I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit of a ’snooze surfer’. Nothing to do with either the sea or the web, ’snooze surfing’ is that process of hitting snooze on the alarm clock every n minutes to ‘ease’ oneself into the day.

So, it’s with a mixture of intrigue and alarm (ho ho) that I suddenly discovered that the days of ’snooze surfing’ may be at drawing to a close…

Clocky, the Smart Alarm

Whatever will they think of next?

Today I discovered a new diversion from my planned activity for the day*.

I’m not normally one for games, but this one at least has some relevancy to what Gurus is all about, so I figured I’d give it a plug. After all, we all need a break from our call centre work, and so what better way to spend our free time than with a frustratingly addictive little call centre game.

Ah, and with the most annoying soundtrack, too. Try it, I think you too will end up whittering away some time trying to reach your quota.

It makes me wonder whether we should make a Gurus game. Hmmm… now there’s an idea…

John

* the planned activity for the day was something more mundane and serious and boring, so the diversion was very welcome indeed

When a company really, truly, fundamentally annoys you - whether because of bad service, a lack of interest in you or your needs, a general lackadaisical attitude to quality, whatever - then you might have felt compelled to act. You might have thought about writing a letter, but, wait, that’s so old-millennium. You might have considered an email, but you know that they’ll never read it. You might even have tried calling to register your dissatisfaction, and ended up in the IVR maze from hell.

If you’re a normal person, you might fume a bit. You might tell your friends over a few beers and fume some more. You might even try to talk random strangers out of buying the products/visiting the store/doing any business with your hated organisation.

There is, however, another way. It’s the sort of thing that I have even considered. Me, mild-mannered janitor of mystery. Me, taker-of-paths-of-least-resistance (at least when it comes to these sorts of things). Me. Yes, your amiable host…

Some people, driven insane by the incredible short-sighted, can’t-give-a-damn attitude or intrinsic disastrous service of (generally bigger) companies, resort to a real ‘don’t get mad, get even’ tactic. One I secretly admire. Damn, cat’s out of the bag.

What we’re talking about here, people, is the concept of the Corporate Hate website. For instance, if you really hated CallCentreGurus and were really mad at us, you might send us a nasty email, which we’d ignore. Probably. Or, you might register CallCentreGurusSucks.com and try to get your own back. Now, of course, you’d never do that to us, as we’re the good guys, but you might do it for a larger company.

Bearing this in mind, I direct you now to this interesting article which I have just discovered. It’s a fascinating insight into the mindset of the truly offended, deeply unhappy, disrespected and angry customer. Customer with the time, and willpower, to really play hardball.

I have a lot of sympathy for some of these people. They’ve been driven to it by uncaring or ineffective organisations with lousy customer service. They’ve seen no option but to lash out in the public arena. They’re the extreme cases, for sure, but they’re customers no less.

As customer service and call centre people, it’s our duty to try to prevent such customers reaching this plateau of dissatisfaction. However, not everyone sees it this way, and so it’s no surprise that sites like this exist.

Links:
Corporate Hate Article @ Forbes

I was saddened to read the news that Contax, maker of some of the finest cameras available, have decided to stop making cameras. This is a crying shame for a marque up there with Leica and Hasselblad, jostling for the crown of best camera.

Completely off-topic for this blog, I admit, but as a fan and user of the wonderful G2 Rangefinder, I feel a sense of loss at the demise of this great brand.

A sign of the times, I’m afraid

John

I received an interesting email just the other day which alerted me about a film whose premise I found intriguing. Apart from the fact that I generally enjoy watching films (especially non-Hollywood fare - with a particular soft spot for low budget horror flicks and offbeat French worldy observations such as Amelie), this particular film was noteworthy because it is the first film to my knowledge to feature a call centre as a plot device. Hopw intriguing!

The film is called American Daylight and it’s a contemporary thriller set in today’s technology-savvy world. This is a world that we all know so well; one where the outsource call centre is king. When we dial our apparently local bank, we are routed to another continent.

In the case of American Daylight, Sujata (played by Koel Puri) is a call centre agent who, as it often the way, is trained to talk with an American accent, and to complete this illusion, she is renamed ‘Sue’. ‘Sue’ receives a call from a guy called Lawrence (played by Nick Moran), a millionaire who is concerned that his wife is about to empty their joint bank account. Now, I can sympathise with that. Happens to me all the time. Anyway, Lawrence tries to persuade ‘Sue’ to bend the rules to give him the ‘inside info’, which she does. Meanwhile, ‘Sue’s boss, Pat (Vijay Raaz), who has a thing for ‘Sue’, starts to resent the way things are starting to turn out between Lawrence and ‘Sue’. Lawrence falls for his ‘Sue’, not realising that she isn’t who she purports to be.

It’s an interesting concept, with shades of Cyrano de Bergerac and other such tales. I haven’t yet had a chance to see it, but I’m definitely going to make a point of looking out for it, as it will be fascinating to see how the director (Roger Christian) handles the topic and the complexities of what isn’t such a far fetched concept.

Keep your eyes peeled for it, should it hit a cinema near you.

Good morning.

For a change, instead of talking shop and my usual, technically-orientated subject matter, I thought I’d wax lyrical about animals. A few particular animals, as it happens.

Life with Cats

We’re big cat people; not ‘big cats’ as in lions and tigers (though we like them too) but domestic cats. We’ve two; Django, a large black tom aged around seven (with a baldy belly and a real gannet-like appetite), and Mickey. Or Pickle, as I often call him. Mickey ‘Mickle Pickle’ (that’s how it happened, folks) has just turned six months of age. We got him aged around seven weeks; my wife’s colleague was taking one of the last two kittens left in a moderately large litter, and when asked “do you know anyone who’d like the other kitten", she thought of Mrs. C. So, that day, the conversation went something like this:

She: Hi hon, remember you said we could maybe someday get a kitten?
Me: Ahhhh, ummm, someday. Why?
She: Weeeeeeell, Anne’s got a new kitten, and there’s another one left. Can we have it?
Me: I dunno, I’ll have to think about it. What about Django?
She: I’m sure he’ll be okay, you know-
Me: Hang on, I know you; you’ve already said yes, haven’t you?
She: You’re good.

So, lo and behold, we were a dual cat household. One cat was fine, with a certain serenity to the proceedings; however, Mickey was a shock to the system: energy, speed, mischief, all the usual kitten traits. Django never really got much peace and quiet after we got Mickey.

Anyway, why am I telling you all of this? Well, it’s because yesterday, at the sort of exorbitant prices only vets can get away with charging, Mickey became less of a boy and more of a, well, urm, you know…

So, my thoughts are with the little man. It was a more complicated operation than they expected, due to the fact that, ahem, only one had dropped (t’other was hiding inside, waiting for warmer days it would seem). So, after shelling out nearly One Hundred And Fifty Quid (capitalised for maximum effect), we had one shaven, rather sorry-looking castrato cat-o.

The funniest thing about the whole deal was the fact that, due to the presence of stitches, he had to wear one of those funny looking collar things. Which he did not like one bit. Eventually, he achieved the impossible and managed to escape, Houdini-like, from the collar and was licking at the stitches on his belly. Awwwww…

My dear wife ended up fabricating a kind of ‘romper suit’ for the wee man, with paw holes and all. He looked quite the part in it…

The Baby Seal Episode

Continuing in the cute-and-cuddly theme, when walking with a friend on a nearby beach on Saturday, we chanced across a beached baby seal. Unhurt but alone, the little fella* was just lying there. The tide was a couple of hundred yards away (it’s a big beach on the Fife Riviera, ho hum). Anyway, the big question that we had to find an answer to was this: exactly what does one do when one finds a stranded baby seal?

We were a bit unsure, so a quick call to our local animal protection organisation established some facts:
(1) Baby Seals do this all the time;
(2) They can give a nasty bite, and so should be given a bit of a wide berth;
(3) Even if they didn’t bite, human scent can cause problems with parental abandonment**;
(4) Mother would return for baby come the high tide.

So, in a round-about fashion we were advised to leave Baby well alone, at least until the tide had risen. Should Baby remain after another high-tide, then it would be time to take it more seriously. As it happens, though, despite the fact that there were several hours to go before the tide would reach Baby, we were transfixed; a short coffee break was curtailed so that we could return to check on Baby. In the end we were standing in the rain, watching from a reasonable distance, and willing Baby to take the Seal Shuffle down into the breakwater. Which inevitably he didn’t. In fact, it appeared that he had something of an aversion to the water, and whenever the waves started to lap close-by, he Seal Shuffled away from the water. We were concerned, but transfixed. Luckily, as the day began to dim, Baby finally realised that there were few places he could Seal Shuffle to, save for the gray sea. So, it was with a little cheer (on our part) and a final Seal Shuffle (on Baby’s part) that he made his way into the surf, and away. Hopefully to Mum.

So, thus concludes a bit of an off-topic contribution, because sometimes the best tonic is being away from the drudgery of the office and the call centre, and around nature. It’s good for the soul.

John

* arbitrary decision on my part; only a boy seal would be daft enough to get beached.
** so that’s why my mother never comes to visit…