when an agent asks for credit for a customer?

hi guys,

i feel just terrible. an agent called in today for a customer and said his customer is going to be getting a big bill this month for intl roaming. cust claims he wasnt told about intl roaming rates when he called to make sure his account was provisioned for intl roaming...so he just assumed it would work like normal minutes.

bill had 587.xx in intl roaming usage.

funny thing is...as bad as i feel when i hear this, i usually xfr to collections so payment arrangements can be worked out and refuse credits (unless i can see some way to give credits), but the agent was asking for credits and threw in "he's upgrading today" so i'd realize my decision was crucial to the deal. well based on the idea of customer "misunderstanding" i figured i could offer a credit.

I offered what i thought was very generous -- $150.00 credit. agent asks "what's the most i can get." I said well, the most i can give is "250.00" so he asked me, too. i didn't want to, but after a long pause...i gave in.

then he speaks to the guy...and comes back and asks...can we get more off...what if we speak to a supervisor. I'm like I'd be happy to get a supervisor for you. he says, yeah, but will they be able to get more off. i said "no"...he said okay...we'll take the 250.00, then. (a supervisor would have been upset that i gave the 250.00...not give out more...so he definitely did the right thing there!)

why do i feel bad...well becuz i would have made most people feel responsible for the whole balance. even though he was an ltv4 (which was a deciding factor for me).

but now i'm thinking i shouldn't have given any credit...or maybe like 5-10% off for the misunderstanding...i got the impression the cust was wealthy....but here i make struggling folks pay their 1000.00 roaming fees but not the rich guy cuz he's going to upgrade???

plus, it dawned on me much later...this isn't Cingular's own roaming charges...these are charges Cingular will pay dearly for as they are intl roaming charges.

any "seasoned" tips for a situation like this?

what SHOULD i have said?

all comments appreciated.

personally, I would have credited it all and let him know it's a one time credit, and explain international roaming. place notes on the account that he can't have credit for this again. it's all about the customer rules, right. I don't think cingular is going to notice $587.XX missing from its revenue.

the only thing that wuold have bothered me is the way the rep was manipulating things. I'd put the customer on the phone. the rep sounds like an uncool guy.

i wouldn't have credited any of it, if they wanted to go to the SAVE team, they could, and then maybe that rep would credit it, but not me, i don't want that kinda money showing as credited from me, especially when no changes were even made to the account... agents try to be intimidating, but most are just angry to us because they've got an angry customer in their face, don't let them get to you.

well, i think the cust called into cust care to make sure his phone could make calls abroad and cust care rep didn't inform of higher rates (a real possibility of course).

the way i would like to have treated it is as though it were a genuine cust misunderstanding. if it were a cust calling in asking for the credit based on the fact they weren't told about intl roaming rates, what you do? would you credit anything? if so, how much?

also, we didn't remove the capability for intl roaming...just got the cust word he wouldn't do it again. i think i should have offered a small credit (10%?) ONLY if he would let us remove intl roaming and notate that he couldn't get it again or he's responsible for all intl charges.

thanks for all the comments.

I think I was a bit hasty.... I re-read the OP...you had the right idea...but you cant credit what hasnt been billed yet ( "customer is going to be getting a big bill")... I would have made notes about what you think is fair...if the customer is there talk to the cust directly and told them to call back whenthe bill comes in...

my apologies

Hehe, when I worked in CC, if an agent had called with this I would have politely told him that the charges are valid - The customer can always look on the website to find out charges. I would have then gone on to tell him that if he feels a credit is due to the customer that he can talk to his management team and offer a sales courtesy credit. This way instead of the money coming out of the company's pocket it comes out of his commission instead. Or if he didn't want to do that, I would put it in as a Sales Courtesy credit, with his name and dealer code so it comes out of the sales budget and when the bean counters look at the amount they can see it was because of him.

I don't know if Cingular agents have this, but it's a great tool to get agents to back off about credits or think twice about asking for them. Of course the account is fully noted to adv the next rep to not give them anything at all. There's this wonderful little policy we have that if a credit is denied by one rep and the reason is valid, that no one else should give it.

But that's just me

I'm evil like that

trust me..,. if we had that unique tool not too many agents would be calling on behalf of the customer

...........

on another note..... wasnt it you in another thread in another forum exalting the virtues of customer satisfaction over at tmobile?

?

lol elmo

Big difference between Cust Sat and giving money away...Giving the customer money doesn't lead to satisfaction - It may be a quick fix but in the long run it just generates more problems. It's like putting a band-aid on a gaping gash...

when an agent asks for credit for a customer?

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