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There is, at least with an Avaya system. My management gets a report of calls with excessive periods of dead air already, but I don't know the details of the system.
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Sep 20, 2011 17:55
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Ah, we're on an aspect system, and if it IS available somewhere, I don't know where. The tech people like to restrict us to set reports so we can't just go poking around and building our own. Irritating.
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Sep 20, 2011 18:38
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Fil5000 posted:Oh yeah, wasn't arguing that it wasn't lovely. I wish there was a way to track how much mute had been used on each call, to be honest, because then you could track the douchenozzles without pissing off people that use it properly. This would screw me over. If the customer is giving me a narrative of something, I will mute myself to kind of repeat what they are saying it as I write it down, I'm an outloud thinker (with whispers) but it can be viewed as mocking or offensive if I do it out loud.
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Sep 20, 2011 20:55
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If they remove the ability to mute, can you just unplug your headset?
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Sep 20, 2011 21:55
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Semprini posted:If they remove the ability to mute, can you just unplug your headset? I then wouldn't be able to hear the customer. And if you unplug at the wrong spot, it disconnects the call.
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Sep 20, 2011 22:44
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BlackIronHeart posted:My call center decided today that they're going to take away our ability to mute our phones, advising us to instead put the customer on hold (and use proper hold procedures such as asking for their permission) if we need to mute the phone for any reason. I'm sure this'll improve our customer experience. Hah my company is the opposite in that we can mute customers, but are not allowed to put them on hold at all. We actually get scored way down in qa if we have a customer on "hold" for more then 30 seconds. The issue with this is that we have to enter the order on a website, key it in in the actual system, verify the order on another website, and confirm everything on a fourth. The website and the system takes the same info "name, address, phone #, email address" so we have to enter that all twice. The website then spits out a confirmation #, and the system spits out an account #, which we enter into the third site. I also have to write the job notes in three different places, and sometimes the job is split into to (one for cable/internet and one for phone) so then I have to write comments in six total places. All without putting the customer on hold for more then 30 seconds. So my mouth has to be a full minute in front of what I am actually doing, but then my aftercall has to be after 30 seconds as well. Oh and every time we get a call the order entry site and the disposition site pop up, but for some reason they don't know how to do this correctly with Avaya, so in reality 8x of each pop up. How do they solve this you ask? By trying to make a script to close out of the extra seven windows. I don't even understand how you could make the 8 pop up to begin with, but then trying to solve it like this just blows my mind. We lost our major client recently, and this new system is for a new project where people are suppose to be able to order what they want online, and then we key it in. The site lists the promo prices for everything, and is pretty thorough in regards to all the charges. Yet somehow 80% of my calls are people calling in and asking "how much is this" You took the time to go to the site and write down the number, but you couldn't look down two inches to see the price for the product that you are asking me about? I always thought I would want to work for a qvc type call center, as entering orders like that would be a pretty good call center job. I don't work for a qvc type call center, but I honestly can't imagine it being much better. People really make me sad sometimes. Harminoff fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Sep 20, 2011 |
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Sep 20, 2011 23:30
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Man, had the most hilarious instance of "I'll take my business elsewhere" threat today. This woman started an auto policy in April with a down payment. Cool beans. First autodraft in May bounces. No worries, make a replacement payment please. She does, in July, we reinstate her policy. The reinstatement payment bounces. She reinstates again with a payment in August. That bounces. At this point, she's had a semblance of "continuous coverage", but we haven't gotten any money from this broad since loving APRIL. Finally the system is like "look, I really need at LEAST $679 by 09/23 or this policy is seriously done" And she called in today and was BAFFLED that we couldn't float her another week on making the payment. Threatened to take her business elsewhere. LADY AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED WE HAVEN'T DONE ANY BUSINESS SINCE MAY HOLY poo poo. "Contracts", "equity", these words are lost on people
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Sep 21, 2011 02:02
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JackRabbitStorm posted:They want to remove this at our place, but we are pushing to keep it for the sole purpose of being able to cover coughs, sneezes, sips of waters, and throat clearing. If you can hit mute for ~5 seconds and sneeze or cough, that means you didn't just cough or sneeze in the customers ear. I've had to cut back a lot because apparently I am not allowed to log out for 3 minutes to go take a leak, so really the only way to achieve what they want is not to drink water.
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Sep 21, 2011 02:46
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I do drink a lot more water, probably because of all the talking and whatnot. I got the standard giant fuckall call center waterbottle and probably fill it twice a day, so, yeah, probably drinking a gallon of water at least at work.
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Sep 21, 2011 02:48
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Dear customers, No we're not going to be able to help you when you're driving or at work. Also I advise if your kid is screaming bloody murder you go calm them down because it hurts my ears and the volume button on my phone is broken. You might be easily able to tune it out, but I can't and it's really distracting. Oh, and "IT Professionals" who can't configure a modem router or do basic troubleshooting are the bane of my existence. If you call yourself an "IT guy" for a business but cannot read an instruction manual or have enough knowledge in the area to figure it out on your own, kindly 
froglet fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Sep 21, 2011 |
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Sep 21, 2011 04:12
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I hate when people call in who make far more than me, but can't afford a $50 payment. I especially hate when someone calls in making the exact same amount as me, and yet wail the entire time about how they make so little and are so badly off. I'm sorry, but I can do it while supporting another person and still having money to put towards savings. You signed your promissary note. You were told exactly what the terms of your loans were. You were even told approximately how much they would be a month. You got yourself into all of this debt, you have a ton of options as long as you work with us and there is no reason that you shouldn't be able to budget out a payment towards your debt. Even more hilarious is when people say that they will take their business else where. Good luck, we own your loan and if you get a loan from your bank to pay it off, you lose all of your perks. I had a guy who makes 72k a year bitch that he would take his business elsewhere because principals cant get teacher loan forgiveness, and told me that he would be taking his business elsewhere. Good luck trying to get forgiveness anywhere else, and frankly, we'd love to take the payoff if you get a bank dumb enough to give you a loan. I like my job. I like helping people, which is most of what I do each day. I like that my supervisors always back ME up on the calls, I like the environment and I want to do a good job. But god drat, it is hard to not get furious at people.
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Sep 21, 2011 05:27
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Personally I really like the people who call in because they can't afford to pay their bill on time this month, and then also ask if they can get upgrades/more stuff, to be billed to them later.
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Sep 21, 2011 07:01
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Loving Life Partner posted:probably drinking a gallon of water at least at work. God, that is a lot of water. I use a 750ml (about 25 fl oz) bottle and on a hot day maybe get through it twice over a 7 hour shift, plus a couple of cups of tea or coffee.
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Sep 21, 2011 09:26
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I've just completed a customer satisfaction survey for my phone company and gave really good scores to the helpful agent. Thanks to this thread, whenever I get good service from a call agent, I feel morally obliged to sincerely thank them and say something nice.
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Sep 21, 2011 18:10
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Harminoff posted:I always thought I would want to work for a qvc type call center, as entering orders like that would be a pretty good call center job. I don't work for a qvc type call center, but I honestly can't imagine it being much better. People really make me sad sometimes. I was inbound customer service for ShopNBC, but people would call the CS number to make orders; as well, when certain "shows" (featured sales programs) were on, or when the order call centers were swamped, we'd get overflow calls. The easy part would be people who know they want X, have their member number (for us) and payment/shipping info handy, and know what the item they want is called and/or the actual item number. Everyone else, however... "I want to order <thing that was closed out weeks ago on a similar show>! I KNOW YOU HAVE IT I JUST SAW IT!" "Uh, I want <thing that was just shown for 20 minutes of discussion and demonstration>, but I want to know <things that were just detailed for 20 minutes>." "What <item of clothing or jewelry> is <person on show> wearing? Can I buy that?" "Hi! I'm <stoned/drunk/brain-damaged>, I wanna talk!" "Hi! I'm <stoned/drunk/brain-damaged/stupid>, I wanna prank-call!" "<Caller is English "Yeah, I want to order the product currently on the program, item # XXXXXX, and have all my payment and shipping details handy... let's haggle!" "Yeah, I want to order the product currently on the program, item # XXXXXX, and have all my payment and shipping details handy... but first I want to check all my accounts, payments and retuns. And still guarantee that I can get that limited-quantity item afterwards." And many many more... Most calls would be pretty simple, but you were pretty much guaranteed at least one hosed-up mess per show - and remember, this was overflow. I kinda don't want to think fo what the sales-only centers were like - from all the CS-stuff we had to try to fix, I'm suspecting it's a "salessalessales" churn. "Can't remember your customer ID or your own phone number that we can look you up by? No problem, I'll open a new account, let's get this sold!" "You're not sure about details? Let's get it sold to you, and you can return it later!" "You just stole your grandmother's member & credit cards and want to order eight LCD TVs to be delivered to a vacant home? Sold!" "Sorry, nicht sprechen sie Espanol - CRED-EET CARD NUM-BER?" Meanwile, in CS... "No sir, as you were (supposed to be) informed when you ordered the exercise machine, the delivery company will only move it up or down one flight of stairs; if you wanted on the third floor, you'd have to move it yourself or pay the delivery crew a fee." "No sir, we did not guarentee white-glove delivery of your television, nor installation/cabling/integration with your existing home electonics." "I'm sorry, ma'am, you didn't call for an RMA and shipping arrangements, so we have no idea where the computer you were returning has gone - no, we didn't tell you to put it back in the box and leave it on the curb for pick-up." "Yes ma'am, your custom-ordered mattress set will not be delivered on time (today), as you moved and changed your phone number the day after your ordered it, and never let us know." Hmmm. Actually, sales does sound better than inbound CS at that... Ygolonac fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Sep 21, 2011 |
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Sep 21, 2011 18:51
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Loving Life Partner posted:I do drink a lot more water, probably because of all the talking and whatnot. I started drinking way more water, too, but I quit drinking caffeine and soda, since I can't take bathroom breaks at work. I keep some Capri Suns at my desk in case I need some sugar or if I want to drink something sweet. And for snacks, I'm starting to eat salad or trail mix-type of stuff--nuts, yogurt chips, sunflower seeds. I'm actually starting to lose weight, so this makes me pretty happy.
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Sep 21, 2011 22:02
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legsarerequired posted:I started drinking way more water, too, but I quit drinking caffeine and soda, since I can't take bathroom breaks at work. I keep some Capri Suns at my desk in case I need some sugar or if I want to drink something sweet. And for snacks, I'm starting to eat salad or trail mix-type of stuff--nuts, yogurt chips, sunflower seeds. I'm actually starting to lose weight, so this makes me pretty happy. Yeah, they talked about "the call center 10" that everyone puts on from sitting all day and snacking, but it's not hard to control yourself.
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Sep 21, 2011 22:13
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Loving Life Partner posted:Yeah, they talked about "the call center 10" that everyone puts on from sitting all day and snacking, but it's not hard to control yourself. I actually gained weight when I first started, but I think it was more because I was depressed and let myself eat a ton of crap than anything else. The main thing I observe is people snacking because they're bored or because someone handed them free food, or people over-indulging on fast food, junk food, sodas. I started losing weight when I started bringing my own lunch and snacks from home, and I also started chewing gum instead of snacking whenever possible. My co-workers tell me I'm kind of ridiculous for keeping a ton of gum, healthy snacks and juice in my desk, but I don't really care as long as I'm losing weight. :\ Sometimes I think about how incredibly depressing this job is, and I wonder if I'm going to be much better at handling stress at future jobs than I would have been without this experience.
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Sep 22, 2011 03:51
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I don't think it's depressing, at least at my call center anyway, we're on the third floor with a great view of the Pikes Peak though. I mean, yeah, calls can get monotonous, but 1 in 10 or 15 give you a chance to flex your brain, come up with creative solutions, and genuinely help people out of lovely situations. Also, I'm surrounded with awesome co-workers, and one who has become a really good friend out of the job, so that's always nice.
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Sep 22, 2011 04:23
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Loving Life Partner posted:I don't think it's depressing, at least at my call center anyway, we're on the third floor with a great view of the Pikes Peak though. Don't you feel at all drained by the umpteenth dolt barking at you "you can't raise my rates!! I'm in a contract! (whose contents I have never read)"
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Sep 23, 2011 04:13
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I hate bad last-calls. I hate them. No, sir, the interest is legit, it's not my fault you were late. Let me explain it to you for the millionth time how your interest happens so I can loving go home. But that wasn't the worst call. I think the worst was the lady who called in, who started off really sad and slow cause she'd just had a stroke and she couldn't speak very well, who was getting charged constantly by an MLM she told to stop. Of course they didn't, they're an MLM.  I guess part of me is glad that upset me more than the guy who called in last. Still think I'm doing pretty good considering the poo poo I still have to perfect. I just keep thinking of the money I'm getting compared to my old job and that helps.
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Sep 23, 2011 05:00
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You know, people who are ignorantly defiant are the easiest to swat down. You just tell them exactly what they agreed to, when, where it's at in their paperwork, the terms and conditions they signed onto, etc. I like a "last call" that's rough, but only if it ends at exactly 5:30PM, otherwise it's annoying. If its someone just yelling at me, I'll usually just let them vent until 5:29, then escalate them up the chain for having a thick skull. The last call I took on Tuesday was a monster of a mess. Agency errors, company errors, a claim escalation on a policy that canceled erroneously for nonpayment and then the claim happened AFTER the expiration of the canceled policy. So assist called their assist and a claims assist and we decided to marry his old policy to the new one he started with a rewrite and honor coverage on the claim and apologize profusely. Good times.
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Sep 23, 2011 06:41
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JackRabbitStorm posted:They want to remove this at our place, but we are pushing to keep it for the sole purpose of being able to cover coughs, sneezes, sips of waters, and throat clearing. If you can hit mute for ~5 seconds and sneeze or cough, that means you didn't just cough or sneeze in the customers ear. I'll drink thru a 8-9 hr day a gatorade at least maybe fill it with water at second break and finish half I drink the middle bottle sized ones
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Sep 23, 2011 21:30
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So I just read this thread beginning to end... And drat do I have it good with my call-center job. It's for one of those nationally advertised law-firms. And they gave us a happy hour on friday, with beer and wine on the company dime, they give us some awesome benefits, it's $13/hr, and our clients are people who most of the time are really really happy to just have someone willing to listen and help them. And free coffee. I never drank coffee until I started this job, and now I plow through 7-8 cups a day. We have no quotas to meet, just "incentives" for going above and beyond quotas, and there's tons of tasks involving all the paperwork that a law firm needs so if it's a slow day and we're not getting many calls because our ads aren't running that day that we can do to keep busy. Like it's a genuinely not soul-sucking place to work. I mostly do outbound calling though (we have a service set up with a bunch of different websites, you plug in your info, we call you back) and my god some people are interesting. I will say I absolutely hate you if your voicemail message is "Hello? Hello? I can't hear you! That's cause I'm not here to take you call...please leave a message after the beep." While it gets boring and repetitive after a while, when all you're doing is hitting "dial" and "leave voice mail" on the auto dialer, the fact that I've only had two clients yell at me since I've been there, and all the other perks makes e really respect all of you that have really lovely call center jobs. \/\/we do have a dress code. It's pretty strict "business casual" during the week, but we do have "casual fridays." the only downsde is we do have a serious absenteeism policy-all of our time off must be paid time off-and if you use all your PTO for vacation and your kids get sick? you're hosed. Dr Jankenstein fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Sep 25, 2011 |
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Sep 24, 2011 19:53
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AA is for Quitters posted:good work environment There is a tech support call center in my city that's supposed to have a really good workplace environment. They have happy hours, free lunches for employees, a few treadmills the whole office can use, and there's virtually no dress code. I feel tempted on some days, but the pay there is barely half of what I'm getting right now, and multiple reviews on various websites say that the organization is really incredibly poorly run (i.e., some managers on the call center floor are married to HR staff). My job really isn't that bad--I've gotten a chance to work with people in other departments on some projects and the pay seems to be much better than other call centers and entry-level work. I just miss flex time.
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Sep 24, 2011 23:54
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AA is for Quitters posted:I will say I absolutely hate you if your voicemail message is "Hello? Hello? I can't hear you! That's cause I'm not here to take you call...please leave a message after the beep." Also the people who, for some reason, seem to have recorded their message in a crowded train station or something, so all you hear is loud background noises followed by a beep. Or when the message is so badly recorded that you can't understand what they're saying so you don't realise it's a machine until the beep. In fact, gently caress answering machines. I just hate them all.
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Sep 25, 2011 03:18
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AA is for Quitters posted:So I just read this thread beginning to end... I'm glad to see you being treated quite well and enjoying your job, after sticking with you through the GWS industry thread. You get any evening or weekend cooking gigs yet? I ocassionally miss the kitchen but definitely not enough to pull me back.
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Sep 25, 2011 19:56
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Tiggum posted:Also the people who, for some reason, seem to have recorded their message in a crowded train station or something, so all you hear is loud background noises followed by a beep. Or when the message is so badly recorded that you can't understand what they're saying so you don't realise it's a machine until the beep. The best message I've heard was "Hi this is Tom, I'm not home right now. If you know English press one and leave me a message, otherwise hang up the phone, learn some loving English, and call me back." I so badly wanted to leave a message in a heavy English accent to piss him off, but I'm not good at accents at all. I hate people that don't understand America though, and think that if you don't know English then you need to get the gently caress out of ma country. Plus, if the person calling him doesn't know English, how the gently caress would they understand the message?
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Sep 27, 2011 00:05
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Harminoff posted:I so badly wanted to leave a message in a heavy English accent to piss him off, but I'm not good at accents at all. I hate people that don't understand America though, and think that if you don't know English then you need to get the gently caress out of ma country. I doubt the message was intended to avoid messages from Americans, he most likely meant English as in "British or American English". Fair point though, if they DON'T speak either then they wouldn't understand the message in the first place... Oh well. 
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Sep 27, 2011 10:34
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Harminoff posted:The best message I've heard was "Hi this is Tom, I'm not home right now. If you know English press one and leave me a message, otherwise hang up the phone, learn some loving English, and call me back." I find it wonderfully ironic that anyone who would have this sort of message wouldn't know the English language well enough to pass a basic high-school test on it.
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Sep 27, 2011 23:18
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I really love volunteering for newsletters and company projects. All of my friends with regular jobs cannot stand meetings at all, but I get really excited when I think about getting an hour or two off of the phones. In fact, a couple of Fridays ago, I managed to fill an entire afternoon with meetings.
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Sep 27, 2011 23:46
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I love meetings too, but sadly, we are told when we are meeting, with whom and for what. We can't set meetings for ourselves. 
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Sep 27, 2011 23:56
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Benzoyl Peroxide posted:I'm glad to see you being treated quite well and enjoying your job, after sticking with you through the GWS industry thread. You get any evening or weekend cooking gigs yet? I ocassionally miss the kitchen but definitely not enough to pull me back. Not yet, but im still technically in "training" and not on my normal schedule yet. The only thing that sucks is my normal schedule is 12-9 wed-sun. Makes it hard to find a kitchen gig. I've been settling for cooking elaborate meals for family and friends.We're taking live calls, we're working with real customers, but we're still in training because they havent got us set up for outbound yet (which is like, 90% of what my group got hired to do: outbound calling)
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Sep 28, 2011 05:06
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I work in an insurance claims call center for (mostly) commercial policies. My building takes new loss reports for workers comp, commercial auto, commercial property, and general liability claims (but mostly work comp). We also handle inquiry calls on existing claims, as well as default calls--which usually need to be transferred to policy services anyway, because at least half the default calls are Spanish-speakers who need to pay their bill (and we don't have a loving Spanish options menu  ). I wish policy services handled default calls instead, it would make more sense since they're more often where the defaults end up. But I think they get paid more than us, because they have to be quasi-licensed to bind coverage, so we get stuck with the retards who can't press 1 or 2  I've been there over three years now. It's the best job I've ever had, if only because my experience working in retail was a jungillion times worse. But I still hate this place with the fire of a thousand suns. Mostly because ever since we got a new CEO, they're selling off portions of the company and slowly outsourcing poo poo all over the place. I feel like I'm party to a slow but inevitable brownslide into the hellshitter. They're holding our jobs over our heads like carrots on tree branches at every available opportunity. We had a meeting today (we almost never have meetings, so they're always about some stupid upcoming bullshit changes) where we were told that the higher-ups, who have never outsourced anything customer-facing in the past, are now thinking about considering it for us: -- Department manager: Hay guys! The higher-ups are going to start considering whether they should consider outsourcing our department to India 8 months from now! Us:  Department manager: Just thought you'd like to know! Alright, no questions then? Now back on the floor! Us:  -- Yeah loving right! I mean, we're already old hat at being outsourced, because a bunch of our fax work was outsourced to EXL in '09 and we managed staffing numbers exclusively through attrition, with no lay-offs. But this is different, this is customer-facing. Sending this work to EXL would be loving suicide in this field. Not to mention, our department takes default calls every day from the largest political lobby in America, and they don't take kindly to listening to foreign accents. The San Antonio branch of our department takes their claims and services their policies--old cantankerous incompetent assholes basically make up our entire personal lines bloc. Can you imagine your loving half-deaf grandparents trying to add a car to their auto policy with an Indian rep they can't understand? Me neither. I suspect that the higher-ups will, logically, decide not to outsource my department at all, making all of this a mere power play to force the underlings to fear for our jobs again. I anticipate this given that our last 2 "crises" easily resolved with no layoffs, and during the most recent one we've actually had to hire (because morale dropped so low that attrition was higher than anticipated). I've definitely noticed that they seem to enjoy dropping big-rear end bombs on the rat maze, then everything turns out fine a year later. So why the gently caress should we worry? There's only so much drat I can give before I run out, and I'm all loving out. So color me apathetic, you over-bonused wastrels. -- Bullshittery aside, at least it pays pretty well (not well enough to put anything in savings or ditch the roommates until my car is paid off, but enough not to be living with the folks). And since I work a midday to evening shift instead of early morning, I usually get to spend the second half of it entering claims from faxes, which saves me from being on the phone every single second. It could definitely be worse... at least I don't have to sell poo poo. However, I wouldn't recommend call center work to anybody. Not even mine, which as far as call centers go is fairly cushy. The managers suck, the coworkers suck (unless you're an old married woman with kids), the QA department sucks and is out to get you, the callers especially suck, and the work sucks. Anytime I meet someone else who's remotely cool, they're gone within 6 months. I'm going prematurely gray, I've gained like 60 pounds, I had to start smoking cigarettes again after successfully quitting once before, and have had to smoke progressively more as time goes by. I'm alternately suicidal and homicidal. During an average commute to work, I will fantasize at least 4 times about getting T-boned by a semi truck so I won't have to go into work today. I'd say  helps, but my former supplier is now my ex so  fake edit: it's really loving hard to quit smoking with a job like this, but I'm still trying. I'm almost up to day 3 nic-free, totally cold turkey. Which is how I quit the first time I quit, before I had this job. It's theoretically possible. I just have to make it through Saturday morning and the physical withdrawals will be gone. The biggest issue is resisting a goddamn relapse when I have to talk to more loving morons next week 
martyrdumb fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Sep 30, 2011 |
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Sep 30, 2011 08:12
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martyrdumb posted:However, I wouldn't recommend call center work to anybody. Not even mine, which as far as call centers go is fairly cushy. It really depends on which call centre. Most of them seem like poo poo, but I would (and have) recommend the one I work at. You get offered shifts and work only the ones you want. Except when there are really strict deadlines the supervisors are all fairly relaxed and don't go on at you about continually dialing or talking between calls. You get free lunch if you work weekends. If you show up regularly and actually do the job you never have to worry about not getting shifts. And sure, some of the people you talk to are dicks, but you don't have to take abuse, and people are going to be dicks no matter where you work.
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Sep 30, 2011 14:52
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I found out today that my call center lets this one employee work four 9-hour shifts and one 4-hour shift every week. I also feel pretty sure that I could work from home if I talked to my manager about it. I'm really considering doing that, since the work-at-home regulations at my company are really lax--you just need a cable connection and a place to put your company-issued laptop. I don't think it's the job that I have a problem with as much as the environment, and driving an hour to and from work every day. I might have to work really bad hours because of the change, but it might be nice to to do this stuff from home. I have definitely become so much more polite to folks at call centers since getting this job. I also make a point of having all of my information (policy numbers, account numbers, etc) in front of me when I have to call in somewhere for help. It just annoys me so much when I have to deal with the 20th person who doesn't have their stuff in front of them.
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Oct 1, 2011 00:02
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Finally found this thread again and read all of it in one sitting. drat, I knew angerbeet and I lived in the same city, but now it turns out we both worked in the same call centre?! Maybe we know each other and don't know it.  I just quit, in fact, after nearly four years, and am very happy. (telecommuting now) Prepare for a lot of cathartic bitching! I hated myself for working there but just couldn't seem to find anything else (gently caress this town). I'm amazed at the wages and hours some of you are managing, good for you! At our centre, you would be ranked based mainly on your QA scores but also on other metrics like handle time, wrap time, and compliance (adherence to the schedule you are given, i.e. whether you are taking breaks and doing other things on time). I was kind of hacked off with the place right from the day I started, as our training class was 4 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. for...poo poo, I forget now? Four or five weeks, though it felt longer. Of course, they didn't tell you that until *after* you were hired, and then you'd find yourself locked into a lovely schedule for the foreseeable future. (They changed that after a while because they were just losing too many people who couldn't get there outside of bus hours) The centre itself was awkwardly situated (basically on the edge of town) and of course there was no bus service after 10 or 11 p.m., so it was rather tense finding a way home some nights. Protip: people over the ages of 30 or 35, particularly women, are usually more approachable if you ever need a ride. I'd always offer to pay gas and if I was lucky I'd find someone I could make arrangements with for as long as I was on that shift. The ranking/shift bid system meant that you would be getting to choose your shift based on a list; the #1-ranked person would pick theirs first, then the #2 person would choose from the remaining shifts, and so on. I know they needed some way to figure out who got what but it was always a really stressful time and the bitchery level would become pretty unbearable for a week or two. I don't know what it's like elsewhere but our place was an absolute hive of backstabbing and drama. I have to say that the majority of the actual management (supervisors and higher) were absolutely great people and sterling at their jobs, but the admin people, specifically HR, were usually a pack of fucksticks. They were really inconsistent with people who needed medical accommodations. For instance: Employee A: has a deal where she can take off as many days as she wants due to  migraines and is, in fact, away for many, many days at a time. During these sick days she is occasionally spotted at the mall, strolling around town on a sunny day, and generally not appearing to be lying down in a dark room or whatever people with migraines do. My apologies to genuine migraine sufferers, btw; I'm not trying to sound like an unsympathetic dick. I know it's a terrible affliction and you have my utmost sympathies. However, the m-card was pulled a LOT in that place, to the point where certain people could just get up and walk out in the middle of a busy shift or if they wanted to go home early on a Friday night by using that. (They would even say that was what they were doing -- "Meh, I don't feel like doing this. See ya later!") The rest of us were limited to 10 sick days per calendar year, and if you went home an hour early because you weren't feeling well, that counted as one day, so you didn't have a lot of leeway. Some people burned through all of their days by Valentine's Day (giving themselves unpaid weekends off or whatever) which always struck me as a bit reckless. Employee B: is in a car accident, so must take some days off to deal with physio, doctor's appointments, and so forth. Gets summarily fired for taking too many days even though she has a doctor's note. Last I heard she was going to get lawyered up and file a suit. There also seemed to be loads of people who got shift accommodations because they just couldn't work weekends or past a certain time of day, meaning everyone else had to work evenings and weekends. I know, I know, it's the nature of the job etc., but it totally destroys your incentive to do well when you know that even if you're a star performer, those people are going to get the times and days off that you want and you'll be stuck with something lovely. My department's last bid (shortly before I quit) had 45 or so shifts for 60+ agents (some shifts were duplicated). Of all those shifts, *one* offered Sat-Sun off, one Fri-Sat, and one Sun-Mon. It seemed that the people who had those sweet accommodations generally weren't the best employees anyway; why bother putting any effort in when you get the same comfy shift and don't have to scrap it out like the rest of us? Our place was weird because it has been there for ten years, which is quite old for a call centre, apparently, and we had lots of employees who had been there from the beginning. We'd get performance-based raises every year and it capped at $16.50 or so. 99% of the employees absolutely hated the place, although because of the competitive nature of the job, our QA standards were very high and most people still tried to do the best they could. Man, you guys are REALLY understanding about the offshore/bad English thing! There were certain other departments at T-Mobile which were primarily staffed overseas and yes, they really were that incompetent, they were rude, they loved to hang up on customers and even other reps (i.e. us), so it wasn't (just) us being racist. Totally agree on how polite military customers are as well as those from the southern US. However, when customers tried to get heavy with us and say they needed service restored or something working because they were losing a lot of business...and they had a military discount on their account...god, I wish now I'd asked them what kind of "business" they needed their cellphones for, if they were active serving military personnel. gently caress kids. Well, not literally, but I always hated it when I'd get the beep in my ear and immediately hear a screeching baby or toddler. Also, gently caress those people who are driving or otherwise in a noisy area and decide that now is the perfect time to call their cellphone company for a complicated transaction, because it was always our fault, of course, if they were distracted or couldn't hear us. Which brings me to my next "gently caress you": Avaya phones. (Sorry Avaya/resource planning dude; it's not your fault!) The more a customer was transferred the more the call quality dropped. Since our buddies overseas liked to pingpong people around to avoid talking to them, we would sometimes feel like we were talking to someone at the bottom of a mine shaft. Psychologically, I somehow managed to deal (most of the time) with the poo poo customers loved to dish out; I was very good at call control, and at turning an indignant customer around so that we were best buddies at the end of the call. On my first day in a new department, though, I wound up being chewed out by an extremely bitchy woman over something I had nothing to do with. I ended the call, started typing up my notes, and immediately burst into tears. I don't know why, it just came out, and I was a hardened veteran at that point. A lot of the stress I felt was more due to the call centre itself: the hours, the commute, the inevitable drama and politics...You're monitored so much for everything you do that you start to feel like you're being pecked to death by ducks. We had no internet access outside of the company intranet (we found out we could get to Amazon.com, since they sold our services, and would enjoy a little browsing time between calls or while on hold, until an ops manager got wise and told us to stop doing it). There is something very draining, psychologically, about that level of monitoring (call length, wrap time, transfer percentage, compliance, hold percentage, the list goes on) while at the same time having to cope with s l o w computers, being unable to hear the customer, watching your smug neighbour get to go home at 4:30 and not return until Monday while your rear end is going to be there Saturday and Sunday night because you weren't clever enough to get a doctor to think up an excuse for you...yeah, it gets to you. Any sort of stress tends to go right to my stomach so I was going to work every day with Immodium, Maalox and other gut remedies in my bag, none of which I have needed since I quit. Oh, and they also didn't give a poo poo about bad weather, which was odd, as some of our "sister sites" would go down at the apparent drop of a hat. We'd get a bulletin saying "tech support/customer care/whatever in [American city] is closed today due to floods/fires/blizzards/locusts/tornadoes/angry old ladies on scooters clogging the streets". However, if we've got a blizzard which shuts down half the province, and emergency officials are telling everyone to keep their asses home? Yeah, tough poo poo, you're coming in; we NEVER close. Come to think of it, most of the sick days I took were weather-related. My reasoning is, I'm not a cop or a nurse. What I do isn't THAT important, and if they can get away with the centre in [American city] closing for the day, they can get along without me for a few hours. NB: in four years I probably took three or four weather-related sick days, and perhaps two or three actual sick days, so it was something I would reserve for extreme cases. Generally if I got up and couldn't see the house across the street due to a snowstorm, I'd call in and go back to bed, unlike little miss "oh it's a lovely day, think I'll have a migraine and go hang with my friends."Anyway, sorry to poo poo all that over your nice thread. I met some great people at work and talked to some awesome customers; it seemed to be the way the actual call centre was run that got to me, and perhaps if the hours were better or the place weren't in the middle of bugfuck nowhere I would not have minded it so much. If you haven't completely banned me from the thread I will try to come back with some amusing stories. 
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Oct 2, 2011 08:24
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Drimble Wedge posted:Employee A: has a deal where she can take off as many days as she wants due to Different people are affected differently. I get migraines occasionally, and usually I can feel it coming on, take some pills, lie down for an hour and be back to normal for the rest of the day. I've felt migraines coming on at work a couple of times, and I really have no option in that situation than to go home, but then a couple of hours later I'm OK, so it's quite possible that someone could get migraines that make it impossible for them to get into work for the day but let them enjoy the afternoon. Drimble Wedge posted:My apologies to genuine migraine sufferers, btw; I'm not trying to sound like an unsympathetic dick. I know it's a terrible affliction and you have my utmost sympathies. Again, different for different people. My migraines are really no more than an occasional nuisance, except for the extremely rare cases where it comes on over night and I wake up with it in full swing. Drimble Wedge posted:gently caress kids. Well, not literally, but I always hated it when I'd get the beep in my ear and immediately hear a screeching baby or toddler. Also, gently caress those people who are driving or otherwise in a noisy area and decide that now is the perfect time to call their cellphone company for a complicated transaction, because it was always our fault, of course, if they were distracted or couldn't hear us. I work in an outbound call centre, so it's not like people get to choose the most convenient time for the call, but I'm amazed at the situations in which people will answer the phone. "I can't talk now, I'm on the freeway." is pretty common but I've also had "Could you call back later, I'm on a roof." and "It's not a great time right now, I'm just on a ladder." Drimble Wedge posted:Psychologically, I somehow managed to deal (most of the time) with the poo poo customers loved to dish out; I was very good at call control, and at turning an indignant customer around so that we were best buddies at the end of the call. On my first day in a new department, though, I wound up being chewed out by an extremely bitchy woman over something I had nothing to do with. I ended the call, started typing up my notes, and immediately burst into tears. I don't know why, it just came out, and I was a hardened veteran at that point. The best reaction to a call I've seen was one of my coworkers ripping off her headset and almost yelling "How do you know you're not interested? I haven't told you what we want yet, so how do you know? HOW DO YOU KNOW?" which was just such a hilariously over-the-top reaction to a pretty common occurrence, especially by such a normally calm and professional interviewer. Drimble Wedge posted:Oh, and they also didn't give a poo poo about bad weather, which was odd, as some of our "sister sites" would go down at the apparent drop of a hat. We'd get a bulletin saying "tech support/customer care/whatever in [American city] is closed today due to floods/fires/blizzards/locusts/tornadoes/angry old ladies on scooters clogging the streets". However, if we've got a blizzard which shuts down half the province, and emergency officials are telling everyone to keep their asses home? Yeah, tough poo poo, you're coming in; we NEVER close. That's crazy and sounds like it could even be illegal.
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Oct 2, 2011 10:23
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Drimble Wedge posted:Anyway, sorry to poo poo all that over your nice thread.
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Oct 2, 2011 10:25
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Tiggum posted:
These are all too commmon. Also, I mentioned this, but I work for one of those nationally advertised law firms, we deal a lot with SSD cases, amongst others. One out of five outbound calls results in "I thought I was applying for SSD! You mean you're not the gubbmint?" none of our online lead sites look anything like an official form, and nearly all of them have phrases like "Fill this out to have an attorney/advocate talk to you!" I did discover my only complaint about this place-we're out of training, we're on the floor doing the regular job, but we don't get the sweet sweet incentives until after our first 90 days. (our incentive being for each call we pass off to the people who get all the info, we get $1. Which easily adds up to like, 5-10 bucks over a day.)
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Oct 2, 2011 16:20
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