vB Easy Archive - Any idea what's going on at XBM?

Pages: 1

Any idea what's going on at XBM?
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)

Posted by: DonaldMick

I've only needed to contact them for a few weeks, but it seems that when I try to call them it's at least a 15 minute hold time.

It's not like I don't mind the impromptu break, but if I'm having trouble going through as an employee, imagine what the customers must be thinking.

Posted by: ~X~

It's been like that for a while.
When I call though sometimes it says a 3 minute wait time and then 10 seconds later a rep comes on.
I rather enjoy the break though... plus I hate warm transfering

Posted by: ivwshane

15 minutes? Wow you guys are lucky! Everytime I've had to call it's been about a 30 minute wait.

Posted by: KaBaL666

i talked to an XBM rep, and she said that the department is growing, and they are short staffed...

Posted by: mobile weasel

the two thing that I wish would happen is that they would listen to me when I tell them that the phone is defective , without going thru the troubleshooting steps again and that they would change the music. I am tired of hearing the same 4 bars of music over and over.

Posted by: Mourningstar

It's been like that for most of the past month. In our contract with Cingular (XBM is a third-party contractor, eTelecare), we're supposed to maintain an 80% service level, and for the past month, our service level has only been around 20%. The biggest problem is an incredibly high turn-over rate (mostly due to upper-management's complete incompetence, their insistence on treating employees as children, and the fact that we're using old, second-hand computers and teleclients that barely work), and there's just not enough people to handle all the calls.

To give you an idea, the last training class we had was about 120 people. Training lasts 3-4 weeks, and by the end of it, there were only about 25 people left. Add that to the fact that quite a few tenured employees are quitting every week (mostly to go to T-Mobile), and it's a big problem.

Cingular's losing a lot of customers because of it as well. I'm at work right now, I've been here since 6:00 when we opened, and it's 10:30 now. In the last 4 and a half hours, we've had an average of 350 calls in queue at any given moment, service level's only at 23.8%, and there's been 2,813 calls abandoned (customers hanging up because they're sick of waiting on hold).

The company hasn't made it public (or even told most of its' employees), but due to the low service level we've kept, we're about to lose our contract with Cingular, and when that happens, there's going to be about 800 people out of a job, XBM won't exist anymore, and Cingular will have thousands of customers with defective phones, and no way to get them repaired or exchanged, since the stores won't be ready for it....

Posted by: ivwshane

Wow, I didn't realize xbm wasn't actually a cingular department.

Posted by: Mourningstar

Two hours later, and we've now 480 calls in queue, customers waiting an average of 16:28 to talk to someone, an average call time (once they do get through to someone) of another 11:03, service level's down to 22.06% and now we're up to 3,653 abandoned, which means about 800 more dissatisfied customers...

Yeah, XBM won't last much longer....

Posted by: MrAlifEkin

Please don't misunderstand me cause i don't ever wish for anyone to be out of a job but, maybe now we'll get technicians in the stores.....Ever wonder why Verizon's customer satisfaction is always high? Heck, maybe the people at xbm could become technicians at the store. What I would give to see the company implement CS reps in all stores as well as technicians. Maybe then, my job title of Sales Consultant would be exactly just that. SALES!

Posted by: holaDude

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mourningstar

The company hasn't made it public (or even told most of its' employees), but due to the low service level we've kept, we're about to lose our contract with Cingular, and when that happens, there's going to be about 800 people out of a job, XBM won't exist anymore, and Cingular will have thousands of customers with defective phones, and no way to get them repaired or exchanged, since the stores won't be ready for it....

Cingular is testing service centers in a few cities right now. I won't go into where they are, but trust me, if we are about to lose xbm, than they are already working to make it "seemless" for the customer. The test stores are doing the warranty exchanges.

Posted by: ~X~

I don't think Cingular would be ready for that backlash. Customers may hate having to go through XBM for a phone but imagine when we tell them that XBM doesn't even exist? Yeah, that'll make it seamless...

If they get techs back in the store that'll help but then we're going to need a lot of refurb units in the stores ready to hand out to people when we need to replace them. But on the plus side we'll be able to find out which customers are actually lying about breaking their phones or getting them wet

Posted by: happyfrappy

When I called into XBM last week their systems went offline and the reps were in a panic, my dad offered to stay on hold for me... it was a good 30 min wait after the initial 15 min wait. After receiving an XBM in poor shape(dusty, colours were pale/washed out, etc), it left me wondering if the repair staff even check/clean equipment before packing them away.

Mourningstar, like you said the headache makes a customer's opinion worse... I have 2 months left on my contract, if it wasn't for my phone slowly crapping out from an ENS glitch and suffering so-so XBM experience its easier/better for me to go elsewhere. So-so CS, their own computers crashing in many depts, etc- you have to wonder how Cingular keeps itself afloat!

Cingy corp reps in my market are helpful enough to do some troubleshooting vs you suffering CS/TS hell

Posted by: MoeDrummer

Losing XBM will cause more problems than it would solve. Maybe they should look into opening up in another market and having more than one call center (if they only have one). that way they'd be able to handle more calls. I sat on hold yesturday for about 35 minutes waiting for XBM so I could do a warranty on my Audiovox SMT5600. Once I got someone on the line, it only took about 5 minutes before they had my replacement order and were hanging up the phone. Other than the wait, XBM has been more than helpful since we started using them.

Posted by: TheStryder

I actually did a survey the other day with a TL on why AHT's were so high the last month (apparently our AHT went up by well over 100 over the last few months) and our service levels weren't that good either, but in comparison other call centers were doing much worse. It seems that employee turnover is high across the board.

Is Cingular just not paying employees enough money to stay? I seriously think their call center customer care structure needs to be restructured to better service customers and Rep.

Posted by: Wiggum

i heard it was 50% turnover in customer care right now.

Posted by: TheStryder

We're lucky if we get 5 people that stick after training class.

Posted by: Mourningstar

Quote:

Originally Posted by holaDude

I'm well aware of that. They're called warranty depots. Right now there are 4 in Atlanta, 3 in Baltimore, and 7 in Texas.

The problem with those (besides the obvious lack of locations), is that they only handle certain types of phones, and the locations themselves aren't listed in phone books and the buildings are unmarked. The only way for most customers to find out they even exist is to be referred there by a CSR or XBM agent...

Posted by: BellaDea

There was a rumor that out here in Utah they were going to add the warranty department a few of the stores. the only problem with this is being able to hold the inventory necessary to do this. isn't this the main reason stores don't do it now?

Posted by: Mourningstar

There are a lot of reasons the stores don't do it now, but that's probably the main one. Across the entire XBM project, we send out anywhere between 10,000-25,000 phones a day (

)...

Posted by: jbzcar

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mourningstar

Are there any locations in Houston?

Posted by: Mourningstar

CINGULAR WARRANTY DEPOT LOCATIONS

GEORGIA
2030 Powers Ferry Road,
Building 200 Suite 212
Atlanta, GA 30339

6040 Dawson Boulevard,
Suite A
Norcross, GA 30093

2660 Holcomb Bridge Road,
Building 200, Suite 206
Alpharetta, GA 30022

1671 Adamson Parkway,
Suite 300
Morrow, GA 30260

MARYLAND
2622 Lord Baltimore Dr.
Baltimore, MD 21244

7855 Walker Drive
Greenbelt, MD 20770

VIRGINIA
407 N. Washington St,
Suite 101A
Falls Church, VA 22046

TEXAS
13000 N. IH-35,
Bld 2, Ste. 100,
Austin, TX 78753

5407 N IH-35
Austin TX 78723

5215 N. Navarro,
Victoria TX 77904

5033-A Hwy 290W.
Austin TX 78745

1103 Rivery Blvd.
Ste. 130
Georgetown, TX 78628

10001 Research Blvd.
Austin TX 78759

2601 S. IH-35,
Round Rock TX 78664

Posted by: Alfred_Neuman

the one in greenbelt, maryland is at the hq of the dc/bal market.

Posted by: Mourningstar

For anyone who's interested, here's what the warranty depots work on and keep in stock:

PHONES AND BATTERIES
LG C1300
LG C1500
LG C2000
LG L1400
Motorola V180
Motorola V220
Motorola V551
Motorola V557
Motorola L7 SLVR
Motorola V3 RAZR (not blue)
Nokia 3120
Nokia 6010
Nokia 6030
Nokia 6102
Samsung X427m
Samsung X497
Sony Ericsson Z500a
Sony Ericsson Z520a

SIM CARDS
64K SIM Card
3G SIM Card

Posted by: ivwshane

Any possibility of saying which phones get the most warranty exchange?

Posted by: holaDude

Quote:

Originally Posted by ivwshane

Any possibility of saying which phones get the most warranty exchange?

Most calls I refer to xbm are for moto v551 and v557. As much as people bash LG, they are not near the amount of moto's from what I transfer.

Posted by: ivwshane

I'd imagine the motos would be higher only because we sell more of them and not the lg's.

Posted by: stevOh

True! I've sold maybe 50 or 60 Motorola's in the past 30 days and maybe 4 LG's.

Posted by: Mourningstar

Most of the calls I handle are for Motorola v551s, LG c2000s, Sony Ericsson z520as, and Motorola V3s. The worst by far, though, are the RAZRs. I (quite literally) get twice as many calls about them than I do every other Cingular phone combined...

Posted by: Freakshow105

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mourningstar

Most of the calls I handle are for Motorola v551s, LG c2000s, Sony Ericsson z520as, and Motorola V3s. The worst by far, though, are the RAZRs. I (quite literally) get twice as many calls about them than I do every other Cingular phone combined...

With the razr's new lower price I probably sell more Razr's than any other phone

Posted by: holaDude

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mourningstar

Reason about the razrs, is that they are sold more than any other phone. I swear, I get more people calling to check th price of the razr than any other phone. That's why I am about to buy another phone and get rid of mune.

I may go with the zx10, treo or blackberry, or I may just wait a little longer for another 3g phone.

Posted by: stripesace

I have a BB8700C right now from XBM and I am less than impressed with the service. Within a week I've already started to have problems with the keyboard, similar to what I had with the one I bought. I've never been pleased with XBM, and now I'm even more disasstisfied because I'm going to have to call back in and get another one.