1 Ilene Christensen Call Center Plus 2915 N 330 E North Logan, UT 84341 contact@callcenterplus.com 435 753 2030 Sept 1, 2015 Chase Paymentech, LLC 4 Northeastern Blvd. Salem, NH 03079 To whom it may concern, The purpose of this letter is provide documentation to challenge the chargeback for services rendered by my company, Call Center Plus, to the credit card of Shawna M. Kreuzer on 6/11/2015 for the amount of $1383.00. Typically, when I take on a new answering service account, I get the information I need to set up the account via email correspondence along with a signed set-up form from the new client containing all pertinent information required to program the account. In addition to one or two phone conversations, I am able to set up the account to meet the needs of the new client. Very rarely do I have a face-to-face encounter with the new client or his/her employee. The set-up form I received from Shawna was very sketchy and provided very limited information, but did state several times that she would be sending her dispatch supervisor to provide training as the information we needed was too complicated and involved to put on the set-up form. I had little real information to begin setting up her account. Shortly after receiving the set-up form, Shawna informed me that she had made travel arrangements for her dispatch supervisor to be at my office to train us. She did not ask if the dates were acceptable for me or my management staff. She chose an extended weekend to send her dispatch supervisor to train with us. We quickly rearranged our schedules and lives to accommodate the training. However, when the dispatcher arrived, we let her know we were not willing to provide any training on Sunday for religious reasons. Although the nature of my business requires that the call center be open on Sunday to take client calls, we do not do any work that could be done on another day of the week. The dispatcher arrived in Utah on a Wednesday evening and we were told that she wanted to come into the office that evening to see the operation. As this was a time when no one from my management team was available, my office manager volunteered to meet and greet her. The next day, my quality control specialist/employee trainer worked with her all day to learn the extremely complicated account and begin the programming. After a full day of working together, the dispatcher wanted my QC specialist to watch her take calls during the middle of the night, so they arranged to meet at 2:00 am. My QC specialist arrived on time and waited for over 90 minutes. When the dispatcher did not show up, my QC specialist went back home to get some sleep as they had to meet again the next day for more training and she had no way of knowing if
the dispatcher would even show up. Incidentally, the dispatcher did finally come to the office at about 4:30 am for about an hour, had her calls transferred to our office, and did some training with our graveyard personnel. Please note, the account was not ready for us to start taking calls, the employee had received no prior training, and we were simply not ready to start taking calls. During this time Shawna was monitoring the calls from her end and became concerned that we would not be able to handle the account. She called the graveyard operator to voice her concerns, and he then frantically called me. I was flabbergasted that she assumed we were ready to answer her phones as the account had not been set up yet. She called me early that morning and led me to believe she expected us to get her account set up and get our employees trained NOW. At this point, I asked Shawna what kind of call volume we should expect so I could schedule enough staff to handle the calls. She replied that she had no idea and that I would have to tell her. I was somewhat surprised at this response and knew I would have to figure out how to schedule employees as we went along. Our normal training procedure is for employees to train on new accounts during their regularly scheduled working hours under the direction of my QC Specialist. However, due to Shawna s insistence, my solution to our immediate problem of getting all employees trained as quickly as possible was to schedule each of them a time to come in and have the dispatcher train them on the account since Shawna appeared to be unable to wait for us to train in our normal way. Please note that my management team was available at all hours of the day and night for the dispatcher from the time she arrived on Wednesday evening until she left the next Tuesday morning, with the exception of Sunday, as explained earlier. When she was not in the office training the QC specialist or our staff, we were still working on the programming side of the account. During the time she was here, my management team each worked 16+ hour days in order to accommodate the dispatcher and Shawna. By late Monday evening we all believed we had a good grasp of this very complicated account and the dispatcher was also confident we would be able to manage the calls. After the dispatcher left Utah we continued to fine tune the programming and train our staff. My QC specialist and I spent at least 40 additional hours working together to get the account programmed and each station ready for our staff to service the account. For the next 10 days we took their calls. My QC specialist and office manager spent considerable time giving one-on-one training to staff as we took those first calls. Our staff did remarkably well and feedback from the dispatcher was extremely positive. She could not believe how well we were handling the calls. Within the first few days of taking Shawna s calls, I knew what to expect in call volume. I scheduled more staff and designated a few staff members as team leaders. We printed binders for each employee and bought calculators for each station. I really made every effort to service the account. We did have a situation over the first weekend we had the phones where the graveyard operator had not been trained on the account so we asked the dispatcher to take the phones. Otherwise, I believe we handled a very difficult account amazingly well and I believe Shawna and her dispatcher were pleased with our efforts. Nonetheless, it all came crashing down when Shawna received her first bill. As stated previously, she said she had no idea what to expect in call volume, and I believe she was completely unprepared for the high call volume we received and that she was billed for. She was also unhappy about being charged for the additional employee training required during the 2
time her dispatcher was in our office. Please note, under normal circumstances I do not have a need to charge clients for account training as the training can be accomplished during the employees regularly scheduled time at work. However, in this case, we had to call all staff members in for the training Shawna demanded they receive. When she expressed how upset she was that I charged her for the training, I asked Shawna, if when she trained a new employee, did she compensate both the new employee and the trainer. She said she did. I spent a great deal of time trying to determine a way to accommodate Shawna, but at the same time, to be compensated for additional costs I incurred to provide the training she demanded. Please refer to the invoice (see pg. 4) and stats (see pg. 5) included in this document to see how the charges were generated. This invoice was charged in two separate transactions; one for services rendered in the amount of $1991.05 and the other for training expenses requested by Shawna for $1383.00. It is the $1383.00 that is in dispute. Per Shawna s request, I called in my staff for special training on her account while her dispatcher was here. My management team also worked countless hours of overtime for the two weeks we serviced the account to provide additional training and support related specifically to the account. I only billed Shawna for the additional time worked when the dispatcher was here. Please note, I did not bill any overtime charges I incurred. I only billed for regular pay. Twelve staff members were paid $12.00 per hour for an average of 3.5 to 3.75 hours each, totaling $528.00. Two management personnel were paid $15.00 per hour for 57 hours, totaling $855.00. The total additional payroll expenses came to $1383.00 My answering service stats for the account indicate that after the training with the dispatcher, my staff spent 1842 minutes at $0.80 per minute over and above the initial training with the dispatcher at a cost of $1473.60. In an effort to accommodate Shawna, I chose not to charge her for this expense. I only charged her for my added payroll expense of $1383.00 incurred as a result of the additional training. Shawna signed our contract agreeing to the setup fee of $35.00 per hour. The account was very complicated to set up and took over 40 hours of programming. However, I only charged $35.00 for one hour of setup charges. The actual expense for setup fees was $1400.00. I also did not charge her for the reference binders and calculators we purchased and provided at each station. The total setup/training expenses came to $4256.60 ($1400.00 setup fee + $1473.60 staff training per stats + $1383.00 payroll for mandatory training). I charged $1418.00 ($35.00 setup fee + $1383.00 training payroll expenses) for a savings to Shawna of $2838.00. 3
4 INVOICE: K&K Towing Please note: This invoice was charged in two separate transactions; one for services rendered for $1991.05 and the other for training expenses requested by Shawna for $1383.00.
5 STATS: K&K Towing Generated by Telescan Answering Service Software
After receiving her first bill, Shawna discontinued her service with my company. In an effort to salvage the account I spoke to her. She told me that she had just hired three new women to handle her after-hours calls for a total cost of $1000.00 per week. I told her I would be willing to provide after-hours and holiday answering services for that amount, and furthermore, I would be willing to discount the cost by $100.00 per week until the training charges were made up. She turned down my offer and later indicated that she would pay her final invoice when I refunded the $1383.00 in staff training, which I was unwilling to do. When she failed to pay her final invoices I chose to charge her credit card for the final amounts according to the service agreement she signed (see signed agreement, pg.8, you have the full document provided by Shawna previously). I am aware that she told me not to charge her card. However, she signed the contract giving us permission to use the credit card on file to pay the balance if it became past due. That is what I did. In one of my last communications with Shawna, I told her I wished her the best and that I truly wanted her business to succeed and I meant it. I have no ill feelings towards her. I only want to be paid for the services I rendered in good faith. Thank you for your consideration in this matter. If you need further clarification or documentation, please let me know. 6 Sincerely, Ilene Christensen Owner, Call Center Plus
NOTE: A priority account is billed at $0.80 per minute. 7
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