unless you have a very early 8100 blackberry, you are NOT required to reload the software. Have them read the Primus article.
19) Anytime a rep gives you information you find to be questionable, ask them to provide you the CCKB article number where they found this information. However, for some problems, keep in mind this may not always be possible, but such a request will keep us on our toes. And if we're troubleshooting correctly we should be able to provide such information.
20) No matter how bad it is, it could be worse.
21) No, we can't send you a different phone on warranty just because you don't like the phone you have now.
22) Yes, you can lie to us about troubleshooting steps if you really just want to get a replacement phone. We usually know when you're doing this. We are still required to ask you to perform these steps, and have you confirm to us they've been done. We can't tell if you REALLY ran the application loader on your blackberry - but we can tell you didn't if you said "Okay, there I did it". because the process takes 20-45 minutes. Keep your lies believable, and within the realm of policy (ie, we CAN tell if the phone has water damage or a broken screen), and we can certainly "work with you".
23) If you're hoping for an exchange, don't start the call out with "I dropped my phone and then.". once you admit damage to us, we have to record that in our notes & cannot exchange the phone.
24) Asking for our Rep ID is pointless. All access to your account is logged and all any supervisor (or even another agent) needs to know to pull this information is our name, approximate time of the call, and your mobile number.
25) Yes, you did talk to someone in Ontario yesterday. No, I'm not in Ontario. I'm in Texas. No, I cannot transfer you to Jenny. No, we do NOT have a direct line to our department even if we wanted to give it to you.
26) At least at Tier 2, we don't always read off a script - there are just certain things we are NOT allowed to do - such as give you a free upgrade when you've had your phone for 6 months and dropped it in the toilet. Regardless of how much you demand it.
27) Retentions isn't magical.
28) We probably can't fix your problem while you're talking on the phone.
29) We probably can't fix your problem when you don't even have the phone with you.
30) If we ask you to visit a T-Mobile store for testing, it isn't because we hate you. It is because we really have no way of knowing what the problem is without resources you don't have - such as another phone which would tell us whether the problem you're having is on your phone or on your account.
31) We hate being on the same call for 1 hour as much as you hate talking to us for 1 hour. If the call takes 1 hour or more, it is one of two things: A really, really tough problem to fix, or a really, really, annoying customer who will not LET us fix the problem.
32) Intermittent problems are VERY hard to diagnose. Provide us ALL the relevant details possible, and we will do our best.
33) Network outages happen on EVERY network. Canceling over not being able to send SMS/MMS for 3 or 4 days is really, really stupid. Yes, it's a huge inconvenience for you and we know that - but chances are you'll have identical outages on whatever carrier you go to.
34) If you can't verify the information on your account (especially prepaid) that's not our fault. You should know your own stuff.

I could go on and on.

But seriously. I enjoy my job as a T-Mobile PDA tech, but reading this board I am reminded of the times when I wonder why we bother. Some of you guys wouldn't be happy no matter what we did, and that makes me sad. I want to enjoy my day at work, and I only enjoy it when I can put a smile on someone's face who was upset when they called me. And I can only do that if you work with me and understand that yes, I really am there to help you out.

(taken from the Internet)

Fly By II

I decided to start writing today. It's not a journal, it's not a blog, it's not a story about a time... a story about a place... a story about the people... But above all things this is not a story about love.

It's just my own personal capitan's log, on the goals and failures achieved weekly, yearly, monthly, whatever.
Too many things pass by, and we forget them, we let them go without realizing that maybe those are the things that will change our future, or determine who/what we will be in it.

All of this process began last Saturday. Sick of watching "Sound of Thunder", where a group of time-travelers screw everything up by steppin' on a butterfly, changing the future into a mess of monsters and bad FX, I went to my grandpa's farm (now I realize that Jenny Jenkins -now playing on Winamp- is the perfect Soundtrack for this memoir) to have a BBQ.
By the way, we had lamb for lunch, and I hate it so deeply as I hate being invited to those types of BBQ.
So, there I was, refusing to play soccer, watching the grass grow, when I saw a butterfly. And then it hit me... what if I step on this one? will that determine the future of human race? what if we screwed it like seventy five years ago, but we still don't know?
We're so in the oven...

[END OF CHEAP PHILOSOPHY]

So, here we go with the minute. Today's highlights: I paid my building's maintenance. It just went up like 40 bucks and it hurts like hell, but apparently the plumbing on the rooftop is all rotten and if we don't fix it now it might explode or so I was told...

"This is what might happen to you if you don't pay 40 extra bucks".

Oh, and the "order" I made to get my new TV (LCD, Full HD, 32 inches) got cancelled indefinetely, so I guess I'll have to go downtown on saturday to find out where the heck can I find the make and model I wanted.

But there's always a bright side: my weird dreams are back. And last night I almost got killed by a snow avalanche, there was someone on a wheelchair, and someone who was thrown into the abyss by the landslide.
I think there were some people buried alive too... it was so much fun!!!

Coyote Ugly

Last night I dreamt...

I was in some kind of castle. I sneaked out at night for something I couldn't recall and I came back to my "room", but the door was locked.
Through the glass I saw my trainer (the guy that did the training to enter my company) and several friends, laughin' at me, showing a banner that said that I wouldn't enter after a certain hour. I raged, I walked towards the end of the terrace and they got out, cranked for the joke.
A friend told me that they were just kiddin', but I turned red in fury, yelling at him that he was the most unwanted person to talk to me and I jumped to the edge... Or at least that's what I tried, damn self-preservation instinct.

Hundreds of "nazis" :S dressed in grey with orange hats arrived and started killing everyone. Lots of missin' scenes with parkour in between, running and shooting.
Three of us got trapped in a safety deposit and the chasers were coming after. The door started to crack, so we left through an exit in the back.

[MISSING SCENE]

I pretended to be asleep on a car (holding my pillow!) and the cops/nazis/army guys, whatever they were, passed looking at me.
"I'm safe", I thought. It was night again. I decided to get out of my hiding place, just to notice that that fortress was surrounded by walls, and I had no escape... from that shape that was now looking at me, since the moment I moved.
Growlins, horrible growlings, a dark shape with crisp hair staring at my location. Above, on the terrace, the army enjoying the show. And that coyote was now running at me, jumping at me, biting my left hand. Blood, lots of blood and torn skin and shattered bones. The coyote is dragging me from the arm, and I'm kicking the dust.

I wake up. My hand is in pain. I don't get it. I'm awake, I shouldn't feel so much pain, and I feel the wound, and the cold in my ripped flesh. I fall asleep again, before undestanding that bridge. The coyote is jumping again towards me. I brake a chair, make a stake, and kill the beast. And I finally wake up.

Once again: my conscience hates me...

Exploring My Brain (Lucid Dreams)

I'm beginning to understand how my mind works and, like every other human being does with anything he begins to understand, I started taking a profit from it :D

I've been trying to have lucid dreams for years. A couple of weeks ago I succeeded for the first time and said "This is a dream, I don't want to be in this situation. I wanna be in Greece", and I can asure you, there's nothing like this (like Greece, and like the lucid dream itself).



Today I discovered (just a while ago) that I can improve the experience, and take advantage of "common places" or cliches of my mind. Here's how you can do it... I usually have dreams inside of dreams, which means that I wake up but it turns out to be that I'm still sleeping. It's very common in nightmares; I wake up in fear and try to move but I can't, I wake up again (of this second dream) and so on... The trick it's to look for anchor points to hold on to, until the mind becomes keen at this (sorry por the lame word game, I couldn't find any better way to express it, it's almost 3:00 AM). In example, my first anchor point is the light switch. If you got out of bed, tried to turn the light on and it doesn't work, "wake up": you're dreaming; if this was real life, the light bulb would flash before going out. Another: if there's music you like in the backgrond, wake up, you're dreaming: unless you sleep with the radio on or something like that, think as I did in my dream: this has to be a dream, 'cause there's music and I was in bed. One more: you try to move and you can't. CRYSTAL CLEAR, you're in the middle of a nightmare of the most lame and common kind. This are three things that happen to me, and that "wake me up" without leaving the dream, just to say: "this is a dream, I don't wanna be here". Done.
All that I just narrated happened in one night, without a single physical wake up.
And, in case you're wondering about how "the mind becomes keen at this"... Last time I woke up (mentally), I got up and said: "this is a dream, 'cause the floor is not right, my appartment has wooded floor".

I can assure you every recurrent nightmare becomes a field trip of which you'll wake up laughing your lungs out of the places that you thought to visit while sleeping.

A technique this time worked on me: if you lay down and sleep for a little while, you wake up and you just stay in bed, concentrating in the fact that you're about to fall asleep and that you will realize that you're dreaming, it is said that this increases the chances of having lucid dreams in about 80%.

A final advise: write down everything you see, and ask people the following day, because (esoterically speaking) you could be having an astral experience instead of a lucid dream. The difference is that, supposedly, the astral experience takes you to real places, where you can see "things the way they are", in real time (and I have to say that, as a rationalist thinker I am, I believe in lucid dreams and not in this "horangelism").

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the jury; this night I've been in Greece, Rome, three bedrooms and a restaurant, visiting known people (and I heard about some guy called Guglielmo -William- in Rome, that only God knows which repressed memory he personifies).

As we say in my land... Believe it or burst.

Curious...

140,826 People

Those Little Words (Unfinished Song)

Oh, didn't you know? When I'm in really deep shit, I write songs... guess that I'd be a suicide music star that dies young and leaves a legend behind (if I were a musician or a star). So, the result is most of the times a dark, sad song, but it has given me pretty good results as motivation. I wish that someday I'll be able to write about positive feelings, as strong as the sadness and grief that I sense around me.

I just have the chorus so far, but since it seems this dark times are going to last some time, I'm not worried about losing my inspiration.
I wrote this song looking right into your eyes, daydreaming about you and me, and you didn't even notice I was there. Ain't that sad?

Those little things that you don't wanna know,
Are those little things that I'm longing to say;
Those simple things like those little words
That kill 'n enslave, break hearts 'n betray
Are nothin' but grubs and they grow
Just to hunt 'n haunt you, they taunt,
And this torture extends with no end or
Beggining, you blend and you're bleeding,
And pleading no more, no dreamin' alone, screamin' and more...
I'm tryin' not to say those little words.

Yes, guess there's a cheap poet inside of me (the one who once wrote that love was like a goat -WTF?-).

Feel like...

I don't feel like writing.
Do you feel like reading?

P.S.: In that case, I suggest checkin' out my other entries. Have a nice day, sucker.