Call Centres and their staff

[searchlight]

Why do call centre staff flatly refuse to give their surnames when asked, for the record?

What sets these individuals apart from anyone else I might deal with over the phone eg a police officer or a council official who will give their surname if requested?

Disregarding the message that some or all calls may be recorded for quality of service and training do call centres have to keep records of all inbound calls and outbound calls including those made by so called automatic diallers?

[AutomaticGal]

*gruff voice* errrm.... company policy maam

[Buenchico]

Reason 1:
Staff in many jobs are not permitted to reveal their surnames. This is a security measure, to prevent aggrieved customers from seeking to attack them (or to prevent potential stalkers from being able to locate staff). For example, when I ran a railway station, the company withdrew all name badges which showed a surname, and replaced them with badges which only showed forenames. While it might be difficult for an aggrieved customer to trace a call centre worker called John Smith, it would be far easier to find Uriah Ponsonby-Smythe. It makes sense to have a single policy which applies to all staff.

Reason 2:
Many call centre staff don't use their own forenames anyway, so there are no surnames to pair up with the fictitious forename that you're given over the phone. In particular, call centres in India will often seek to employ staff without strong Asian accents. (i.e. they look for staff with 'British' accents). To suggest that you're speaking to someone in the UK, a worker called 'Sunil' might be told to introduce himself as 'Colin'. His colleagues Narendra and Sunitha will become 'James' and 'Sandra' respectively.

Sometimes the two reasons come together. A call centre in the UK might want to keep the real identities of their staff confidential, so they'll only use forenames. However, they employ 6 people called Tom and 11 people called Kylie. So that they know who you were talking to, if you call to complain, they'll rename all of their staff uniquely. (For instance, when Joe Bloggs joins their team, they'll look down their list of names they've not used yet and say "Right, from now on, you're Simon" even though he's the only Joe in the company, simply because 'Simon' was the next name on the list).

Chris

[buildersmate]

Customer Service call centres (ones which you call to make an enquiry) make a record of the key points of the call to maintain a 'log' of the trail of the enquiry. (They may also physically record the call for a period of days).
Ones that phone you to try and flog you stuff probably don't - until the enquiry looks like you are interested.

[Doc.Spock.1]

No point getting a name. All call centre staff are untrained monkeys.

They work off a screen which tells them how to respond.

If you ask to speak to an appropriate department they sometimes say, " there are no phones in that office "

No point in getting name as they all have the same script.

[daffy654]

Not long ago I had 3 calls in two days from Asthma UK wanting me to join their lottery (I already had joined),each call was from a different woman,I could tell that by their voices,yet they all claimed to be called Kayleigh.I think many call centre staff just make up a name or are told to use a certain name by their bosses.