|
Some years ago I worked for a hotel chain reservation line, and right before Christmas they made the announcement that all of us were losing our jobs, since the call centers were closing and being outsourced to India. BUT we were asked not to quit right off because, and I quote, our replacements hadn't finished their training to speak 'street' English. Of course a lot of people quit asap, but others I cubicle'd with found it more theraputic to tell all the callers that we were being outsourced to India.
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 01:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 23:56 |
|
|
gomababe posted:Still, getting people from Glasgow on the phone means I can talk at my normal speed I apologize and say this with the utmost respect, but Glaswegian accents are loving brutal mate.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 01:57
|
|
|
Weatherman posted:You're not on the southside of Brisbane, are you, Windy? Yes, Moorooka
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 02:03
|
|
|
greazeball posted:I apologize and say this with the utmost respect, but Glaswegian accents are loving brutal mate. racist
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 02:29
|
|
|
greazeball posted:I apologize and say this with the utmost respect, but Glaswegian accents are loving brutal mate. Here yoo, hood'you run wi'? Ah need ma o'erdreft fur buckie, no? EDIT: Also, hoodjoo support? Cellickurrangers? Cuz I'll chib ye if ye go fur the rang wun.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 02:42
|
|
|
Brendas Baby Daddy posted:racist Totally bro I am way over-reacting and playing the racism card over nothing. Not like I've ever had people complain to me about "the god drat pakis" all the drat time or had one guy say to me "thank god, a white person".
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 04:49
|
|
|
man thats gross posted:Totally bro I am way over-reacting and playing the racism card over nothing. Not like I've ever had people complain to me about "the god drat pakis" all the drat time or had one guy say to me "thank god, a white person". Yeah ... or someone ask for 'a REAL PERSON not a brown guy!'. I got thanked for being or at least sounding American all the drat time. The tragic part is how /often/ it happens.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 07:29
|
|
|
gomababe posted:Speaking of accents, I swear some people have gone half deaf in this stupid country. I am from Scotland a part of the United Kingdom, not Australia, not Canada and most certainly not India or Paksitan {yeah I don't know about those last two either. Must be the microphone or the fact that when I've been home I speak rather quickly}, so stop clearly being annoyed that I don't have a neutral English accent from the South {for some reason this little fact pisses off more people from Manchester and Liverpool}. Still, getting people from Glasgow on the phone means I can talk at my normal speed and get through what would otherwise be a 40 minute call in less than 20 minutes without cutting any corners to get there. When we first started taking calls from Scotland, my first call was from a Glaswegian, and I literally couldn't understand a word. It was the pace, the completely different slang, etc. It may as well have been a completely different language, frankly. After a couple of calls I got the hang of it but just the fact there's such a massive difference in accent between Glasgow and Edinburgh still staggers me. Edit: Also briefly worked with a guy who used to work in bars in Glasgow; someone asked him which team he supported and he went utterly stoney faced and said "I don't follow football". We had to remind him that he wasn't in Glasgow any more and no one was going to bottle him for saying the wrong one.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 08:38
|
|
|
Fil5000 posted:When we first started taking calls from Scotland, my first call was from a Glaswegian, and I literally couldn't understand a word. It was the pace, the completely different slang, etc. It may as well have been a completely different language, frankly. After a couple of calls I got the hang of it but just the fact there's such a massive difference in accent between Glasgow and Edinburgh still staggers me. I lived and attended school in the UK for a few years, and I found the accents really difficult to understand my first few weeks there. On the bright side, today I discovered I apparently speak on the phone with a Scottish lilt. I'm not sure why I do this and I can't actually stop myself from doing it without having to think very carefully about what I'm about to say, but I'm not complaining. It makes for interesting conversation during an otherwise boring call. Funny story about "them foreign call centres" and how much customers hate them; my coworker took a call where the lady just carried on about 'those horrible asian people' and call centres. After she'd finished her little tirade (and he was in the middle of fixing her issue), he said 'well, I'm actually the first Australian-born citizen in my family, my parents are both from Vietnam'. He heard her gasp and she apologised profusely throughout the call. 
froglet fucked around with this message at 11:15 on May 7, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 11:12
|
|
|
Call centres could go a long way towards reducing racism towards their staff by making ability with the English language (both speaking and comprehension) the single most important requirement when interviewing candidates. I am 100% backing Brendas Baby Daddy's point: it doesn't matter how much of a knowledgeable, helpful, wonderful person you are if you can't communicate with the people who are dialling in. Even though it's clearly it's unacceptable to resort to racism when faced with the frustration of being unable to understand the accent on the other end of the line people still do it. Given that call centres can't turn away the shitheels who behave that way (because the execs don't deem racism a good enough reason for ending the call  ) upping the English language requirements would reduce the frustration and thus save the staff from this sort of abuse. And hell, it might even improve the general perception of outsourced call centres.I also want to make one more final and very important point. Making an observation of a trend which happens to include a racial element is not racist. Using that observation to prejudice your views of an entire race is when it becomes racist. Observe: - Not racist: "I hate Indian call centres because I often have trouble understanding/being understood." - Racist: "I'm not shopping there! It's run by Indians, you know what those call centres are like." rolleyes fucked around with this message at 13:17 on May 7, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 13:15
|
|
|
rolleyes posted:Call centres could go a long way towards reducing racism towards their staff by making ability with the English language (both speaking and comprehension) the single most important requirement when interviewing candidates. I am 100% backing Brendas Baby Daddy's point: it doesn't matter how much of a knowledgeable, helpful, wonderful person you are if you can't communicate with the people who are dialling in. racist
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 13:32
|
|
|
A person's accent says nothing about their mastery of the language, it's just another thing for people to make snap judgments on.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 13:34
|
|
|
Brendas Baby Daddy posted:racist  greazeball posted:A person's accent says nothing about their mastery of the language, it's just another thing for people to make snap judgments on. If your accent makes you difficult to comprehend to the people using the call centre then there's not much point in you being there. I'm not trying to make excuses for the racists, I'm pointing out that there's a flaw in the way outsourced call centres recruit. Of course, that in turn is all driven by company execs, so it's unlikely to change when the execs are sat in the US/UK and don't have to use their own call centres. Let me be clear, this problem is not due to lack of suitable candidates. I spent 3 months training new staff in India for my company (not a call centre) and, for once, because this is a western company upper management recognised that the single most important criteria was that they could communicate with the rest of the company - not just that they could comprehend, but that they could be comprehended by other staff also speaking English in our various locations all over the world. Yes we had to turn away some candidates who were well qualified on paper, but we had no trouble finding other candidates just as qualified who also ticked the "can comprehend/be comprehended" box. I've also had my fair share of terrible experiences with outsourced call centres, the most recent being with Acer last week. It was, in fact, an Indian call centre (I asked the rep, because there were a lot of centres in the city I was in so I was interested to see where he was) and unfortunately he didn't understand my (British) accent very well. This resulted in my laptop being sent away for a repair and being sent straight back again unfixed because the fault description recorded by the rep wasn't correct. Sure, I've had bad experiences with call centres in my country too, but that has all come down to idiotic company policies or other issues which means they can't do what I'm asking them to do, not that the rep can't understand what I'm saying. The bottom line here is, literally, the bottom line. Employing foreign staff with good English skills costs more than employing those who don't have said skills. Management thinks that so long as they can read the script it's all good, when in reality it just ends up causing frustration. And, among less desirable types, frustration leads to racism. But it seems that's not enough of a reason to spend more money. rolleyes fucked around with this message at 14:01 on May 7, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 13:50
|
|
|
Fil5000 posted:When we first started taking calls from Scotland, my first call was from a Glaswegian, and I literally couldn't understand a word. It was the pace, the completely different slang, etc. It may as well have been a completely different language, frankly. After a couple of calls I got the hang of it but just the fact there's such a massive difference in accent between Glasgow and Edinburgh still staggers me. No worries at all, Glasweigan is a brutal accent to get around even in person never mind on the phone. I guess I'm used to it because it's the unofficial NED language/accent and we have a lot of them in my home town. I actually have more problems with people from Aberdeen and the North West myself because their A's and E's sound even more alike to my ears. I actually rather like a few of the Indian and Pakistani accents myself, along with several European ones; they're easier on the ears than some of the UK ones I get to deal with 90% of the time {even if it does sound like some of them are perputually pissed off or shouting}. Yeah the football thing is a huge problem in Glasgow, say the wrong team in the wrong part of town and you're guaranteed a trip to A&E. I don't give a poo poo about football myself but it's painful to watch people go absolutely batshit over Old Firm games. Luckily it rarely comes up in the calls I have to take, but most of these guys are also horrible racists and it gets really uncomfortable when they casually make comments about "those fuckin' Poles, Pakis and refugees gettin' free money, like." I'd rather get a Polish person on the line that can't speak English very well than have to talk to these people. At least the people that require language lines are polite.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 13:55
|
|
|
gomababe posted:No worries at all, Glasweigan is a brutal accent to get around even in person never mind on the phone. I guess I'm used to it because it's the unofficial NED language/accent and we have a lot of them in my home town. I actually have more problems with people from Aberdeen and the North West myself because their A's and E's sound even more alike to my ears. I actually rather like a few of the Indian and Pakistani accents myself, along with several European ones; they're easier on the ears than some of the UK ones I get to deal with 90% of the time {even if it does sound like some of them are perputually pissed off or shouting}. It scares me how much the football thing is tied in to religion as well. I suppose that's what really gets you the kicking, not really the team. On an interviewing skills course I was told that up until reasonably recently companies hiring in scotland would ask "Are you a left footer or a right footer?" (apparently slang for catholic or protestant) and would grant or deny the application based on the response. Also, to rolleyes, I know we can and have not only terminated calls for customers being racist douches, but also on at least one occasion terminated all their services with our company. I was so loving proud of my employer that day.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 19:10
|
|
|
I've been working for ----- ---- for a while now, in the Edinburgh call centre. We are currently doing mostly business to business work and it can sometimes be really gash. We get a lot of our business from the government and agencies within the government, to research political or social issues. But of course we often get mistaken as sales. Receptionists are the worst for getting upset and rebuffing attempts to talk to respondents who can help us just because they think we're sales, even after it is made clear we're calling on behalf of X Y or Z government branch and the aim is to help improve services relevant to the business. That really pisses me off.
Benzoyl Peroxide fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Nov 21, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 8, 2011 15:10
|
|
|
How often do you guys lose people in your centres? My wave lost it's first member, she was fired for spending too much time off sick. I know these centres go through alot of people very quickly, but she was a good person and I liked working with her. I'm missing her a lot already, and very E/N about it all. Ah well 
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2011 10:54
|
|
|
Lord Windy posted:How often do you guys lose people in your centres? My group had 10 people. 3 didn't make it through training, another 2 quit within the first month, and 3 more have since gotten fired in the last 3 years I have been at this center. General rollover....we lose about 2 people a month, out of around 50 and 70 employees. A lot of them move to other departments within the bank, but a lot quit/get fired.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2011 17:39
|
|
|
So I'm on my second week of almost 100% taking calls. I think I'm kind of hitting my stride, this isn't so bad. I've also been doing pretty well on the customer satisfaction surveys but I guess it won't count for bonuses until the training period's over. Oh well. I'm amazed by how many people are just completely misinformed by other people when they call in though.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 03:27
|
|
|
This one actually made me laugh at least.
Tire Fire fucked around with this message at 07:29 on May 10, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 05:29
|
|
|
Had an interview for the switchboard position. The lady stressed flexibility as a must and that working third shift I'd be by myself for most of it. The first lady at HR stressed I'd never be alone, ever, but she doesn't work in the center, obviously.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 08:00
|
|
|
Revol posted:I just got hired today for my first IT job, at an outsource call center. How do you get a job in a call center? I'm not unemployed but I currently work in a warehouse and while it pays well it doesn't get me experience IT. All I ever hear is horror stories, but I would love to work in a call center. edit: I'm around Chicago if that affects opportunities. Cortel fucked around with this message at 10:53 on May 10, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 09:18
|
|
|
RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:I'm amazed by how many people are just completely misinformed by other people when they call in though. You may find it's a mixture of people misinforming customers, but often it's a case of customers only hearing what they want to hear and ignoring anything they don't like. One tip is to make sure you put good notes in a customer's file. If your call centre has a culture of good call documentation it'll make your life a shitload easier.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 12:13
|
|
|
modeski posted:You may find it's a mixture of people misinforming customers, but often it's a case of customers only hearing what they want to hear and ignoring anything they don't like. Yeah, I try to but we are spread out over several centers across the US and a couple outsourced centers so my capacity to change things is limited.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 12:38
|
|
|
My wave was 5 people and only 1 got fired. The biggest wave that came through when I started was 17 people, 12 of them are still there, and most of them just quit or walked off the job. I know "high turnover" is a Thing with call centers, but a lot of it is people walking off once they realize they can't do the gig. RE: Misinformation, it's pretty easy to get a call pulled at my job if someone is saying they were grossly misinformed and it comes down to dollars and cents. I had an assist rep walk by my desk and stop to tell me he had the pleasure of pulling a call I was on, and playing it for the customer over the line where I gave an explicit and detailed billing change breakdown so there was no way we were on the hook for his overdraft fees, good times.
|
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 12:58
|
|
|
modeski posted:You may find it's a mixture of people misinforming customers, but often it's a case of customers only hearing what they want to hear and ignoring anything they don't like. I have access to listen to calls for quality purposes and some of the crap I hear our CC reps pull is insane. CC Rep: "No, we do not allow Xbox 360s on our network. Sorry." *looks up how long rep has been with company. 3 years.*
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 20:10
|
|
|
Loving Life Partner posted:RE: God I would have loved this. There were honestly like 10 forms, three phone calls, and at least one hand-job involved in getting a call pulled in my centre. It was infuriating to be placed in a "my word against yours" situation over and over and over again. Even when it was noted the customer would just accuse the rep of lying.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 21:51
|
|
|
I don't think I can do the hospital switchboard thing. They haven't even offered me a place yet, but thinking over the interview, the lady was clear that I would be working alone, no lunches, bathroom breaks if I couldn't hold it for eight hours, and I might work four days of graveyard and then a day or two of second shift and the next week could be first, who knows. She took me in to the switchboard room too, and introduced me to a girl who was working away. Graveyard shift, so she started at 11:30pm. It was now nearly 10am and she was taking more calls since no one else had come in. I seriously don't think I could do that.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2011 02:58
|
|
man thats gross posted:God I would have loved this. There were honestly like 10 forms, three phone calls, and at least one hand-job involved in getting a call pulled in my centre. It was infuriating to be placed in a "my word against yours" situation over and over and over again. Even when it was noted the customer would just accuse the rep of lying. That would drive me nuts, I only get pushback on pulling calls occasionally, and even that annoys me. Things like "well maybe the rep misinformed them at the time, but we sent an e-mail about the new payment, we did our part to notify them", it's like, that's not the point, I don't know where that e-mail went or who read or didn't read it, what I do know is that it can be conclusively answered if we just listen to the danged call, grrr!
|
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2011 03:03
|
|
|
Cowslips Warren posted:I don't think I can do the hospital switchboard thing. They haven't even offered me a place yet, but thinking over the interview, the lady was clear that I would be working alone, no lunches, bathroom breaks if I couldn't hold it for eight hours, and I might work four days of graveyard and then a day or two of second shift and the next week could be first, who knows. Sounds like poo poo anyway mate. Those aren't conditions that would produce good results from most employees.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2011 08:00
|
|
|
Cowslips Warren posted:I don't think I can do the hospital switchboard thing. They haven't even offered me a place yet, but thinking over the interview, the lady was clear that I would be working alone, no lunches, bathroom breaks if I couldn't hold it for eight hours, and I might work four days of graveyard and then a day or two of second shift and the next week could be first, who knows. Do you have a chance to ask the current switchboard operator how she liked it? Maybe the lady you were speaking with was exaggerating. I personally would have liked to try it, since it's something different than most jobs out there, but if you got feelings about it then it was probably best to walk away.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2011 03:11
|
|
|
I'm kinda frustrated lately. Apparently my "aux" time is a problem (time off phones), but I answer about 60% more calls than the rest of my team. I take on average, 95-105, and the team average is about 65. Handle time isn't a stat at my job, instead they care more about first call resolution, and aux time. I've been told time and again that my handle time is too low. I average around 3-3.5 minutes, whereas the team average is 5.5-6 minutes. Okay! So I see where/why I take so many more calls. Does this bother me? Not really. My one call resolution stat is in line with requirements, and exceeding a bit, so I'm taking twice as many calls and handling them just as well so where's the problem? Well apparently I take too much time between calls, and/or off of the phones. Just because I can fire out 3 calls in 10 minutes, then take a breather for 2-3 minutes, my aux time gets a little out of whack, and it's beyond what it should be. I'm an outlier because even though I take the average amount of time per call between calls, because I take so many calls, it's too much. GO FIG. I kinda think that since my productivity is wildly better than expectation, I should get some slack cut in this area, but I'm on a program to get my aux time reduced about 40% in the next 2 months, so basically I can look forward to jacking my average calls per day up into the 130's and 140's, and having no time to unwrap my brain after each call. I don't waste time not understanding the problem of the transactions, I don't waste time calling assist, or putting people on hold to confirm things. I know my job, I do it really well, and it's not good enough. EDIT: Forgot to mention that it's the peak call season right now. Which means if you go into queue, you are GETTING a call. There is no mystery about it, as soon as you hit that button, BOOP BOOP, you got a call. The only time there's even a breather while in queue is in a lunch time lull or near the end of the day when people finally stop loving calling, but I leave about 15 minutes after that slowdown.
|
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2011 03:27
|
|
|
Loving Life Partner posted:stuff You're working too hard. If you can take calls faster, they'll want you to do it all the time.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2011 03:39
|
|
|
I've asked coaches, I've asked my supe, I've asked coworkers: how the hell do I increase my call time? Do I put people on hold for no reason and take my breaks there? Do I make bullshit small talk about things they don't care about/I don't want to talk about? I take my time on fun calls when someone is receptive and playful and wants to have a back and forth, you know how many calls that is? 1 out of 20. I dunno what else to do, I'm already hiding my time between calls in other places, if they catch onto that, I'll have to quit for being too good? I dunno.
|
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2011 03:51
|
|
|
Ghostnuke posted:You're working too hard. If you can take calls faster, they'll want you to do it all the time. Agreed. Some of your teammates probably could - or did - take as many calls as you, but they soon figured out that the extra hard work wasn't a benefit to them in any way. I was similar to you, my stats initially blew the rest of my team out of the water. Eventually an old-hand (worked there for a YEAR!) set me straight, and I soon slowed down to an acceptable level of mediocrity.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2011 03:54
|
|
|
Loving Life Partner posted:How the hell do I increase my call time? Just draw things out and explain what you're doing to the caller.  Okay, so you want to to schedule a breast augmentation and transfer a billion dollars into your account, is that right? Yes. Alright, I'll set that up now.*Do whatever you need to do, the customer will hear you typing and shut up for 30 seconds.* Okay, that's scheduled, now I'll just set up the transfer.*Click, click, silence, la la la.* Okay, that's just about done. Just a couple more things I have to do.And so on. It's not that hard to draw calls out once you've done it for a while.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2011 03:57
|
|
|
Maybe. I guess I just assume everyone is like me and wants to get off the line as fast as possible. I've learned a few tricks to get a breather. Once the "peak call season" crap dies down, it'll probably be more manageable.
|
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2011 03:59
|
|
|
Thats why you need to go from PL to the Claims side.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2011 05:15
|
|
|
Loving Life Partner posted:I'm kinda frustrated lately. Apparently my "aux" time is a problem (time off phones), but I answer about 60% more calls than the rest of my team. I take on average, 95-105, and the team average is about 65. This is just depressing to me - the whole point of targets should be to drive the behaviour you want from staff, but instead you end up with managers seeing nothing but the target and divorcing it from the purpose. What sort of percentage of your time are you actually spending in aux?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2011 07:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 23:56 |
|
|
Lord Windy posted:How often do you guys lose people in your centres? I started in a call center in June 2010. Within a couple of months, 5 people from my class had been fired or quit. 3 of us were transferred to another side of the company, 3 remained on the side we were originally were trained for (I was one of the transferred ones). Stuff was pretty stable at that point, we lost about 1 person per month on average. When I quit at the end of April, I was the second to last person remaining from my training class. The ones that quit early realized the call center stuff wasn't for them. After that, the people that quit either decided to focus on school or got fired for bad performance. I quit to move on to a much better job. So yeah, high turnover rates are normal at call centers.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2011 04:35
|
|
