Penetration Testing mailing list archives
Re: Thoughts of the paranoid on the call centre security.
From: Steev Klimaszewski <steev () steev net>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:30:09 -0600
Sean Jackson wrote:
I had seen a conversation about putting people on 'hold' but really listening to the other side. My recent experience: I called a credit card to work out a payment plan (grrr) and had to enter in my account number and last four of my SSN. Then I wait and am sent to a person, and she asks me to verify my name, address, SSN, etc....then she says she's going to put me on hold and send me to someone who can take care of my account, CLICK, .....and silence. I'm on hold. Well, I'm pissed, because I just spent another two minutes verifying what I thought I had inputted through my phone. Why do it twice, only to find the person you're talking to can't even help you? So I said out loud, "If you couldn't help me, why the hell did I have to verify my account info?". Click click, "Excuse me, sir? What were you asking?" She was listening to me while I was on hold. I said I wanted to know why I had to verify with her if she couldn't help me, she explained it's to expedite the process so the actual account representatives can spend more time with the clients, blah blah balh. She was listening to me while I was on hold. She heard my question I was just blathering to the ether while on hold, and she came back on and asked me to repeat my question. I was so excited I had found an instance of this happening. And I've since closed my account. Sean Jackson
Honestly, this has less to do with them "listening in" and more to do with them keeping their job... When you work in a call center, you have what is called an "average hold time" - or AHT. If this number gets to be large (dependent on where you work/parent company) then you face reviews, so a lot of call center employees simply hit mute as average call time is typically less important than AHT. A high AHT can mean a lot of various things, but to most companies it means more pissed off customers...
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Current thread:
- Thoughts of the paranoid on the call centre security. Serg B (Jan 18)
- RE: Thoughts of the paranoid on the call centre security. Sean Jackson (Jan 22)
- RE: Thoughts of the paranoid on the call centre security. Gadi Evron (Jan 23)
- Re: Thoughts of the paranoid on the call centre security. Steev Klimaszewski (Jan 23)
- RE: Thoughts of the paranoid on the call centre security. Sean Jackson (Jan 22)