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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