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CEB officials get an earful from angry callers
View(s):CEB consumer care officials had to bear the brunt of irate consumers anger as they were inundated with calls on “blackout-Sunday”.
A senior CEB official said that staff manning the call centres had no explanations to offer as they too were in the dark.
Initially there were anxious calls by people asking when the power would be restored. However, as the hours passed the callers became angrier and angrier, he said.
“Some understood when we explained that there was a major problem in one of our main systems, but others yelled and went on criticising us. So we listened to the callers patiently. After a while when we could not handle the callers any longer we took the phone off the hook, he said.
The CEB official said they had recordings of the people who yelled at them in an abusive manner but no action would be taken as they understood that the consumers too had to bear the brunt of the power failure.
A consumer service assistant at the Ratmalana office said they received an average of 2,000 calls each.
“We did not know what to tell them when the islandwide power failure occurred and all we could say was that power would be restored shortly.
“We felt bad too as they were calling us seeking explanations, but some callers kept blaming us. There were some who understood the situation,” she said.
She said people were angry due to the unscheduled power cuts and the recordings which automatically played about paying bills on time etc. when CEB officials didn’t answer the calls.
She said some consumers were angry that they didn’t answer the calls, but they could handle only 12 calls at a time and there were more calls than that at any given time.