- There are too many outsource agents lieing to customers or not giving them complete information in order to get a sale and earn more commission for themselves. The most common deceptions used by outsourcers are "Try it free for 30 days and if you dont like it you can go back to your previous promotion" and their previous package will be alot less money so since Retention is commission based as well we cant return them to their previous promotion without hurting our numbers and our own paychecks. The second most common deception used by outsourcers and sales agents is that they will tell customers "Oh the package is $99.99 with everything" but they wont tell them that on top of that theres a $10 modem rental fee, each additional tv box is $9.95, HD is an extra $10, DVR is an extra $10, and taxes are extra and guess who has to fix the mess when the customer gets their bill? retention department.
- By the time the customer gets to speak to the retention department they already spoke to at least 2-3 other departments who couldnt help them and each time they were screened by previous agents for adding more lines of business then handed off to another department like a hot potato if they cant get any sale from the customer which causes frustration and angry customers by the time they finally get to retention.
- To add a little more to my previous comment, retention agents are also responsible for adding lines of business but the customer is screened by previous agents that they spoke to before getting to retention to see if they can get any line of business sales from the customer so only the customers that they couldnt get a sale from get transferred to retention and retention then has to try to upsell those customers or give them the smallest discount possible if they dont want to add a line of business or disconnect them.
- Many agents refuse to help a customer at all if their account has Xfinity Home (home security) because they dont understand the product enough to help the customer so they usually just transfer them to Xfinity Home Retention even if all they needed was help with billing questions or if they wanted to make changes to their other services that werent home security.
- Retention is seen by other departments as the dumping ground to resolve customer issues even when a call isnt really a retention call, ive gotten billing agents that transfer accounts that are already disconnected (how is that a retention call?) to place some credits on the customers accounts because of billing errors but that waste my time because we only get commission on calls where the account is still active so thats time spent that you could be helping someone else who has an active account with the company.
- When an outsource agent or sales agent adds a line of business that the customer didnt want or ask for to their account the retention agent is responsible for removing that line of business but if the customer never agreed to add the service or was never informed that the agent was adding that service to their account how is that fair to the customer and the retention agent who takes a hit on their numbers? the most common cases right now are agents adding home phone or the cheapest home alarm package ($20 a month) via self install kit and the customer calls when they receive the equipment in the mail to ask why they received the equipment for a service that they werent aware they were getting then its the retention agents job to sell the value of the product that they never asked for or take a hit for the service and remove it from the account.
- Retention agents have to deal with sneaky people within the company sabotaging their retention efforts in order to get a sale for example its often the case where a sales person will create a new account in the new address where a customer moved to but that same sales person will then transfer the customer to retention department to disconnect the account at the previous address and not tell the retention agent that they created another account for the customer, the correct process is for the agent to transfer the account from the old address to the new one and disconnect the old account before connecting the new one but sometimes they dont disconnect the old account so that they dont have to spend more time with the customer on the line. This can affect the retention agents numbers because since the sales person didnt do their job properly if you dont know that the customer has two accounts you will disconnect an account that someone else was suposed to disconnect hurting your numbers.
- Sometimes sales agents will collaborate with customers telling them that they should disconnect their account and then speak to them to create an account under their spouses name to get a new customer promotion so that they can get a sale which is unethical because their manipulating the system for personal gain at the expense of the company and other employees.
