Glasses Broken!

Weekend was pretty tiring. There was a construction thingy going on a few apartments down so I couldn't get any decent rest. Didn't get to go out and just watched DVD's for the most part.

I guess the highlight of my weekend was that I broke my glasses. I have the Fire frame from our company and I accidentally left in lying on the chair while I was watching TV. My room-mate sits on it 30 minutes later and my beautiful frames are gone forever. Come to think of it, a few years ago if that happened, I would have been kicking and screaming my friend for ruining a pair of $400 eyeglasses. Luckily due to capitalism and the law that states that opticians are required by law to give their clients a copy of the prescription, even though they aren't having their glasses made there, we can get really good and really cheap eyeglasses online!

I just put in my order for a new set of frames. I'm trying out the Chives frame because I'm trying to cut down on my expenses as I'm trying to save up for something big next month! Stay tuned as to what it is dun dun dun dun ...

Laters

Looking forward to the Weekend ... Not

Well another boring weekend for me. Nothing much to write about except that today was just extra special since I got a few emails thanking us how great our Customer Service is but at the same time I got a really bad phone call earlier this afternoon.

There was this woman who was shouting over the phone lines complaining that her glasses did not transition from clear to dark. I checked her order and she did not order them. She started cursing, saying she "f'n" ordered them transitions and that she could prove it with an email confirmation from us. I tell her to send the email and she says she will send it within the day.

I receive the email 2 hours later and it says nothing about photochromic. I called the lady and she profusely apologized to me saying that her eyes were bad yada yada. I of course just laughed it off and told her it was ok. An hour later some girl calls with the same order number and says I took advantage of her mother and did not process her order correctly. Seriously I laughed a bit and apologized to the girl telling her that me and her mom settled it already. The funny thing was they both sounded the same when they were mad, both high pitched and had that certain slang.

So anyway I'm out, 15 minutes till call time and I'm ready to hit the sack. 4 hours sleep past 2 days is a killer

Sports Fiasco

Pretty much the world of sports as we know right now is in shambles.

- Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen just go bumped off the competition due to suspicious activity by his team (probably they aren't risking him to be tested for doping again)

- Tim Donaghy , NBA referee, is caught gambling on games he had officiated. It pretty much confirms the rumors that the score / outcome of games are determined by an outside force

- Michael Vick , NFL Quarterback Atlanta Falcons, is charged with competitive dogfighting, procuring and training pit bulls for fighting, and conducting the enterprise across state lines.

- Gary Player, PGA golfer, claims that people in golf are juicing (using steroids) as well

Golf, Basketball, American Football and Cycling are pretty much big name sports that host big name players which have an influence over people today. I mean it's just portraying that in order to be a hit in the big leagues, you need that extra edge which more often than not is illegal in nature.

The thing I'm annoyed most about is the inhumane treatment of the dogs by Michael Vick. I was raised in a Christian family who goes to church every Sunday and my sister is a member of Pro-Life and PETA and has a lot of animals back home. When we were still in school, she was active in a lot of Pro-Life programs and she brought me along to events that usually had tie-ups with animal rights activists. I am really angered/saddened by the fact that these animals don't really have a choice to live just like the issues we face in our meetings / demonstrations. It's pretty much murder in the highest form and I hope to God that this guy gets what he deserves and gets incarcerated.

Bappy Hirthday!

Woohoo 1 year older 1 year wiser, it's my birthday today !

Don't have a lot of time to post today since the phones have been ringing off the hook and we're one man short (Leo). Apparently Leo took the day off to be with his girlfriend since he decided it was h.. (ahem) girls before bro's ! I mean who would miss out my birthday !

Biggest thing he missed was my birthday cake care of my boss and peers here at work. We had a little party and I took a snapshot of it. Eyes have been blurred to protect our secret identities! From left to right it's Me , Sina, Roy and PJ. The others were too shy to have their picture taken but we had a lovely Black Forest cake from my favorite bakery. Funny thing was the cake was whipped out during breakfast so everyone was having cake and coffee (heaven).

Anyway I'll write more about the rest of my day tomorrow, I even got into a conversation with a customer who was having her kids birthday party when she called to verify her prescription. I told her to include me in their birthday song and she gladly obliged.

Later

Blue Monday

Blue Monday how I hate Blue Monday
Got to work like a slave all day
Here come Tuesday, oh hard Tuesday
I'm so tired got no time to play

My weekend was pretty much a snooze fest, I got to watch a couple of really cool movies ( Transformers and Die Hard ) and surprisingly I went out with my flat-mates to a pretty decent bar Saturday night. I'm usually tired and sleeping during the weekends because of my hellish schedule on weekdays. Working as a customer service rep is like a Roller Coaster ride. If I get a string of really good calls, praising our products, saying how sexy my voice is ... yada yada yada, I would be able to sleep like a baby at night. If it's one of those days that everyone seems to want to tear you apart, I get a maximum of 3-4 hours sleep :(

The thing I love about having this job, is the ability to become a different person every call. It breaks the repetitious cycle of doing the same thing every single day. Customer Service has a lot to do with appearances, you need to be able to adapt to each customer calling. It is hard to have a monotonous demeanor when talking to people from all over the country. These appearances are what defines a human customer service representative as opposed to the companies that use computerized phone answering thingamajigs. I believe Customer service is an important link between the customer and the company, specially for small-medium sized companies like us, who cater to our customers with a more personal approach. This link establishes the trust between vendor and consumer and it is with this trust that they both benefit from each other.

Anyway it's my birthday tomorrow, I don't really expect much as most of my friends are far and away, another boring birthday for me woohoo

Served by the Customer

Annoying story that happened to me that started around 2 weeks ago and was just resolved yesterday. So pretty much the scenario starts when a customer named John, rings us up and asks for help with regards to a return of a pair of frames that he broke. Usually company policy states that the customer has to pay 50% or half of the total cost of the glasses to have them replaced if it is their fault or responsibility. The customer promised and agreed to help out with half of the responsibility so we started the return process.

That's when things got ugly.

First off, I asked for a picture of the damaged frames and a clear-cut definition of how the frames were broken. I gave him our email address to correspond with but he never sent what I asked for. He replied to a few of my follow up emails, but never really gave what I requested. It all boiled down to 2 weeks of disorganized communication and that really pissed me off, but of course I had to keep up that jolly demeanor I usually have when handling complaints ( I handle hot-tempered customers quite well :) )

So basically what happened was he never gave the pictures/description I asked from him and he called yesterday all mad asking where his replacement was. I tried to explain to him what had happened but he never really listened. He demanded that I supply him the replacements for free! So in other words, we were to shoulder ALL the cost instead of that person helping us with 50% of the work to be done.

I was really having a nice day :(

So in the end, since EyeBuyDirect loves to keep their customers happy, we processed the replacement for free ... I just love it when people get all worked up with some things that are really their fault but abuse their rights as a customer. I mean they think they can just always get away with getting things for free if they act all haughty and superior and ignorant of the situation.

I'm out, later.

Gabby

EyeTry

Our website sports a pretty nifty feature that lets the customer "see" what they look like with our eyeglass frames on. It's called the EyeTry Tool (clicky) You can upload your pictures then drag the eyeglass frame to your face and see how "cool" the eyeglasses look on you.

I've got a few friends who tried them out and I've got a poll up to check who's the prettiest. My $'s on PJ.

Gabby

PS. I love this picture

EyeBuyDirect

So anyway just a quick background on where I work.

I'm basically a customer service representative in an online eyeglass retail company.

I answer phones, check emails, make follow up calls, and check the voice-mail. Pretty exciting ain't it. The one thing I love the most about my job is talking with different people every single day, Young, old, male and female. I love talking to people all across the US, the different accents, different mannerisms and different moods.

I'll be writing a lot about my daily experiences with customers so you guys tune better tune in for some juicy stories.

Gabby

Like a virgin, served for the very first time

So what made me decide to write a blog.

It's basically the fact that my job is all about communication.

Blogging = hottest communication tool in this decade

Am I a little too late ? Maybe, but you're never too late until you're too late.

A brief introduction about myself. I am a Customer Service representative from the United States of America. My job description is basically to assist customers on the 411 of buying glasses online. How to read prescriptions, how reliable we are, where the glasses are made, what is our returns policy are just some of the questions that I answer every single day in this little cubicle of mine. Yes it might seem redundant and boring, but I actually enjoy talking to at least 50 different people every single day I come to work. I love the variety of emotions that I feel every single day; happiness, anger, frustration, tongue-tied, silly, comic, et al.

Formal writing has never been a passion of mine. I often find it tedious and boring, especially if you need to think more about how you want the entry to look like as a while than what the content is altogether. Spelling, grammar and punctuation are golden in my book, but to be honest, outlines and thought processes make me die a little inside. Blogging basically lets you do anything you want, but in order for people to actually read your blog, it must be readable. Coherent, not really, but readable. So bear with me as this is just a preview of things to come

So anyway, so much for my first post, I'm out like a trout.

You've just been Served