T-Mobile now has Direct TTY customer care !!!

[2_RESTRICTED]

hey guys jus wanted to let you know that T-mobile now has TTY direct customer care no more relay calls to TTY and the reps are fully trained to handle all aspects of your devices and can act at the relay operaters to other depts within t-mobile if nessary the number is 1-877-296-1018 Hours of operation
November 11, 5AM-10PM PT M-F
Starting November 13, 5 AM-10PM PT 7Days/Week
much easier than a relay call ! and please give feedback to the reps on stuff as this is a new dept they use nextalk

 

[EDGE]

whatever anyone don't have computer and the sidekisk bust... How can they call there with TTY? 0_o

 

[2_RESTRICTED]

I realize that but still it's a way to contact for those who do have a computer or tty device unfortunatly if that's the case then you'll have to do relay calls however jus wanted to make sure everyone knew that if u have billing questions or ur sk isn't busted then u can call this way sometimes it's faster then relay as well as not even close to the same kind of hold time because there's no wait time

 

[diehardbiker]

I forgot to mention that the TTY is now dying breed! Not many deafies now have TTY! TTY sales now plummeted more than 98% in the last 5 years. Meaning that only less than 2% of TTY were sold comparing to the period during 90's. Hearing people should forget about buying TTY for their business and learn to use Relay services. They are alot cheaper than buying a TTY machine and train their employee to use them.

 

[Dennis S.]

The employees who are coming up with "direct TTY lines" should be fired. Think about it:

1) Direct TTY lines:
Pros:
-You can advertise that you're "deaf friendly"
-TTY callers generally have shorter wait times

Cons:
-TTY callers have to deal with ill-trained employees
-Costs the company quite a bit of money training people to learn how to use TTYs to communicate well. It's NOT cheap, and there WILL be mistakes unless the person answering the phone is deaf or a CODA.
-Costs the company money to install TTY compatible lines
-Inefficient -- answering the phones "out of queue" results in those who call in appropriately to wait longer.
-Dying technology -- fewer and fewer people using TTYs
-How do you "transfer" a TTY phone call to a manager or another department? You have to call them over, they have to sit down and type, etc. Not a good way to get your problem taken care of if that TTY phone lackey can't do it.
-2 keyboards!!! One keyboard for typing, the other to pull up your customer data, check your records, etc. Lots of people forget which keyboard they're using to type back to you on!
-What happens when no one is watching the TTY phone? They have to train the TTY person to set up the answering machine. Too many times, the phone will just ring and ring and ring and ring.... until that one person who knows about TTYs is back in the office from lunch or break or whatever.




2) Accepting relay calls
Pros:
-No setup costs, no need to pay for extra lines, just use the current telephone setup
-Training is EASY - one hour of "diversity training" including other things like sensitivity to race, gender, politics, etc. can also include being sensitive to deaf needs.
-Faster -- phone person can talk normally instead of trying to type
-Adaptive -- relay technology changes to fit with the times, while the telephone system can stay the same
-Can be transferred - someone can't take care of your problem? You can easily get the person who can. Need to get directed to the right department? You can get transferred to engineering, marketing, customer service, sales, anywhere you want, just like everyone else.

Cons:
-Deaf people who demand special TTY to TTY treatment won't call you. Ever. Until they have to. Which they will, eventually, anyway.



HMMMMMMMMMMM. Which one is a better idea?

 

[dkf747]

Direct TTY Pro: I can talk directly with the person instead of through a RO.

Relay Con: Have to trust relay with private info.

 

[Dennis S.]

Direct TTY Pro: I can talk directly with the person instead of through a RO.

Relay Con: Have to trust relay with private info.

dkf747, the pro, I can give.

However, your con isn't valid. There is no need to "trust" relay operators -- they have federal laws against sharing any kind of info, even illegal info like drug deals or terrorist activity. Credit card info, social security numbers, bank statements, account numbers, even tax information, military planning or things of national security go through relay all the time. ALL THE TIME.

They're the ones who say, "I love you dear!" 50 times a day, or swear convincingly when you're mad, or laugh when you hear a good joke.

 

[2_RESTRICTED]

The employees who are coming up with "direct TTY lines" should be fired. Think about it:

1) Direct TTY lines:
Pros:
-You can advertise that you're "deaf friendly"
-TTY callers generally have shorter wait times :-o



why should they be fired ?? that's not right ..... and I believe tty direct lines are great ppl ssem to love it and there's only on keyboard for everything jus different systems and I for one don't think that they're ill trained. I actually know they're not ill trained if a rep who is sitting in training class choses to not pay attention or sleep when they're supposed to be learning u cannot blame the company for ill training, MOST of the time it's the rep not the training . as far as transfering to another deptartment the tty rep can relay the call better than a relay op as they don't have to type word for word and can break it into something a lil easier to understand rather then tech like the data teams do . hold times are lower as well as on the call times are quicker as well as far as advertising as deaf friendly they're not allowed to do so because it's called profiling and it's illegal jus like they're not allowed to flag the tty accounts to go into the tty que. also as far as training a tty rep to use a tty device they use nextalk and there's no answering machine at all because when a rep goes on a break there's other reps there for the call to go into so there's no need to "leave a msg" also most companies don't give training on accepting relay calls I have worked in call centers for a long time and never had special training on accepting or dealing with relay calls we treat them like any other call. geeezzee all the company is tryin to do is make it a lil easier for those who do use tty. again as far as going to another dept the tty rep is fully able to transfer as well as stay on the line to explain and help resolve the issue rather than cold transfer and having to explain things again and they have extensive knowledge of the systems and are able to assist the data team rep or whoever in fixing the issue ... 2 heads are better than one sometimes and relay ops jus relay and can't make suggestions on things to try and stuff like that as the tty rep and the other rep can fix things together , but whatever like I have stated before . it's there to use and if u chose not to that's cool was jus letting ppl know it's there for their convience. thanx for ur time

 

[apathrev]

Direct TTY Pro: I can talk directly with the person instead of through a RO.

Relay Con: Have to trust relay with private info.

You got to be kidding. :roll:

 

[2_RESTRICTED]

yea central u know what ur talking about and don't u agree it will make ur job easier as well ???

 

[dkf747]

dkf747, the pro, I can give.

However, your con isn't valid. There is no need to "trust" relay operators -- they have federal laws against sharing any kind of info, even illegal info like drug deals or terrorist activity. Credit card info, social security numbers, bank statements, account numbers, even tax information, military planning or things of national security go through relay all the time. ALL THE TIME.

They're the ones who say, "I love you dear!" 50 times a day, or swear convincingly when you're mad, or laugh when you hear a good joke.

I know that, but I had to come up with something.

However, laws are often broken. There are still some things I won't use relay for, though those things are few.

 

[Dennis S.]

The employees who are coming up with "direct TTY lines" should be fired. Think about it:

1) Direct TTY lines:
Pros:
-You can advertise that you're "deaf friendly"
-TTY callers generally have shorter wait times :-o



why should they be fired ??

It's a waste of money. They have to treat deaf clients different than they do for everyone else. That means it COULD go either way -- either treat us better, or treat us WORSE. Deaf clients aren't a big part of big business -- therefore, it's extremely likely that we'll get the shaft.

Since deaf people are not using the same telephone number as everyone else, they can't expect the same treatment. How can we be guaranteed that our problem will be given the same consideration as everyone else?

You said T-Mobile uses NexTalk. You didn't say what happens when a call comes in. Is there one rep who is assigned to watching the TTY line at a time? What happens if he's on a call? Is there more than one person who can answer the phone, who decides? You're coming through a different system than everyone else. Unless, of course, T-Mobile decided to go with a VOIP system so everything goes through their computer and it detects whether or not it's a voice or TTY call.

 

[Dennis S.]

I know that, but I had to come up with something.

However, laws are often broken. There are still some things I won't use relay for, though those things are few.

*shrug* I respect your anxiety. I just hope that you're not living your life expecting people to often not follow the law. That's a paranoid outlook on life.

 

[diehardbiker]

Just think about this, the relay operation equipment is programmed to erase EVERYTHING at the moment the call is disconnected or hang up! The operator are NOT allowed to have notepads or anything to write down permenantly and take it home. Whats more, I can bet that one operator may have made 50 calls a day and can NOT remember every details among these 50 calls that has been made.
Finally, does not make any difference, because there will always be chance that one of employees who trained to use TTY can be crook and take advantage of your privacy matters.

Relay Con: Have to trust relay with private info.

 

[diehardbiker]

ID thieves

I also wanted to let ya know that I watch a movie, which is based on true story. The first case of Identity thief was cracked. A woman's Identity was stolen by a mortgage representative!!! That is because this crook who was representative for a mortgage company happen to see the opportunity when all of the credit information, personal information was right next to her. Wrecked victim's life! The court can not do anything about it because there isn't any law against ID thief, thanks Bush for FINALLY making the ID thieves a FELONY and federal crime! President Clinton didn't do anything about this ID thieves and assume it is just small crime.
My point is that not just RO that could brench your personal info. It could just be anyone!

 

[2_RESTRICTED]

It's a waste of money. They have to treat deaf clients different than they do for everyone else. That means it COULD go either way -- either treat us better, or treat us WORSE. Deaf clients aren't a big part of big business -- therefore, it's extremely likely that we'll get the shaft.

Since deaf people are not using the same telephone number as everyone else, they can't expect the same treatment. How can we be guaranteed that our problem will be given the same consideration as everyone else?

You said T-Mobile uses NexTalk. You didn't say what happens when a call comes in. Is there one rep who is assigned to watching the TTY line at a time? What happens if he's on a call? Is there more than one person who can answer the phone, who decides? You're coming through a different system than everyone else. Unless, of course, T-Mobile decided to go with a VOIP system so everything goes through their computer and it detects whether or not it's a voice or TTY call.

yes all calls come thru a computer and there's a teeam of over 20 ppl there's not jus one tty device it's done thru the phone lines and like I stated before it's unfortunate because these accounts cannot be flagged for deaf customers or customers using a tty device so they have to rely on ppl calling into the number posted on the website. u can be guarenteed that your problem will be handled actually in my opinon better than a reg voice call because you're with the same rep all the way thru the call till the end so there's no miscommunication between departments with cold transfering calls and reps not leaving great notes in ppls accounts and stuff. as well as tty reps have more training then a reg customer service rep in reguards to product knowledgement and stuff like that ie: trouble shooting and stuff . tmobile realizes that the hearing impaired ARE a big part of the business but do to laws they're unable to find out excatly how many ppl are tty users on their devices and such . that's sad but it's true . so to answer your question tty reps are better trained then reg cust care reps as well as there's a whole department of reps not jus one and they all have nextalk on their computers so it's not as complicated as it seems hope that explains a lil better any questions feel free to ask try calling in see for urself the response from those who have called in is nuthing but good

 

[apathrev]

Just think about this, the relay operation equipment is programmed to erase EVERYTHING at the moment the call is disconnected or hang up! The operator are NOT allowed to have notepads or anything to write down permenantly and take it home. Whats more, I can bet that one operator may have made 50 calls a day and can NOT remember every details among these 50 calls that has been made.
Finally, does not make any difference, because there will always be chance that one of employees who trained to use TTY can be crook and take advantage of your privacy matters.

Thank you. First, no operator would have any motive to keep your personal information for their own gain, and they are sworn to it. If someone was caught taking personal information, by management, not only would they be fired, they would very likely face federal charges. Two, we are not permitted to do anything other than process the call while it is up on our screen. No pen and paper out, no cell phones, or anything distracting. Supervisors routinely walk through the call center making sure operators are completely focussed on the call. We are not even allowed to talk to neighbors while on calls. Third, the same thing DHB said. We can't even remember miniscule details of most calls. And we process a lot more than just 50 calls a day, on average.

 

[sequoias]

don't forget NexTalk! It's also a TTY software u can get for free for Windows PC...works pretty good like a TTY and u can make free calls too!

 

[diehardbiker]

50 calls a day per operators is just my "mathematic guess". I really don't know the true average, can you shed the number? You know, I figured a call would take 10 minutes, divided by 60 minutes would yeild 6 calls per hour, and then multiply them by 8 hours would give 48 calls per 8 hour shift.

Thank you. First, no operator would have any motive to keep your personal information for their own gain, and they are sworn to it. If someone was caught taking personal information, by management, not only would they be fired, they would very likely face federal charges. Two, we are not permitted to do anything other than process the call while it is up on our screen. No pen and paper out, no cell phones, or anything distracting. Supervisors routinely walk through the call center making sure operators are completely focussed on the call. We are not even allowed to talk to neighbors while on calls. Third, the same thing DHB said. We can't even remember miniscule details of most calls. And we process a lot more than just 50 calls a day, on average.

 

[apathrev]

Its impossible to put an average. I don't think my employer would like me to divulge any such estimation of the number of calls I may take per day, but its well above 50. 50 would be a slow day in which most of our time would be spent in between calls. The average length of a call is just impossible to guess, but if I were to give an answer, it wouldn't be too far off from your guess.