March 15th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized

The Ultimate Warrior, Call Centres and Website Visualization

 

Yesterday, I had a bit of a down day. First of all, the new purchase that shall not be mentioned until I get it (don’t want to jinx it) was reported to take 1 to 2 months to arrive, as opposed to 1 to 2 weeks. This was my fault – the website I ordered it off was in German, and I can’t speak a bloody word of it. Nevertheless I canceled my order, went on ebay, found what I was looking for, and paid for it via paypal.

Twice.

I’m not entirely sure what happened, but £400 has gone out of my account (as opposed to £200). I’ll be honest I do whatever I usually do when something like this happened – panicked. I panicked for 2 long hours as I tried to get through to somebody to speak to in the UK Paypal call centre, traversing menu systems that are harder to navigate than Ziggurat Vertigo level on Quake 1 (tip, if you ever need to speak to somebody at the UK Paypal Call Centre, the quickest way is press 1, then press 4). I’ll be honest, he wasn’t hugely reassuring – and he called me “Rice Wine” – so I rang my credit card company (I only use it to buy online, you must be stupid not to). He reassured me that if anything was to go “horrendously horrendously wrong”, and “if they won’t refund”, then they would do a claimback on my behalf to claim back the money.

It just reassured me, and I was being a horrible customer – all over the place and panicky, and he was fantastic help. I can’t see why people are rude to Call Centre Staff, particularly if they sound like they are actually based in this time zone. Maybe it is because I worked there, and still know a few people who work there. I had to deal with insurance policies, which are a bugger, but we were trained over and over again, until we were sure we actually sounded like we knew what we were talking about (the guy at the credit card company certainly did to). Only then we were let out onto the phones. Of course, not every centre is like this, but next time you ring a call centre, and think about sounding off, there could be a person like me on the other end of the line.

Right, onto happier news.

First off, I am extremely happy with the response to the “Website Visualization Gallery” from yesterdays post. I have had 3 submissions within the last 24 hours, so it is going well! If you want to get yours in, email me with a picture of a website you like/hate (as a visualization). Could be a blog, could be myspace, could even be a porn site. Though that’s just rather odd.

googleultimatewarrior.jpgFinally, I was on the 2nd page of Google for searching for “The Ulitmate Warrior” (click the image to the right to see). and – I’ll be honest – I quite like it. So much so that I want to make a concerted effort to get onto the first page, and all the rich worldly exploits and traffic that brings. Therefore, I fancy a bit of google bombing. Therefore, if in your next post you could link to this post with the words The Ultimate Warrior, I would be very appreciative. Ta very muchy!

EDIT: I got an email from the lovely chap who I bought the two items instead of one. He has said that he will refund me, and I have got it this morning. All is right with the world again, I am happy.

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Comments: 4 Comments

 
 

4 Comments

  1. Paddy says:

    Got the refund or got the purchase? Because if you got the purchase my eager eyes are very keen to see what it was that you bought!

    I’m not rude to call centre staff, I’m rude to Market Research people though.

  2. Rhys says:

    Paddy: Got the refund this morning. Believe me, it’s quite a cool thing :) . The purchase should arrive either Saturday or Monday.

    I’m not really rude to them, though I have to try not to be. It’s not their fault, but some of them have been rude to me, and they can be genuine arseholes (one of my mates used to work there, and it changed him – “Not my fault an old dear can’t say no!”. Yeah mate, burn in hell…)

  3. Han says:

    Thats nice of him! ARG I still havn’t got my HALO! I’m reporting him!

    I come up pretty high (or I used too) when you search for the biggest *rudeword* :D

    hehe my visualisations brilliant!

  4. Ryan says:

    The best thing to do when sales call centres ring you… especially if they are not from this country is to speak to them through the means of a random soundboard like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and see how long you can keep them on the line.

    also you’re welcome for the confusing Ultimate Warrior plug off my blog.





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Rhys Wynne, the author of this blog, is a 20 something web designer from Colwyn Bay. Go to my favourite posts

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