I suppose it's always good to look only on the positives, but I agree with the lying quip simply because I do most certainly believe many contact agents from many companies will lie just to get rid of a problematic caller. Lying may be a bit strong, but it is accurate. Even if it is an assumption or a guess, they should state that otherwise they are giving information knowing that it may be false and that is not their job. (MHO only)
ah, but if one admits to a guess they open themselves up (and the company). Personally I would rather be this way, and I am when I am not sure about something with my own customers (who are all internal to my company) because I'd rather be open and honest about somehting - even if it means admitting "I don't know, but I'll research it" rather than bluffing one's way through or saying something I know is BS (because I think, in general, people are quite cool with admitting that you're human and if they receive a reasonable explanation for whatever they can deal with it more readily then either a fob off, a deferral with no reasonable reason or whatever).
I guess the problem is that say I speak to customers. I represent the airline and it can get curly in terms of customer expectation, potential confusion or even "Well that agent told me... now you're telling me...' scenarios.
I expect I'd make a terrible CSR because I'd always be like "Well all I can tell you from what I see here is that flight 94 is scheduled on time, but I see the inbound hasn't left MEL yet so I don't see how THAT can happen!" yeah, maybe not (and let's say I did say that, then a sub happens and the flight goes out OK, some customer could have gone to the bar thinking the flight is going to be delayed hours, then miss it.. and blame me).
It can be a very grey area, specially with irrops and ever changing situations
In the case of DSC's not posting and all that stuff (to try and bring us back on topic), and having a background in IT, I'd still err on the side of assumption and the like. Specially when "wait for six-eight weeks" deferral doesn't work or isn't an option. In a way I think the agents are in a no wi n situation with this stuff.. they can't fix it.. it doesn't seem to be consistent (based on anecdotes here) and so on. Do you admit your employer/system has issues to a customer? I don't know what the "right" answer to this is.
And yes, I am sure, some agents will make up something to get rid of a "problem" caller... no doubt. Human nature too.
of course, as usual, if QF bothered to spend the time/money/effort to resolve these issues, or build them properly in the first place(and test properly!) then none of this would be an issue. Of course if they did, certai things would never have been possible... swins and roundablouts?