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In the future, when all women are named Jessica, I wonder what name all men will get? I hope it's not Trent.
In the future, when all women are named Jessica, I wonder what name all men will get? I hope it's not Trent.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-151751-100x100.png\")
See, there it is again. Just like that recent story where a telephone representative got a little crazy: Sprint brands its own name all over services provided by third parties (call center companies, or in this case, InQ), even going so far as to prevent them from admitting that they work for a third party, but the moment one of those people fucks up, it's \"Whoa, that was someone at some other company, don't look at us.\" And people wonder why third party contract support is so stressful; none of the kudos, all of the blame.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-76142-100x100.png\")
The recently liberated \"Jessica\" should consider a career in the priesthood.
That'd be the best confessional EVER.
Does anyone else find it strange that EVERYONE is called Jessica? Even the guys? I mean, is it really that much harder to have unique names (or at least more than 1)?
@Beerad: Lincoln.
I wonder how many commenters will demand to see more \"proof\" that this really did occur.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-203062-100x100.png\")
why do they use stage names? I have used chat support, and by remembering the name of the person i was talking, was able to reconnect with them by asking to be transfered. Lame.
A warning would have been sufficient, firing is a little harsh.
Maybe he was bitter that he had to call himself \"Jessica\" all day.
I'm not sure if I believe that this person actually works for the Sprint CS outsourcer. It is way too non-PRy.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-137520-100x100.png\")
@EyeHeartPie: I'm sure it has something to do with the psychological perception of the name. They probably researched it and found that people respond favorably to the name. It certainly sounds friendlier and more helpful than \"Marge\" or \"Joe\", it has a sweet, friendly, innocent connotation. That probably carries over to customer perception and may even help to calm irate customers (less likely to lay into a sweet innocent Jessica than other names).
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What about the fact that Sprint's reps don't know the most basic things about the business?
That's one reason right there. It also inhibits debt harrassers from phoning up the call center.
They may not be GOOD reasons, but meh.
They probably researched it and found that people respond favorably to the name.
Biel?
Rabbit?
Simpson?
You may have a point.
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It's good to know that Sprint cares enough to outsource Instant Messaging agents, give them \"zero access to anything,\" and name them all Jessica, thus making it very difficult to hold reps accountable except by painstakingly going through transcripts by hand.
And really - by hand? Shouldn't these sessions be searchable?
This sounds like a very helpful resource for customers.
@Buran:
That has more to do with Sprint itself than the outside agency.
They aren't paid to know, and they aren't even remotely paid well enough to look it up on their own time.
As someone once put it to me: \"Just do your job the way they tell you to do it, and don't stick your head up.\"
Of course, that argument ALWAYS leads to Godwin.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-52435-100x100.png\")
@EyeHeartPie: So, is it the case that not everyone that have a girl's name on the internet are actually girls?
Oh Lord, what have I done?
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-221678-100x100.png\")
Strange conversation.
Also, I don't understand the last paragraph that Jessica is typing.
\"Thanks for the tip, again, the timely notice of that might have saved all our jobs. Again, my name is Jessica. Thank you for visiting Sprint.com today!\"
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-146045-100x100.png\")
Where are all the people who cried \"Photoshop!\" when this story was first posted?
Where in that screenshot did it say it was a Friday at 5:17 PM?
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benpopken: Is that common, razzing customers?
Jessica: no are you nucking futs?
@RvLeshrac: Why is that?
And I would think that they would be paid to answer customer questions and perform support. You can't do that by making up answers on the fly.
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A \"ha\" for someone getting canned seems harsh. It's one thing to strive for fairness, another to be overly vindictive and insensitive.
Dealing with job loss, even when deserved, sucks.
I recently was on a chat session in an effort to discuss my billing and once my questions amounted to requiring some research, they 'hung up' on me. ah well... go sprint....
@Beerad
Jessie?
@Crumbles
The second picture shows their desktop with the clock in the upper right hand corner.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-79903-100x100.png\")
@pmathews: That's just a shorted version of 'Jessica'.
Were you looking for 'Jesse'? A la: Jesse James, Jesse Jackson, Jesse Owens, Jesse Ventura, etc.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-237394-100x100.png\")
@dwarf74: Do you know how many times \"nucking futs\" is legitimately used in a chat session? Searching would be fruitless.
@NightSteel: Our Gas provider outsourced some customer contact to a third party. I got this crazy call on my cel phone that involved this woman claiming to be from our gas utility and then proceeded to go into an insane hostile rant at me. I finally just cut the call and hung up. When I got home I called the main CS line and got someone at the company who admitted that it really was a third party call center working FOR them. He profusely apologized and fixed the minor problem for me and swore they would never be calling me again. Companies don't fully realize the kind of bad blood some of these third party services can create for their company.
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Can I call bullshit on this?
@Peeved Guy
Darn it. I knew it didn't look right.
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Glad they jumped on this but that there's still a gaping security hole on their website.
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I, for one, welcome our new Jessica and John Mayer Overlords.
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Are these overlords, or underdogs? And can you tell the difference, these days?
Got a whole lot of bitter overlords out there whose jobs got outsourced, clinging to their telephones and keyboards...
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So how did the fired \"Jessica's\" carpool mates get home that day?
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im surprised this turned out to be a real story. i figured someone doctored the original photo of the chat transcript and made it up. i couldnt believe anyone at a chat center would ever write something like that, seemed too ridiculous to believe.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-5270-100x100.png\")
NightSteel: Yeah, and I also found it strange that they're called \"support\" but they don't have access to any more information than the customer does themselves.
Did anyone else catch that? They can't actually do ANYTHING for you that you can't do yourself. Amazing...
Chat is essentially useless, I think. I hit the chat icon for my cable company about an outage and the \"guy\" told me they were aware of the problem and had technicians on site, but three separate people told me when I called that there was no report and no one had been dispatched.
We're all Jessica (line 6 from the start of article)... again, my name is Jessica (2nd line from the end). maybe sprint should change their name to Jessica!
@Mr. Gunn: I use the \"chat\" feature when I'm pretty sure the info I want is on the website but I'm too lazy to look for it myself. Actually trying to get any type of assistance, though, I agree. Useless.
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Accountability is a great motivator. The moron though his/her comments wouldn't be noticed, the Sears morons didn't shift themselves until Citibank executives called them, etc.
Why is there almost universally rude and bad \"service\" from companies, and why do the executives not pay attention and avail themselves to customers until forced to?
Hey, \"Jessica\": *Maybe* there are \"crazy customers\" because companies made them that way from consistently bad service.
When I worked for the Kerry campaign, we always had women answer the public phone at the national headquarters and the collective name was \"Vivian.\"
One time when I was Vivian I talked to a woman for a half hour about how the aliens were really in charge and George W. Bush and John Kerry were secretly brothers.
Obviously, she had been the one to bring the subject up.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-291733-100x100.png\")
\"ZOMGZ, that chat window was shopped!!!1 No one could be that stupid!\"
Wait... this was a real occurrence? Oh, never mind, then. Maybe people are that stupid.
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Talk about cognitive dissonance! You're chatting with someone who sounds human and then they end the chat with the usual CSR robotic spiel:
Again, my name is Jessica. Thank you for visiting Sprint.com today!
If this were a phone conversation that would be spoken in a Dalek voice or something.
@lemur: This was just a little joke with no malice. To get a \"Ha, sweet\" out of someone losing their meager livelihood over a stupid tiny prank is pretty cruel. And if Ben wants this place to continue to be a champion for consumer fairness, he needs to stick to the high road.
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@Beerad: Hey whats wrong with Trent? Thats my name!
(it really is my name, but I'm just pretending that I care...) ;-)
His job was to help people. He lost his job because he wasn't doing his job, i.e. helping people.
That's like going to a mechanic and asking him to change your tires, and he calls you names and swears at you. You think that guy wouldn't get fired?
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-159466-100x100.png\")
Uhh, way out of line? I dunno. Seems to me to be a sort of playful comment. Then again, I talk like a sailor.
Well if the image was shopped, the transcript could be fake too.
@EyeHeartPie: I am not saying he didn't deserve to lose his job, but what I am saying is, don't kick a man who is down.
We don't know the guy's story. He could have hated this job or not taken it seriously. Or, he could just be someone who made a very dumb mistake, typed up something that he thought was funny, then pressed enter instead of delete.
And the event you are describing (irate mechanic) is way out of proportion to the event that actually happened (snarky keyboard jockey).
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-328687-100x100.png\")
Sprint chat should take a look at what Linksys does with their chat. I had to use it last night for tech support and I had someone who had a first and last name (which was an unusual name, not like Jessica Smith or whatever) and an ID number. The person was obviously copying and pasting from a script, which I don't mind because I'm sure the problem I was having was pretty routine. However, at the end when my issue was solved they broke script and actually acted like a real person by saying typing a smiley face :) which I thought was a nice touch. I'm sure some might find it unprofessional, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have done it if I sounded uptight in my chat.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-101202-100x100.png\")
@dwarf74: Yeah, I find it hard to believe there isn't some quality mechanism behind the works keeping tabs on every chat window's average response time... but, maybe not.
has anyone entertained the idea that the person who did that wanted to leave? i've seen some pretty crazy last days in my short time in professional america.
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For the record, I said it didn't looked like it was photoshopped, glad the guy got fired.
Why not just put \"Customer Service Rep\" or \"Representive\" for the name?
Maybe the Jessicas could have different last names, like all the aliens named \"John\" in the movie \"Buckaroo Banzai\". Then you would have : Jessica Ya ya, Jessica ManyJessicas Jessica BigBoote, etc.
Ah, Sorry...
Thank you \"Jessica\". Just proves what I have always thought.... the name provided to customers is false yet we are \"required\" to divulge our private and confidential information.
From now on my name is Red Blueberry.
@Buran:
They aren't paid to \"provide support\" and \"answer customer questions,\" they're paid to sell the service and/or keep customers out of the normal phone queue.
And the Godwin thing... the argument boils down to \"Just follow orders.\"
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-387022-100x100.png\")
Why do they have to be called Jessica? I don't understand that...
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-160557-100x100.png\")
So wait. Jessica was a dude? That's nucking futs!
Jessica is also a very crafty PR person.
Some here have suggested Jessica's post is an exercise in Sprint PR.
I doubt it. This isn't exactly on message:
\"I'm a sprint customer, too, so i know it can be like the worst thing in the world sometimes\"
To those sad about \"Jessica's\" firing: in addition to his rudeness, he turned out to have given her the wrong answer. The bastard deserved the heave-ho.
What's the point in ending with \"My name is Jessica\" after explaining that everybody's 'name' there is \"Jessica\"?
Sorry to break it to you man, but EVERY telecommunications company in America outsources everything they can: installers, call centers, CSR's, application development, sometimes even management (anybody know what Accenture is?).
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-87239-100x100.png\")
@Edward Lionheart: exactly. place yourself in a inq executive's shoes for a minute: you run a big company, one of your dumbass employees calls a customer 'fucking nuts' (cuz that's what he was saying geez) and you're NOT gonna fire him? puhleeze.
@banmojo: I would have definitely let the guy go. But that doesn't change the fact that I believe \"Ha, sweet...\" is still an inappropriate response and grossly smug from a Consumerist blogger.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-260794-100x100.png\")
To answer some of the questions above.
The final line - ...Jessica...thanks for using Sprint... was the automatically applied closing from the chat system.
inQ is a sales assistance company that is on-line for Sprint to provide detailed information about new plans and handsets to help the customer find the info faster.
The answer given by the nucking futs Jessica was totally wrong.
In talking elsewhere with one of the \"Jessicas\" about their service, I found this was a legit event, and the company (inQ) took steps to fix it before getting a call from Sprint - they want to keep their contract.
@Mr. Gunn: It's not strange at all. For many years, if you called Samsung Cust Service on a weekend, you were talking to someone who not only didn't have access to Samsung's CS files, but wasn't trained on the products and had to wing it with what could be found on Samsung's website, or a shelf of owner's manuals, none of which were for models less than five years old, and if that didn't provide the answer to call back monday. It took the Samsung CS people about five years to figure out they were outsourcing weekend CS to another company without providing them any support whatever.
Sprint continues to have severe problems with customer service and billing. Sprint needs to fire some, not all, employees, managers, quality assurance people. Sprint corporate and out-sourced call centers will fire an employee for taking a sick child to the hospital, then, keep someone like \"Jessica\" around until the complaint is made public enough to embarrass the company.
@annswers: They could be cruising for a lawsuit....my call center company is pretty liberal about FMLA issues. There was a girl that used it liberally in my account, she was ultimately fired because she told them she needed to leave work as \"her child was having an asthma attack and needed to go to the hospital\" but was found shortly afterward having sex with a man...who was not her husband...in the passenger seat of a car in a parking lot nearby.
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Sometimes I forget these services are outsourced. It's cool to see the \"inside\" once in a while.