Does demanding a supervisior lead to satisfaction?

Myself and my brother work in the service industry. As the holidays approach, we see one thing thats the same although the businesses we work in are a bit different. Everyone wants to speak to a supervisior if they can not get what they want, rather or not they are entitled to it.

He works at a hotel and I work at a finanical institution.

Think if I am ever pulled over by the cops I should just keep demanding to speak to supervisiors til I get my way?

If I come off as having a chip on my shoulder, it is and man, it really screws up your stats and inconviences everyone else as they must wait for you and they copy you just escalating the problem and many do not take no for an answer.

What gives to accepting a late payment cause you are late or the fee for the bottle of water you drunk in your room?

Why do you think the need for a "supervisor" is needed ?

Yes , customers are often wrong but its your job to let them see that in the nicest way possible.

I can't answer your specific questions about late fees or hotel priced bottled water. I can tell you that the supervisor thing is about "someone with a title". When I ran a large call center, irate calls went something like this: Original operator would explain something. Caller still irate. Supervisor would say the same thing, sometimes verbatum. This might satisfy the caller. If not, I'd send the assistant manager. Same steps as with supervisor. This settled some more irate people. Then, if that failed, I'd take the call. This settled even more. In the end, some were still not pleased. Many times I listened in or stood by the operator, and wound up saying the same thing as everyone else in the chain. They just needed to hear it from "someone with a title", e.g., an "authority" figure, and the progression made them feel as if they really got something accomplished.

There are instances were a supervisor has authority to do things a subordinate cannot do. Sometimes it does pay to go higher up. Being unreasonable all the way to the top is still that, unreasonable.

I've asked for supervisors before, such as when my cable bill payment was applied to someone else's account, and despite faxing them bank documents showing that they'd taken the money, nothing was being done but nasty collection calls and service interruption. Problems was resolved rather quickly after that.

Being a supervisor myself i can understand these comments. As torchman has stated, customers usualy like to speak to a title and often it is more for the assurance rather than the title. Ie, that the person on the other end of the phone knows more than the average phone jockey
However that changes depending on the role and position. I still work in the service industry however our customers are medum large business for large storage networks. Speaking with the supervisor here is more for coordination of efforts than to complain.

cobb said:

Think if I am ever pulled over by the cops I should just keep demanding to speak to supervisiors til I get my way?

Click to expand...

Haha, I think they'll let you talk to a coworker in booking or even a judge if you'd like, but not their boss. Remember that even though considered "service industry," police work is the only kind where the customer is always wrong.

There's often a very good reason for asking to speak to a supervisor, Customer NO-Service. I understand that many customers have unreasonable demands, but you can't fall into the trap of assuming the customer is always wrong. A Service Rep should be trying to smooth relations between the customer and the business, not just keep repeating "it's our way or the highway". That may increase the SR's number of "problem calls solved" per hour, but it doesn't keep customers.

As a personal example from a few years ago, before online banking became so prevalent. I recieved a call at work on Friday morning from the bank that held my auto loan. I was told my loan was over 3 months in arrears and would be repossessed on Monday if I did not pay in full. I was confused since I had been sending checks and payment stubs regularly, and this was the first notification I had recieved that there was a problem. However, even after having my local bank rep call the loan bank rep who told her the checks were cleared and had the proper account number on them, the loan bank rep continued to say: "Well sir, if you had actually made your payments, it would show on our computer. Since it doesn't, you will need to come up with the full amount by Monday or your vehicle will be repossessed." This continued through many calls back and forth with me trying to generate some kind of proof that the rep would believe (the cancelled checks were stored at the main bank office and would take 5-7 days to be mailed to me). I could never get her to check for an error on the loan banks end. Finally, as the end of the business day was approaching, I finally managed to get a supervisor on the line and convinced her to actually check their records more carefully. As it turned out, the problem was exactly what I suspected was the problem but could never get the original SR to investigate. I had an RV loan at the same bank, and it had been recieving 2 payments per month for the last 6 months. They were apparently just going by the name and they were ignoring the account numbers on the stubs and the checks. Since the RV loan was older, it was the first account to appear on the system under my name. Once the supervisor finally listened to me and actually checked the records, it was obvious that it was their error. Once the payments were credited to the proper accounts, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, I was actually a month ahead on both accounts, which matched my records.

If the CSR had treated me with a little respect, the error could have been found and fixed in 15 minutes and been a minor issue. Instead, I was assumed to be a liar and a deadbeat. This caused a lot of wasted time and effort on both ends of the phone and made the problem much bigger than it needed to be. And it caused the loan bank to lose a customer, I refinanced both loans with another bank after this fiasco. Had I been treated as someone to work with in solving a problem, instead of acting like I WAS the problem, they would have still kept a customer and all that nice fat interest.

This is kind of funny for me. Sometimes, I can't wait to ask my supervisor for help! :laughing:

I've been an intern at a junior college for about five months, and I still don't know everything. My supervisor, however, has been there for about thirteen years, so he does know pretty much everything!

I try to do as much as I can, but sometimes I ask my supervisor for help, and having him around is indeed a big help. :buddies:

Of course, sometimes I have to watch the place on my own, and then I just do my very best to keep everyone happy! :candle: :help:

DonShock, your case is what we are use to and we enjoy fixing the problem, finding the error, a real error, not something unreasonible as changing the logo on a customers statement or why we blocked an account for fraud activity or why the government passed the check 22 regulations is completely different.

Just seem we both are getting the unusual requests and tying up a supervisor for help vs esculated call for an unreasonible request.

I am guessing law enforcement is having it worse than?

Yes officer I was going 65, but the sign was broke, cant you cut me a break cause its the holiday, I mean, yeah I was going 65, but we have been stopped dead still the past 30 minutes, so in reality Ive only traveled 32.5 miles the past hour, which is half what you claim I am traveling it, Show me on your radar gun I have traveled 65 miles the past hour before you pulled me over, I want to be compensatied for my time, I need to be at work making 100 bucks an hour, will you pay my salary if I am fired cause you pulled me over, etc, etc, etc...