Calling into a place close to closing time

[MissRose]

I would say yes it is rude to call a few minutes close to the closing time of a place especially if you know your issue will take some time to be addressed and/solved.   I would say the same to walking into a store few minutes prior to closing time without having a dire emergency could be Special Snowflakey.

Background: Recently, I worked a weekend shift.  1 minute before I was ready to log off for the evening at closing, a call comes in.  Issue is a bit complicated but one I know is not an emergency plus it requires a work ticket submission to the next level.  It was a question I could not give an answer to as the resources were not available to give an answer immediately.    I got off the phone about 5 to 10 minutes past the closing time after I take the detail to open a ticket for the group that is only available weekdays, and customer is aware of that too.  Customer did not give me a hard time nor did she apologize for calling so close to closing time (and she does call enough to be aware of the times we are open). 

[Deetee]

This is for phone in support?

Not rude. I don't think it is the customer's responsibility to be aware of the hours or preferred contact hours at all. That is on the company.

As far as I'm concerned, I phone the number and if someone answers I'm in luck. Maybe the company has a built in time that they keep the lines open (no calls accepted after 5:00, but support staff paid until 5:30). Maybe the company shuts down the incoming calls at 4:45, so I will get a message telling me to call back the next day. And, as is often the case, maybe the hours are posted for a different time zone than I am in.

Now, if staff are expected to take calls just before closing and are not paid past closing, I do think that is a serious issue, but it is an employment issue and something that should be fixed (paying overtime/extending hours/closing incoming lines etc...). It is very wrong to be expected to work past closing for no compensation, but that is simply not the fault of a customer.

[katycoo]

Not rude.

If you are salaried, I don't think staying back 10 minutes is anything to complain about.  if you're paid hourly, you shoudl be paid for the time you stay back.

But generally speaking, that's life.

[shhh its me]

  I think if you have a hour long issue you should call at least a hour before closing. If you have a 5 minute issue you should call at least 5 minutes before closing.  That doesn't mean you'll always be right estimating how long a call will take but I think finishing the call before closing is a polite goal. 

[Psychopoesie]

I voted not rude.

(Though I understand how frustrating it must be to be the one who took the call).

If a business is accepting calls up to 5pm, that's on them. They've chosen those operating hours. The business also has a choice about how it responds to calls that come in close to closing.

For example, some staff could be scheduled to cover those calls (or paid to stay late if late calls do come in). The business could also choose to merely note the problem and advise that the request has come in too late to be processed same day but would be scheduled first thing in the morning (same thing that might happen if you went to a print shop too late to get a job done).

Problems don't always arise at a convenient time (really wish they'd consult me before scheduling themselves). 

[MariaE]

This is for phone in support?

Not rude. I don't think it is the customer's responsibility to be aware of the hours or preferred contact hours at all. That is on the company.

As far as I'm concerned, I phone the number and if someone answers I'm in luck. Maybe the company has a built in time that they keep the lines open (no calls accepted after 5:00, but support staff paid until 5:30). Maybe the company shuts down the incoming calls at 4:45, so I will get a message telling me to call back the next day. And, as is often the case, maybe the hours are posted for a different time zone than I am in.

Now, if staff are expected to take calls just before closing and are not paid past closing, I do think that is a serious issue, but it is an employment issue and something that should be fixed (paying overtime/extending hours/closing incoming lines etc...). It is very wrong to be expected to work past closing for no compensation, but that is simply not the fault of a customer.

I voted not rude for the reasons Deetee stated here.

[Penguin_ar]

Not rude.
I worked in call centers (airlines, tech support) for much of my adult life and it's always been the case that workers were expected to take calls until the very end of their shift.  if that meant they ended up staying a half hour late, so be it (and would get paid for it, of course).  That possibility is part of the job.   If you had something really important that evening and absolutely needed to leave on time, you could asked to be assigned to do paperwork or emails for the last hour so you could log off on time, as an exception.

Now, as an end user if I have an issue I suspect takes an hour, and I know the callcenter closes at 5pm, I'll try to call in before 4pm.  But I may not have time, or the case may take longer than I suspected, and I am not going to feel rude or guilty about it.

[cross_patch]

Absolutely not. It's a part of the job, and I have worked on the phones of a mobile phone company,in retail and in hospitality. Rude doesn't even come into it. I think if you think it's rude, customer service is maybe not the job for you, because its absolutely an assumed part of the job.

[lady_disdain]

So, going into a store 5 minutes before closing time is rude because it holds the staff who aren't paid overtime but calling is not rude because the staff is paid overtime?

The problem with that line of thought is that it assumes that people know how the staff is paid and whether or not they get overtime. Before eHell, I never imagined that retail workers didn't receive overtime or that the end of their shift coincided with closing, not closing plus enough time to finish up the day. There are hundreds of different business types and models that I have no idea how workers are compensated.

[Curious Cat]

Not rude. I work in a call center and well, it happens. Is it my favorite thing in the world? No of course not, but it IS my job.

[perpetua]

The problem with that line of thought is that it assumes that people know how the staff is paid and whether or not they get overtime. Before eHell, I never imagined that retail workers didn't receive overtime or that the end of their shift coincided with closing, not closing plus enough time to finish up the day. There are hundreds of different business types and models that I have no idea how workers are compensated.

Along the same lines, before I came to ehell I had no idea that so many people got so bent out of shape about staying an extra five minutes here and there. If it was an hour, I can understand, but five minutes?

I don't think this is rude. The customer probably had no idea how long their issue would take to sort out and they called within the stated opening times so I think this is one for 'them's the breaks'.

[dawbs]

I think this implies that the caller has more control over a situation than they do.

I worked in a call center for several years and I can't even begin to count the number of times I stayed after my shift for a call (and I wasn't paid, but we were supposed to be able to take the time on a different day.  Didn't always work, but that was the theory)--but the time my shift ended had nothing to do with closing time.
I could be annoyed with the person who called at 7:55 pm, when we closed at 8 but that person didn't really do anything more inconvenient than the person who called at 2:53 when my shift ends at 3:00.

Would it be nice if the caller is able to call earlier?  absolutely.  If this caller has all day to call and chooses to wait until right before closing out pure cussedness, the caller is a jerk.  But people don't have all day free and need to call sometime.

[Margo]

It's not rude to call in clsoe to closing time, but I think it is rude if you go in knowing you are going to be a long time (complex issue, shopping for somthing which is going to be difficult to fit etc.) as then you are going in knowing you will not be done by closing time.

The exception, to me, would be if you haven't ben able to get in earlier due to the business itself - so if you started to call a call centre 20 minutes before they close but don't manage to get through until 5 minutes before, or if you joined the queue to checkout inreasonable time but there were big delays so it's closing time by the time you get to the front of the queue.  it's not rude to seek to complete your business

[Goosey]

Unfortunately, that's part of the customer service industry. The customer is not rude to come in/call when the store is open and stay until their situation is resolved (within reason - I remember one "Say Yes to the Dress" where a very wealthy woman was just puttering around wasting their time HOURS after closing because she felt that she could. It was only when they asked her to take off the dress and decide later that she stopped waffling! But that's different than someone who is actively working on a problem that just happens to take a few minutes longer than you would like)

I don't think it's rude to go in when you can to get something done. You don't know why they called/came in 10 minutes before closing. You don't know that they're aware that their problem is going to take a Long Time. It's not like the customer times these things.

I can see being annoyed at having to stay 10 minutes after closing, but just because you're annoyed does not make it rude

[RebeccainGA]

I totally don't think it's rude, and I worked in call centers for years. You are there to work until the end of your shift - even though it'd be nice to be able to make one last bathroom run, rinse your coffee cup and pack up your things to walk out the door exactly on time, that's not the way call centers are run. We were told to get to work 30 minutes early if we wanted to get coffee and chat before our shift, and to expect that we would work until the end of our shift to the minute and then we'd get to pack our things - and I worked at a center where we shared desks, and packing your things included your headset and adapter, and all your paperwork/notes/binders and you toted that stuff around in a large gym bag they provided.

Call center work isn't always fun - but it is a very specific type of demand that needs people to understand what they are in for. If you can't handle those specific demands, maybe it's not a good fit for you. But a caller at the end of the day? That's just normal business.