vB Easy Archive - adding features without customers knowledge?

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adding features without customers knowledge?
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Posted by: LadyB

hey guys..i don't know if it's just me...but I work in a call centre and get to deal with those new customers who need their bill explained! No problem! my pleasure! but wait..."why do I have roadside ... or voicedial?? this phone doesn't even have voicedial!!" hmmm did you sign up for service in store? " i sure did!" .... *grumbles* figures!

why does it seem that everytime a cust has a feature they didn't ask for they got their service in a store!? especially when they wanted txt blocked but they have media basic on their line? or after 5 or 6 months the realise they have voicedial and have no idea what it does and want credit for it.

Now don't get me wrong..they can be making it all up....but for it to happen at least 5-7 times in a 9 hour shift..everyday!!??? COME ON NOW!

and that's all for me! Have a good day!

Posted by: mafiazz

roadside used to be added on the account as a default trial period. it was up to the rep to uncheck the trial period.

however, OPUS has taken care of that issue. the rep now has to choose yes or no before proceeding with the transaction.

Posted by: drewyehboi

At one point at my indirect location we were unable to decline the roadside at all. We had to tell the customer to call in and have it removed because we didn't have the capability to remove it.

Posted by: Cingular724

Roadside is the worst feature in the world to add......I work as a manager at an indirect location and it is just a way for stores to have their feature rate go up by adding roadside to people accounts.....now if they were good enough they wouldnt need to add it at all and they would still have a high feature rate.....

Posted by: Wonwad

I always check peoples bills, even when they come for accessories, and I wind up adding features. Of course I let them know, usually if they have a functioning brain, they will add features or higher their plan to avoid overage fees.

Posted by: rjk6w4

In my area, just about every customer who signs up at an indirect gets both Voice Dial and RSA added. On occasion, an enhanced voicemail, just to mix it up.....It's a pain for sure.

Posted by: Telegraph

I think it stems from the higher ups.....

my master agent was actually encouraging stores to slam customers with these features (of course they will deny it now, but it happens all the time). Its one way for them to increase quota. That was my biggest pet peeve when I sold cingular. Can you believe they had the never to tell me that I would be terminated if I didn't FORCE customers to add on more features that they did not want? Pssh, what kind of company would do that?

Posted by: Cingular724

I have over a $17 feature rate and I work at an indirect location and I have never put a Roadside Assistance or VoiceDial on someones account. Its all from Media Basic, Media Works, Messaging Extreme and PDA/Blackberry packages.

Posted by: ChocoDough

Cingular is indirectly forcing their reps to do this stuff by imposing such high feature quotas.

I mean really, if you raise the feature quota from $12 per opp to $15 per op, that doesn't mean reps are going to sell more. You are going to sell what you sell and not a penny more. Just because you raise my quota doesn't mean the people walking in the door are going to want the crap any more than they do now.

I honestly believe upper managment doesn't have a clue. You raise quotas and what are reps supposed to do, they start slamming just to keep their jobs.

I won't slam because I personally don't think it is right.

Posted by: lowkey16

well there's always going to be customers that say "i didn't want that on my bill! take that off and refund me for the last 18 months that it's been on there!" i see customers come in quite regularly saying they didn't add the feature, yet when you look back at their bills you can see that they have. people will do anything and say anything to make you give them money back. i personally have never put features on someones account without them knowing it and have only seen a couple instances that i truly believe they were put on by a rsc without the customer knowing.

Posted by: irockash

I put the roadside on every now and then, but tell them about it. A quick "you get a free trial, if you dont want it, cancel it" is what does it. We keep WSAs on file, so if they ever come back and complain (which has never happened) we show them the part where they initialed right next to the roadside.

Posted by: Wonwad

Let me tell you, down here, some people don't even bother looking at their bills. I have to inform them of their overage fees.

Posted by: Superpimp

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cingular724

Roadside is the worst feature in the world to add

See I have to debate that I've got it on my cou and we get great deals on tows (a 95 dollar tow cost me 45) also with car rentals (I got a 25% discount on that)

The biggest thing I feel is people saying they never wanted something on an account, I recived a chargeback due to a customer claiming I never told them about PDA connect, yet I explained in order to get the rebate PDA connect needs to be on his account.

Posted by: blessd24

Roadside is a great feature. I have used it multiple times and has saved my butt. Most people already have this service through their insurance company where I live though.

I only slam features on people I was not able to sell too AND if my features are really hurting for the month. Which doesn't really happen much anymore.
But the trick is, setting it to delete after the free period is over. If you are able to use telegence still there is a place to put an expiration date, so I just simply let it be on there for a month and it is taken off automaticaly after the free period.

Posted by: Starxtacy8

OKKKkkkk.... for example..you know how cheapest plan for customers is 39.99? Well if u look at the rate plans the 39.99 is bolded and says 54.98. the reason being is that the 15 dollar media is "bundled" into it. My manager used to tell us to lie to the customers and tell them that our lowest plan was 54.98....that got us a a 15 dollar feature per opp. per customer if they got that plan....even if they came in to change the plan.....they had us slamming customers like crazy....its horrible. thank god i dont work there anymore. Besides...i work for verizon now

i love it...money is way bettter

best of luck!!

I think that you should get their CUID and report it everytime you see it....if nothing is being said about it nothing will get fixed. Its not fair to people.....and thats not selling. Selling is convincing someone of a product and them telling u they want it because of ur explanation....not Lying so the dont know.

Posted by: Linkman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starxtacy8

OKKKkkkk.... for example..you know how cheapest plan for customers is 39.99? Well if u look at the rate plans the 39.99 is bolded and says 54.98. the reason being is that the 15 dollar media is "bundled" into it. My manager used to tell us to lie to the customers and tell them that our lowest plan was 54.98....that got us a a 15 dollar feature per opp. per customer if they got that plan....even if they came in to change the plan.....they had us slamming customers like crazy....its horrible. thank god i dont work there anymore. Besides...i work for verizon now

i love it...money is way bettter

I know those new brochures are VERY misleading and confusing to a lot of customers. Cingular doesn't even try to hide the fact that they are promoting feature slamming and they have been doing it for years. I sat in a meeting with the VP of our region who insisted to all of the dealers that they tell there reps to add mMode & roadside to EVERY customers acct. and "let them figure it out". Back then they would get those features free for two months before it started billing so it was easy to hide. Our RAE's constantly tell my reps to just go ahead and add features they think the customer needs and let care fix it later.

I tell everyone who works for me that if I catch them doing that they risk immediate termination. The ironic thing is that we always rank in the top five for feature adds.

I knew a regional dealer (multi-state) that at one point had a 500% attach rate for features. 500%!! That's an average of 5 features per account. Which is totally insane!! Cingular COULD do something about it but, of course, they don't. They value profit over integrity.

Posted by: blessd24

The trick with the bundling is to tell them they get 1000 text and 5 MB of internet INCLUDED with the price listed. It's all about positioning dontchya know? I still don't really do that, I don't think its really right. Some people actually like that you get all that stuff for one simple price, it makes it sound better.

Posted by: Wonwad

They go crazy when they see the bolded prices, but I show them the basic monthly and I calm them down.

Posted by: Superpimp

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessd24

The trick with the bundling is to tell them they get 1000 text and 5 MB of internet INCLUDED with the price listed. It's all about positioning dontchya know? I still don't really do that, I don't think its really right. Some people actually like that you get all that stuff for one simple price, it makes it sound better.

That's how I get all my media bundles, however with the paycut I'm going to just get my bare minimum and f'em

Posted by: SoCal91302

Quote:

Originally Posted by Superpimp

That's how I get all my media bundles, however with the paycut I'm going to just get my bare minimum and f'em

Posted by: Wonwad

It's a shame, had a customer come in today and not only was he ripped off for a V3xx, but they gave him the $19.99 Media max. Recently I started to add features to customers without telling them only if they needed them. Today I checked a customer's bill and he had $100 worth of texting overages. But that was only in January. So I called customer service and asked them how many texts he has sent and received for February and he already has 977 texts. I added the 3000 text pkg to save him some money.

Posted by: jflore02

It frustrates me too, as an RSC...Almost as much as it does when CALL CENTER REPS flip my features! lol

Posted by: cingman66

I agree that it is Cingular at the highest level that indirectly forces agents and indirects to "slam" features on unsuspecting customers. They consistently raise the data revenue goals every month in an effort to attain higher overall revenue numbers so they can show the stockholders how much revenue they are raking in through non-voice channels. I always chuckle at the quarterly reports that show how much Cingular has increased their ARPU thanks to the higher data numbers. They really must be stupid. Don't they realize that these numbers are all fake? What am I saying...of course they do...they even encourage it. It's all about creating the illusion of growth and increased profits. What they don't realize is that today's data growth is tomorrow's data negative growth. Cingular is only counting the gross revenue...not the net revenue. For every data feature that gets added this month, I am sure that at least half of them are being cancelled next month, or shortly thereafter. Cingular is only counting the gross adds...not the net between this month's adds and this month's losses. It's a great system that trickles all the way down to the retail stores...we are credited with all the adds for the month, but never debited for all the cancellations--unless they occur within the same month. Neat, huh? So the next time a customer calls in to question a feature that they didn't realize was on their account, think about the poor store rep who has impossible data numbers to attain just to keep his job and make a decent living. Not that I am encouraging "slamming" of features, but creative selling is certainly a pre-requisite to success in this business.

Does Cingular actually think...and I'm being totally honest here...that the majority of customers want/need $12+ of data on their bills? I don't know about the rest of you out there, but the majority of my customers beg me to remove ALL traces of data from their bills...all they want is a phone to be a phone. I think Cingular (and all the carriers for that matter) are trying to create an illusion that cell phone users in this country live and die for this stuff and it is our job to provide it. While there certainly is a percentage of customers that are "under-featured," for lack of better terminology, and for who we provide a valuable service by adding media packages to their bill to save them money, there is a much LARGER percentage of customers who are "over-featured," and need us to back the hell off.

Boy, I feel better now.

Posted by: TxTwin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wonwad

It's a shame, had a customer come in today and not only was he ripped off for a V3xx, but they gave him the $19.99 Media max. Recently I started to add features to customers without telling them only if they needed them. Today I checked a customer's bill and he had $100 worth of texting overages. But that was only in January. So I called customer service and asked them how many texts he has sent and received for February and he already has 977 texts. I added the 3000 text pkg to save him some money.

Did you call the customer and say, "Mr/Ms Customer, I was doing an account audit and found that you had to pay $100 in overages for January due to TXT and it looks like you are well on your way to $XXX in overages for February. Did you know we offer a 3000/TXT package for .... and it would save you money. If you add it and then decide you don't want it, we can always remove it the next month....?" ANY time you change a feature on a customer's account, you should request their permission. Period. If the customer is stupid and continues to TXT without a package and pay overages, that is the customer's own issue.

This just happened with my friend with another carrier. They had not used any "Txt" messages, but had sent a few photos. Their entire plan and features were restructured to the way they were using the phone (only a few months into their first contract). The rep provided the information to my friend, and let them talk it over and decide what would best fit their future usage (new post paid users) and call back. The rep did not just add features...