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speedial 1
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31# |
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Posts:174
From:
Registered:
07/11/2006
Time spent:
5227 hours
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(Date Posted:09/16/2006 6:21 PM)
Maybe I'm writing to myself here dunno. I suggested in earlier post that RO's speak more slowly when identifying themselves and the system. The place I volunteer gets a fair number of relay calls and the people answering still (at least when new) hang up! I have a suggestion for the suggestion box. Maybe your companies would let you say something that would catch hearings attention such as: You have a call coming in from (state ) relay service I am opr # , are you familiar with the relay service- or something like that. If that is said and said more slowly ( a key point here) maybe there would be fewer hang ups.
As it stands the speed and apparant lack of clarity in what oprs. are saying leads someone not familiar with system to hang up. Hearing and understanding what a person has said is not instantaneous or simultaneous, when the subject is not familiar to the hearing person. Something needs to catch the hearing person's attention so they don't "assume" or "tune out" the rest of the message while trying to figure out what was said. I have come to this conclusion after trying to get hearing not to hang up when they get relay calls. As we get new people answering phones (it is volunteer so there is a fairly big turnover) I find myself explaining relay on regular basis- interesting that deaf person teaches a hearing person to use the phone system- ironic. Anyway I like a bit of humor
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newOpp
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32# |
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From:
Registered:
12/10/2004
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0 hours
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(Date Posted:09/17/2006 3:16 AM)
I'm not sure what it is like for other call center, but the one I work for wehave a State contract saying what we are allowed and not allowed to say. It would make life so much easier for us if we can say "deaf". Also, as soon as the hearing person hears me say "Sprint" they refuse to listen to anything else and assume it's a solicitor. To make matters worse, in our explanation of service, we have to say "i'll type everything heard."
Now, say u can hear, and was told your call would be "recorded" like that, wouldn't you be relunctant to take the call? I had to explain to a mother of a child that I would be doing this (TTY user was childs friend) and she became very irate. Usually people become sympathetic during the call when they realize what service we are providing for the deaf community.
I am not entirely sure what you mean when you say we talk slow...but if what you say is what I understand, we will get "dinged" on a survery if the supervisor feels we are talking too fast (this will affect any bonus, raise, etc). Personally I would assume to speak slowly, to catch the emphasis on certain words, but speed it up when I say "type everything heard".
And one last suggestion for your suggestion box (yeah, I know the techology needs to be improved), we are told not to interrupt the tty user (garbled text is one reason), but it would make things easier if we actually could. Some hearing people start to get argumentative and constantly try to interrupt (sometimes tty user will have many changed subjects in one sentence!)
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Vitae
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33# |
Status:
From:
Registered:
05/22/2006
Time spent:
0 hours
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(Date Posted:09/17/2006 3:56 AM)
Reply to : speedial 1
Maybe I'm writing to myself here dunno. I suggested in earlier post that RO's speak more slowly when identifying themselves and the system. The place I volunteer gets a fair number of relay calls and the people answering still (at least when new) hang up! I have a suggestion for the suggestion box. Maybe your companies would let you say something that would catch hearings attention such as: You have a call coming in from (state ) relay service I am opr # , are you familiar with the relay service- or something like that. If that is said and said more slowly ( a key point here) maybe there would be fewer hang ups.As it stands the speed and apparant lack of clarity in what oprs. are saying leads someone not familiar with system to hang up. Hearing and understanding what a person has said is not instantaneous or simultaneous, when the subject is not fam
Personally if I know 100% for certain there is a legitimate deaf/hoh/speech disabled user on the line making the call I will do everything in my power to have the person NOT hang up. I'll deviate from the standard greeting.. and make sure the person knows that im not selling them anything and this call isn't going to cost them a penny. However, if I know it's a scammer, I don't do anything out of my way to keep the call on the line.
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speedial 1
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34# |
Rank:none
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Score:0
Posts:174
From:
Registered:
07/11/2006
Time spent:
5227 hours
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(Date Posted:09/18/2006 6:07 PM)
Certainly it is appreciated that you treat non scammers differently then legitimate users. The problem is, from what I understand, how the hearing perceives the call. Both speed and content are important. An experienced operator must handle loads of calls and after a while their (your) "introduction" must become so automatic that it may be hard to imagine the person at the other end (hearing) doesn't get it. From some perspective since the primary purpose of your work is relaying info. from person to person, and since "transparency" is apparently drilled into you from day one, it may appear to you that your introduction is very low on the scale of importance the call. To me, the introduction is a fundamental part of the call. In my mind when hearie hangs up they hang up on both of us, not just me. That has to be as annoying to you as to me because you are the one who has to reprocess everything- all I have to do is wait.
Anyway, no critisim meant here - just a thought. Also my "sample" of hearing is really a lot smaller then what you deal with on a day to day basis. It's possible I overestimate the problem. Thanks
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leavemealone
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35# |
Status:
From:
Registered:
04/28/2006
Time spent:
0 hours
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(Date Posted:09/19/2006 10:05 AM)
I agree that a lot of operators announce relay much too quickly. I find myself doing it once in a while as well, but usually the hearing person will say "excuse me" or "pardon" or the occasional "what the hell are u talking about?".
However, I think its difficult for the deaf relay user to understand sometimes, only because they can't hear the way in which the person answers the phone. Trust me, due to all the scams/pranks out there, sometimes I'll announce relay slow and clearly but still get a grumble and a sigh and a "click". Its pretty obvious why they hang up, and its not becuase I was too fast.
Unfortunately, we're not able to type a "tone of voice" based only on the person's initial greeting. This means WE probably know they're annoyed or busy, but YOU aren't going to know that, becuase we can't tell you. Another funny rule-o-relay.
Remember, we're not really allowed to interfere in the call. We can announce its relay, we can relay what you type, but we can't lecture a caller on not hanging up on a deaf person. I get very annoyed when someone types "call them back and explain to them i'm deaf and i want to order pizza". Technically, we're not supposed to do that. We can't be involved in the call that much, it "breaks transparency". All we can do is hope the listen to our relay explanation and then relay that msg to them afterwards. But we can't call and say "hello this is the relay operator there is a deaf person on the line trying to order pizza can i explain the relay system to you?" Nope, no go, can't do that. sorry. Wanna know why? because we're not allowed to say you're deaf. Why? because a lot of our users are NOT deaf. Even if someone asks "is this caller deaf?" we have to say "operator here im sorry i have no information on the caller"
But then again, sometimes, even when spoken clearly, our greeting is judged as a telemarketer. Not because we didn't try to explain, but because the hearing person is too dumb/lazy/bitchy to bother to find out whos calling them. Happens a lot, especially when you call a kind of business that employs teenagers, i.e.: pizza delivery. They don't know, they hang up, and they don't care. You call again, they tell you to stop calling, and hang up again. And thus the cycle continues. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If a business you want to reach keeps hanging up on you, send them a letter or go over there and explain it to them. Its the only way to get things done. Repeatedly calling them on relay is just going to piss them off. Trust me.
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Hello gudday do u have (clean running autos bought for high prices!) for sales qq gaga
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speedial 1
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36# |
Rank:none
Status:
Score:0
Posts:174
From:
Registered:
07/11/2006
Time spent:
5227 hours
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(Date Posted:09/19/2006 6:47 PM)
Reply to : leavemealone
Aha! interesting reply. I can also see that some people using rely may feel that you are divulging medical information, depending on the kind relay service being used. Apparently you are not allowed to tell them we are deaf and can't use the phone and want to order a pizza even if we ask you to do that. It seems to me there are a lot of educational issues, in both directions that could help relay. It may be that posting this sort of information on some deaf websites may be helpful. If deaf know how they can help you help them that may get things going. There was at one time a Deaf newspaper that was very popular. The original owner died when the family took over the thing folded. Explaining how we can work together I think would help a lot. I will ask some friends how they would feel about something like this- on the other hand you certainly don't need my permission to pass on information! We should be educating the places we do business. Not talking Deaf may not want to do this but I could and so could a number of my Deaf friends.
Right now it seems information that we requst and that can resonalbly provided should be honored. The rule may be that if a hearing person could gather such information, it is in the "public domain" and fair to provide. Scams would be a different issue. Hearing people are stung by scammers too however there I think the FCC or someone can report the scam and they can be shut down- overseas may be different. If hearing person could get stung so could deaf so a company may not let you tell deaf it is scam. On the other hand my husband got a call from the bank where we have Visa card. They asked about a charge because they knew of an online company that was making unauthoried withdrawls of very small amout of money ($2.00 -$3.00) so it wouldn't be noticed. They tried that on thousands to collect a lot of money. It happened to us and we changed cards. We had not yet received our copy of Visa bill so we didn't know until told. So really the company did it to protect us and themselves.
If a business is to succed customer satisfaction is important. I know relay maybe takes second seat as far as the phone company is concerned but they too could benefit by "word of mouth" praise of the services they provide.
Not being able to tell us about a person's dialect or accent and not being able to tell us someone is frustrated really puts us at a disadvantage. The problem I see really, is if an opr. mistakes the mood, or tone, or if someone is using sarcasm as humor (not easy to explain) and the opr. doen't realize, then there could be a problem. It could be "when in doubt leave it out", I think would work. A nasty caller would have to learn to trust that opr. won't retaliate- that is the hard part for you all. It has to be very hard not to take name calling and other comments, personally. Knowing someone is plain ignorant, mentally ill, or just arogant and rude may help intelectually, but emotions kick in. I have to think about that one a bit. I sure there is a way to do that.
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addj
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37# |
Rank:none
Status:
Score:0
Posts:2
From:
Registered:
12/11/2006
Time spent:
0 hours
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(Date Posted:12/11/2006 9:29 AM)
(stumbles in) Hmm... neat forum. With all due respect here, folks; while I'm delighted by and applaud this medium and the link between the two communities.. I'm trying to not forget that we're all human, and we all probably SHOULD do any number of things, but we come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Learning takes time ... These services are only recently starting to surge and as with any new technology or social progress, some growing pains are inevitable. There is a big barrier between the HOH community and RO's that in my opinion really needs to be there. Patience and respect go a long way. The people here on this site are self motivated, let's drop some of the stereotypes, please. If you've head a death call, and you're having a bad day - then maybe you should talk to your supe or a union rep re: counselling. It can really help. Slowing down on the intro makes sense to me.  Anyone wanna point me to some good ASL resources? I have a request to sidekick users: The next time you're making a relay call, and if you feel comfortable with the content of the conversation - please take a photograph of your device while you're making a relay call so I can see what the screens look like! Haha I know it's a silly request, but I've never seen any version of a sidekick. Different modalities require different keying (spaces between rings, etc..). I wanna know how I can make my calls look clearer. I also have a question... Some times I give TOO MUCH background info! How much is too much!? Some people want to hear the entire conversation. Others get confused. Caller: so u be at spot at 6 qGA Called: Oh yeah, son! Aiight I'm on it! GA But yo did you hear about that new soda?! (F) Oh golly Caller:with no th! (M) Wel e l soda q
GAit certainly sounds fantabulous!!! FOR SURE! Get's kinda messy Last but not least: I tend to take callers who've registered with the services less skepticism. It's my opinion that someone who takes the service seriously is more inclined to register or provide good instructions than the 14 year old at home calling himself via relay on a saturday night.. I'm so cool GA(TYPING) You sure are! GA I enjoy making relay operators say obscene thing (TYPING) heh, I always wonder what goes through those kid's heads when Mommy or Daddy get a call from Telco informing them that their child has been abusing relay or has their service interrupted.. SKSK
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