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Harminoff posted:
How does that system work? I average about 4~6 calls per hour and at that commission I wouldn't earn anywhere near enough to meet the minimum wage. Do you get a minimum hourly rate and then get paid extra for every call after you reach the target, or is it a case of tough luck? One other question, are you feeling more strung out because of the need to meet some crazy number of calls per hour, or is it a motivator?
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Aug 24, 2011 07:58
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Well it is base pay of $7.25/hr If my commission = more then that then I get commission, otherwise I get base pay. We do troubleshooting and sales. Troubleshooting is $1.25/call and then if you sell say phone I get $8. In sales I get 50 cents a call, and the commission is way less as well. Maybe $3 for selling phone. I average between 14-20/hr with this system. Was making more until they reconfigured the payout and making sales worth less. We also do outbound, and the payout is not per call but just per sale. I rarely do outbound, but when I do it is usually for new connect's which is $30-40 a sale. Not to hard to get 4+ of those in an 8 hour day. And no I'm not stressed out that much. Yeah some checks I've gotten are pretty terrible, but I'm pretty good at saving money and like to have a few months worth in the bank in case of an emergency. I'd hate to be like 80% of the people there and working paycheck to paycheck. Makes sense why they are so stressed out all the time.
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Aug 24, 2011 09:41
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God, what is with people handing the phone to someone else without saying anything? I understand when little kids do it (but seriously, don't let your children answer the phone), and even when it's someone who doesn't speak English very well it's somewhat understandable, but I can't believe how often the following happens: "Good evening, my name is Tiggum calling from <Company>, could I please speak to John Smith?" "Yes." "... Sorry, is this John?" "Yes, this is John." "OK, we're just calling to do a quick survey on behalf-" "Hello?" "Uh, who is this?" "This is Jane. Who is this?" What the gently caress are you doing on the phone, Jane? Where did John go? What is happening here? Why do you people do this? Also, responding to "Can I speak to <name>?" with "Yes." That is not a helpful response! I was having a relatively good shift this evening until I had almost that exact call, followed by one where the respondent interrupted pretty much everything I said and made the whole thing take twice as long as normal.
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Aug 24, 2011 16:41
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Yeah, people can be absurdly dumb. Honestly, a vast majority of the customers I deal with are relatively o-k, even if most of them can be pretty dense. I get maybe one sack of poo poo a day, sometimes not even. Although when I do get them I tend to just let them vent while I drink my juice, then when they are done I just fix their little problem and send them on their way. Luckily at my job there is no Q/A department at all. The only person who can pull your calls is your own supervisor, or another one I guess if yours is not available, but even then they only do it if a customer calls to complain about rudeness or something. Sometimes they'll pull calls on a particular individual if they suspect he/she is goofing off, or if they're simply looking for something to use against you to get you fired which is extremely rare. Starting wage at my place is $17/hr and it's pretty laid back. The managers are pretty well meaning and there seems to be some variation of 'Food Day' at least once a week, which is kinda nice. It also has a full blown cafeteria complete with cooks which is reasonably priced AND is not taxed, plus you're allowed to have your meals right at your desk while you work, if you so choose. Our building has won awards in the past for being a "First Class Call Center" in our region, and it shows. Having said all that, I'm still openly looking for another job that doesn't require phone talk. I find myself having days where I dread going into work still because it all gets pretty mind numbing after a while. And we're often busy, so I have days where I'm pretty much talking for 8 hours straight and it's draining.
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Aug 24, 2011 19:09
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Christ, I wish I got paid per call, I rack up 130-140 some days.
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Aug 25, 2011 08:36
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Tiggum posted:... "MAY I speak with <name>?" will avoid this issue I need out of my job so bad.. We've been queued 100+ deep from the moment I walk into the door until the moment I leave for about 6 months straight now. 8 solid hours of talking on the phone to people who can't understand how the magical internet enters their home is enough to drive anyone nuts..
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Aug 25, 2011 17:47
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Fizzle posted:"MAY I speak with <name>?" will avoid this issue Oh lord, people like this. I cannot stand people who get call me out over minor grammar errors in speech. Also, old guys who call me "sweetie" a bunch of times and ask me to "say it pretty" when I give them policy information and give me unnecessary information about their dating lives. Gross. I'm sure I would be allowed to disconnect from someone who was being blatantly vulgar, but I really hate how much we let our customers get away with.
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Aug 25, 2011 18:03
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I try to be as polite as possible when I'm cold-called, because I know it's often a really crappy job (mainly thanks to this thread) but it's hard to keep that attitude going when it goes like the call I had earlier... Me - "Hello?" CC - "Hello sir, I'm from X company, we're offering competitive rates on cavity wall insulation, can I ask when you had yours put in?" Me - "I'm sorry but I'm not interested, thanks anyw-" CC- -CLICK- Me - "... Uh, bye then..." I just end up having to remind myself that he's probably had a long, lovely day dealing with no end of abuse... But then I wonder if I should have to justify his rudeness in that way. 
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Aug 25, 2011 23:55
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legsarerequired posted:Oh lord, people like this. I cannot stand people who get call me out over minor grammar errors in speech. Being allowed to hang up on abusive callers sounds great. I could be terminated on the spot for hanging up on anyone, no matter how obscene or abusive.
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Aug 26, 2011 04:04
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Fizzle posted:"MAY I speak with <name>?" will avoid this issue You'd think so, but no matter what you say some people seem to hear "Are you <name>?" Robzor McFabulous posted:Me - "Hello?" They hang up on you? Crazy. Usually it's the other way around. I particularly hate "Good evening, this is Tiggum calling from <Company>. Were just doing a quick survey on behalf of <Company>-" "I'm not interested." "OK, no problem. Just before you go, could I just verify that I'm speaking to John-" <CLICK> Gaaaaaahhhh! I just want to know if you are the person I am supposed to be calling so I can code the call correctly, as a refusal or a wrong number or whatever. You've already taken the time to answer the phone, it'll take five seconds to just listen to what I have to say!
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Aug 26, 2011 04:09
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Robzor McFabulous posted:I try to be as polite as possible when I'm cold-called, because I know it's often a really crappy job (mainly thanks to this thread) but it's hard to keep that attitude going when it goes like the call I had earlier... Sounds like someone's getting poo poo for either his right party connects, handling time or sales rate. Whichever it is, that's a lovely way of trying to fix it and unless he works for a really dodgy company he'll get poo poo from his manager for it if anyone listens to a call like that.
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Aug 26, 2011 13:50
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Fil5000 posted:Sounds like someone's getting poo poo for either his right party connects, handling time or sales rate. Whichever it is, that's a lovely way of trying to fix it and unless he works for a really dodgy company he'll get poo poo from his manager for it if anyone listens to a call like that. I can't remember where it was I heard this, but it was a telesales agent who would consistantly exceed their targets, and I mean total spike above everyone else exceed, and no-one could figure out how he did it. Until it was discovered he was the master of efficiency, in-so-much as he'd hang up the call and be on the next one if he got so much as a whiff that someone wasn't interested. Of course, when he was discovered, heads rolled, as this practice is verboten in any (reputable) telesales environment. Collections also do the rude hang-up thing. Assholes. Like the debt collector who'd repeatedly call my brothers (new) address asking for someone who used to live there.  Hi, can I speak to so-and-so please. So-and-so doesn't actually li - CLICK ...ve here...anymore
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Aug 26, 2011 20:14
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ZeroDays posted:I can't remember where it was I heard this, but it was a telesales agent who would consistantly exceed their targets, and I mean total spike above everyone else exceed, and no-one could figure out how he did it. Until it was discovered he was the master of efficiency, in-so-much as he'd hang up the call and be on the next one if he got so much as a whiff that someone wasn't interested. Of course, when he was discovered, heads rolled, as this practice is verboten in any (reputable) telesales environment. Don't worry, if he gets caught doing that he'll also get shafted. If he's repeatedly calling and just marking it as a wrong party connect, someone'll figure it out eventually. We've started tracking how many times we call certain customers (or how many times they call us) to try and get rid of wasted effort - chances are if you gave that customer sixteen chances to pay us back then the seventeenth one isn't going to work either.
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Aug 26, 2011 23:17
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The other day a co-worker was cold called at work by a telemarketer about cable service. Instead of hanging up he proceeded to argue with the telemarketer that he had better service than they were offering. After he hung up he told me how stupid the telemarketer was for trying to sell the service because the service he had was so much better. Other people agreed that he was right to argue, as though the telemarketer screwed up by offering something he would not need. He also bought a fake $2000 warranty from a cold call to his work phone a while back but was to get the money back.
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Aug 27, 2011 16:26
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Someone called me the other day asking me to take a survey on television view habits. I don't mind taking surveys, 5 or 10 minutes with multiple choice questions. No big deal. I asked the caller how long it took. They reply, "20 or 25 minutes"  "uh no thanks". What's the reply rate of a 25 minute survey? Is there really no better way to get this information? I can't imagine you'd get any better than 1 or 2% of your calls, and that's all selected towards old people and others with plenty of time on their hands.
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Aug 27, 2011 19:23
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Probably comissioned by a TV channel and is quite in-depth with a view to see who is watching what, when, why, for how long, how satisfied they feel with this and that, etc etc. Probably has an online and postal version for certain groups as well. But you'd be surprised how much of a hit rate you can get on a survey that long using the phone.
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Aug 27, 2011 22:47
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Internet Cliche posted:What's the reply rate of a 25 minute survey? Is there really no better way to get this information? I can't imagine you'd get any better than 1 or 2% of your calls, and that's all selected towards old people and others with plenty of time on their hands. In my experience, though you get fewer surveys per hour due to the length, it doesn't really make much difference to the proportion of people who agree to do it. I don't have the numbers to back that up though, it's just how it seems to me. People usually don't even ask how long it is unless you're calling businesses and you can generally tell from the way they ask whether they're going to do it or not, regardless of what length of time you tell them. Also, regardless of how long the survey goes, you always get a much better response rate from old people and women, which is why we have quotas. Women 70+ is almost always the category that fills up first, unless there's some weird case where you only need one or two surveys for a particular quota.
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Aug 28, 2011 08:15
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Internet Cliche posted:What's the reply rate of a 25 minute survey? It was worth staying on though, just to hear the guy from the survey company read all the typos on his script verbatim. "In your time at University of Strathlcyde..."
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Aug 28, 2011 12:18
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Semprini posted:It's much higher if you don't tell them in advance it's that long. I got phoned once not long after I graduated to do a survey about how much the Uni had supported me etc etc. Thought it would just be a quickie, but took nearly half an hour. Strathlcyde: to be killed by ventuing north of Berwick upon Tweed.
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Aug 28, 2011 13:37
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Semprini posted:It was worth staying on though, just to hear the guy from the survey company read all the typos on his script verbatim. "In your time at University of Strathlcyde..." Technically speaking, we're supposed to do that. I don't, but yeah, if I followed the rules to the letter I would say things like "Which particularly aspects..." because they demand that we read the scripts out exactly as written but don't actually bother to proofread them or anything crazy like that.
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Aug 28, 2011 14:06
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My supervisor today was treating us like total retards. All of us are experienced interviewers who understand the system, quotas, and can read the script. She is a perfect example of the pitfalls of having supervisors who are flexible to the point of never being there. She's in so infrequently she knows none of us, despite the fact my group today had all worked there for at least 6 months. More of a nuisance than a help.
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Aug 28, 2011 19:52
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Benzoyl Peroxide posted:My supervisor today was treating us like total retards. All of us are experienced interviewers who understand the system, quotas, and can read the script. She is a perfect example of the pitfalls of having supervisors who are flexible to the point of never being there. She's in so infrequently she knows none of us, despite the fact my group today had all worked there for at least 6 months. More of a nuisance than a help. So what did she, you know, DO?
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Aug 28, 2011 19:57
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I'm glad I don't have scripts to read. There's only one script where the system and everyone stresses VERBATIM, and it's the statement of no loss script for reinstates, which could be a very real legal situation one day, so I have it memorized and run through it easily, everything else you're free to put it your own way.
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Aug 28, 2011 19:58
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Fil5000 posted:So what did she, you know, DO? Constantly hovering over people's shoulders. Taking control of keyboards to check answers because she wasn't listening properly in the first place. She asked my group to her desk for 5 minutes before shift to tell us we had to push for 18-24 because we didn't have enough of them, "For goodness sake, push on every call!". It's a scripted age check so you have to ask it anyway so that was completely redundant, not to mention the fact it was our 5 minutes prior to the shift she wasted, and then nagged us to get logged in before 10:00. We had a quota on for 18 - 34 at one point and I did a survey with a 31 year old. At the end supe rushed over and grabbed the keyboard to go back to the beginning and check the age as she "couldn't tell from her voice how old the lady was" - I asked the resps age and she was in quota so I did a survey... so what on Earth. I understand this would look petty to a lot of people but she was basically being overbearing, untrusting, and babying us. And that just creates an annoying work place. Like I said we are all experienced. I get no hassle from any other supervisor because they recognise I work a lot, get a good amount of surveys, and my Quality Checks are consistently at the top of the pack. Like most competent people, I don't appreciate being micromanaged unnecessarily.
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Aug 28, 2011 20:32
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Loving Life Partner posted:I'm glad I don't have scripts to read. There's only one script where the system and everyone stresses VERBATIM, and it's the statement of no loss script for reinstates, which could be a very real legal situation one day, so I have it memorized and run through it easily, everything else you're free to put it your own way. Those calls get listened to literally everyday because people are shady, the other side appreciates it
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Aug 28, 2011 21:15
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Benzoyl Peroxide posted:Constantly hovering over people's shoulders. Taking control of keyboards to check answers because she wasn't listening properly in the first place. She asked my group to her desk for 5 minutes before shift to tell us we had to push for 18-24 because we didn't have enough of them, "For goodness sake, push on every call!". It's a scripted age check so you have to ask it anyway so that was completely redundant, not to mention the fact it was our 5 minutes prior to the shift she wasted, and then nagged us to get logged in before 10:00. We had a quota on for 18 - 34 at one point and I did a survey with a 31 year old. At the end supe rushed over and grabbed the keyboard to go back to the beginning and check the age as she "couldn't tell from her voice how old the lady was" - I asked the resps age and she was in quota so I did a survey... so what on Earth. Nah, doesn't sound petty, she does indeed sound like a micromanager. Did you say she's not around a lot? I know part time managers often seem to feel the need to be seen to be doing things when they're around. The ones that are in all the time (if they're any good) eventually learn that you spend a few months getting your team heading in the right direction and then just occasionally steer them a bit. Also, this sounds a bit like you've got supervisors in on particular days rather than this being your own line manager, is that right? That's always a pain in the arse.
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Aug 28, 2011 23:15
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Fil5000 posted:Strathlcyde: to be killed by ventuing north of Berwick upon Tweed.
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Aug 29, 2011 00:15
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Fil5000 posted:Nah, doesn't sound petty, she does indeed sound like a micromanager. Did you say she's not around a lot? I know part time managers often seem to feel the need to be seen to be doing things when they're around. The ones that are in all the time (if they're any good) eventually learn that you spend a few months getting your team heading in the right direction and then just occasionally steer them a bit. Yes it's kind of like that. This woman is barely ever there, she does probably one shift every 3 weeks or something of the sort. The feeling we all had is that she is most likely a retired primary school teacher with only one mode of supervision. We don't get line managers or anything like that. The call centre is only market research so it can bear to be more flexible, given the easy nature of the work. Most things are randomly assigned and then tweaked by humans, and everyone bar the few guys at the top are casual workers - even the supervisors. That is why you get a handful of supes like the lady I previously mentioned - rarely there so they don't get to familiarise themselves with the interviewers who work regularly... and thus look like tits. Every day I go in my supervisor will be a different one to the day before and I will be in a different seat in a different 'pod'.
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Aug 29, 2011 13:19
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We now have to ask 'Have I provided you with excellent customer service today?' at the end of every call. I'm one of the few people actually doing it, when I remember, but good lord do I ever hate it. It throws off my balance. Instead of just asking if there's anything else I can do for them and thanking them for calling like a sane, casual individual, I have to sound like a drone who's fishing for compliments. So help me, I can not say it without rolling my eyes.
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Aug 29, 2011 21:18
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Man, drama-rama in the call center today. Apparently someone on our team enlisted a coach (random teachers of new hires, not supervisory or managerial) to investigate whether myself, and another team mate were "bucking the system" as far as calls that we took, and whether we were juking our stats with creative button usages. To the point that the team mate got the coach to pull and review random calls from my history. Talk about unacceptable, number 1, who the gently caress are you, number 2, who the gently caress are they? Also, the coach decided to take it further and a couple of girls in front of me who were working on a team project were logged out of their machines (taken off the clock) for not being in the building, even though we told the coach they were working on something for the team. Our supervisor was furious about this, especially the stuff on my end. She called a team meeting to try and smooth everything over, but she was visibly pissed when she talked to me and the other person who was targeted in separate this morning. I don't really give a poo poo, since I know what I do and bring to this company, but man, talk about backdoor cloak and dagger bullshit.
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Aug 29, 2011 23:12
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Wow you guys should hear the people that I'm talking to in the NY area. Worlds least understanding people.
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Aug 30, 2011 00:12
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Harminoff posted:Wow you guys should hear the people that I'm talking to in the NY area. Worlds least understanding people. I actually find Rhode Island, of all places, to be the worst. It never fails that people from RI are the pushy, bratty ones who talk down to me.
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Aug 30, 2011 02:38
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Effexxor posted:I actually find Rhode Island, of all places, to be the worst. It never fails that people from RI are the pushy, bratty ones who talk down to me. Hah, it's not really that though, it's that I work in cable troubleshooting and it amazes me how many people I talked to today that had no idea why their service is not working, and demanding an exact time of when it would be fixed. I had one person say they bought a generator and have their fridge, cablebox, and tv connected to it. All that is important to them. I had another lady say "I see trucks going to Jamaica all day long, where the colored people are, now explain that to me?" You just got hit with a hurricane, shouldn't you be out trying to help your fellow neighbors instead of worrying about your cable tv being out. They all wanted me to call them the minute it is fixed so they can watch their precious tv again. I also had one guy from Arizona who was visiting his son in New York and mad that the us open didn't start at 9 in New York when that is the time it starts in Arizona. He told me that we delay it so that people will go watch it live. I had to explain to him for 10+ minutes how time zones work. Baffled his mind.
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Aug 30, 2011 04:32
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Harminoff posted:I had one person say they bought a generator and have their fridge, cablebox, and tv connected to it. All that is important to them. We call these people 'Generator Geniuses' in my center as the grid in this state sucks and windstorms will knock power out. Cable signal transmission doesn't use electricity, it uses magical fairy dust, apparently. Speaking of the hurricane, what's the craziest poo poo you've heard concerning service outages? We once had an outage caused by a train hitting a stalled-out semi-truck on a railroad crossing, ramming the semi into our fiber node.
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Aug 30, 2011 15:33
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What's everyone's favorite snacks? I've been bringing fruit, carrots and those low-calorie grain bars to work, but I'm hoping to find something that I could eat more quickly (or more quietly) during calls. Regarding rude states--If I were not familiar with American stereotypes, I would have guessed that Boston and Pennsylvania (no specific city here, just the whole state) would be the states with the worst reputation as far as rudeness goes. Maybe something is skewing my impression (I've definitely started to dread any Massachusetts area code), but I've endured so many angry, rude, nasty, condescending conversations with those callers. But somehow, it's really rare that a caller from two of the infamous states that I hear about--New York and New Jersey--will yell at me or be really rude. The pacific northwest and the south tend to have a lot of polite callers, though. Harminoff posted:I had to explain to him for 10+ minutes how time zones work. Baffled his mind. Wonderful. Just like the time I had to explain to someone that April comes after February.
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Aug 30, 2011 19:16
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legsarerequired posted:Wonderful. Just like the time I had to explain to someone that April comes after February. Call centres really do expose you to the sheer depths of ignorance that exist in people out there. I encountered one person who professed an inability to read, so quite why he needed an internet connection is beyond me. When I worked retail, I would frequently have to explain what a minus sign meant. That never went well, and usually ended up with the customer at the service desk, going through their receipt with a calculator.
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Aug 30, 2011 21:20
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legsarerequired posted:What's everyone's favorite snacks? I've been bringing fruit, carrots and those low-calorie grain bars to work, but I'm hoping to find something that I could eat more quickly (or more quietly) during calls. I dread Alabama and Mississippi callers so much to the point where I cringe when I see a 251 or 662 area code on my cue. They are just so loving ignorant and unwilling to listen to anything I say, because I am just some LIEberal, tree hugging yankee.
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Aug 30, 2011 22:32
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modeski posted:Call centres really do expose you to the sheer depths of ignorance that exist in people out there. I encountered one person who professed an inability to read, so quite why he needed an internet connection is beyond me. Oh christ, the sheer number of people in the world that don't understand basic maths is terrifying. So many collections calls I've dealt with have revolved around finding a date that me and the customer both agree on the account balance and then going through every loving transaction until we get to the present day, making sure the customer understands that if they had a hundred pounds and they spent forty, they now only have sixty, so their eighty pound direct debit to Moron Monthly couldn't possibly have gone through. And I've said it in this thread before, but the stupidest thing I came across regularly was people that didn't understand that the end of one month and the start of the next are literally one day different to each other. I know you were expecting your direct debit on the 31st, it came out on the 1st. That is LATER. No, it's not earlier if it's the first of the following sodding MONTH. Argh.
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Aug 30, 2011 22:38
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Fil5000 posted:Oh christ, the sheer number of people in the world that don't understand basic maths is terrifying. So many collections calls I've dealt with have revolved around finding a date that me and the customer both agree on the account balance and then going through every loving transaction until we get to the present day, making sure the customer understands that if they had a hundred pounds and they spent forty, they now only have sixty, so their eighty pound direct debit to Moron Monthly couldn't possibly have gone through. Or "That check was supposed to come through last week, and it didn't and that is why I am overdrawn" Yeah, except since the check didn't come through those funds should still be there.
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Aug 30, 2011 23:57
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Speaking of bad customers. US Marines have to be the most polite people I've ever had the pleasure of working with. They always address you as sir, never complain about anything and thank you for everything. It's like their mothers and drill sergeant are watching and I love it. Shame I can rarely help them though
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Aug 31, 2011 01:14
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