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My call center is FINALLY hiring more people in my department. It's great, my team is supposed to have 15 people... we have 8. They're starting 2 people on Monday... and they won't start taking calls until March. Fun times. By the time they're taking calls full time, it'll be april and they'll by hiring two more (one of which will be replacing me, since I'm leaving then). Two more months. I can do it. I can do it.
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Feb 10, 2012 23:31
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So in my initial interview at my call centre they told me I'd get one day on the weekend off. After training they shoved a Thurs-Mon roster on me and told me that's the shift they were hiring for and tough luck. I've spent nine months watching induction group after induction group get hired onto a shift with one weekend day off, asking WFM to change my shifts and getting the same response over and over - "the queues are too high on weekends for us to take you off that shift". The group of people who were literally hired a week ago have Friday and Saturday off, and all WFM will say is "maybe April". To top it all off someone took the unopened V I left on my desk last night. 
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Feb 10, 2012 23:56
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kells posted:So in my initial interview at my call centre they told me I'd get one day on the weekend off. After training they shoved a Thurs-Mon roster on me and told me that's the shift they were hiring for and tough luck. Haha that completely sounds like the Australian ISP I quit, I had friends in exactly that situation.
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Feb 11, 2012 18:53
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Karandras posted:Haha that completely sounds like the Australian ISP I quit, I had friends in exactly that situation. Looks like the same company from your other posts in this thread. I'm quitting as soon as I find another job... If I find one!
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Feb 12, 2012 00:18
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Has anyone developed a fear of being asked how your day is? Most of the people that call us ask how my day is before "Well, it's about to get bad" "You screwed up my bill, fix it" "I hate your company."
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Feb 13, 2012 03:37
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How do you tech desk people do your jobs without being able to remote connect to something? Seriously. The amount of people that assume that telling them to go to a website "oh, you just wanted to apply? Go to http://ssa.gov" means type that webiste into google is amazing. The worst thing is describing the social security website to computer illiterate people matches the google results for ssa.gov.  Are you on a blue and white website? yes ma'am and it says "the official website of the United States Social Security Website" up at the top? yes ma'am. Alright, on the left hand side, under top services, it should say "Apply online for adult disability benefits" I'm not seeing that link ma'am. I'm seeing something about getting a new social security card, or applying for medicare. on the left hand side, it should say "Request a new social security card, apply online for retirement benefits and apply online for adult disability benefits" No ma'am it does not. and you went to SSA.gov? yes ma'am. did you go to ssa.gov, or did you google ssa.gov? aren't they the same thing, ma'am?
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Feb 13, 2012 07:48
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Usually like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obq26q9QTpM If they don't like that, I'll usually just talk like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJXww8aizAM Harminoff fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Feb 13, 2012 |
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Feb 13, 2012 08:07
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Those sort of people are usually using Internet Explorer, so I go file->open and get them to type the address there, or if they know what a colon is I'll do the "hold the windows key (looks like a flag) and press r" and make them type it there.
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Feb 13, 2012 08:27
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BigStu posted:Has anyone developed a fear of being asked how your day is? Most of the people that call us ask how my day is before I have developed a fear of anyone who says they have "just a couple quick questions" Those calls end up taking over an hour if I let them.
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Feb 13, 2012 16:29
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Yeah, either through Run if they're still on XP or I just have them punch in https://www.whatever.com into the search bar at the bottom of the Vista/Win7 Start menu. It's astounding that the concept of an address bar is alien in 2012 but nothing really surprises me anymore.
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Feb 13, 2012 16:44
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BlackIronHeart posted:It's astounding that the concept of an address bar is alien in 2012 but nothing really surprises me anymore. I get this all the time, "can you load X.com for me?" "Okay hold on, let me get to my email..." YOU DON"T HAVE TO CLICK A LINK FROM YOUR EMAIL JUST TYPE IT THE gently caress IN ARGH
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Feb 13, 2012 16:49
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Loving Life Partner posted:I get this all the time, "can you load X.com for me?" "Okay hold on, let me get to my email..." Especially when the link they're clicking in their email is the one-use activation link that only works the first time you log on! But of course they won't listen to your directions until they've found out it doesn't work anymore via clicking on it, and then "your website is broken!"
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Feb 13, 2012 16:53
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Verified by Visa. How hard can it be! If you've never seen it before, click the link that says you've never signed up! If you HAVE and you don't remember your password, click Forgot My Password! AND READ THE loving INSTRUCTIONS, IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. I think that's pretty much the worst one we can get, cause you never know what level of screwed up the customer has made it, since that's one of the only screens we can't see and/or help you fix. Other than that I'd have to say most of our customers are on the ball with what we tell them. I've never had to explain myself more than twice.
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Feb 13, 2012 21:32
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Chicken Doodle posted:Verified by Visa. To be honest, I've never gotten verified By Visa to function correctly. Newegg kicks me to the VBV page at my bank. VBV gags when I try to sign up. Cancel out, Newegg comes back and my order mysteriously is paid for fine.  It's been doing this for a couple years now, as I recall.
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Feb 14, 2012 00:29
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I work for a large credit card company, today I had a very angry man phone in because he had a Virgin Atlantic points account and he was missing 2600 points! I asked him what the transaction was, he angrily replied that he had spent 1300 pounds on flights with Virgin. I asked him when he made the transactions he told me when and I started looking for the purchase but couldn't so I turned to him and asked "I can't find these transactions anywhere?" He replied with "Thats because I didn't use the card idiot!" At this point I was dumbfounded so I said "if you didn't use our card were not going to give you the points?" He started screaming at me that it was with the same brand and he should get them, I tried to explain that the rewards are for using our credit card and our credit card only which just resulted in more swearing. I tried to control myself but just ended up laughing at him because he was so ridiculous at which point he hung up. I also had another individual that phoned up and the first thing he stated was "Oh brilliant, an englishman!" I replied with "I'm actually Iranian" (I'm not at all) this resulted in him grovelling for my forgiveness, it was amazing. 
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Feb 14, 2012 01:52
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hooray for being good at telemarketing. Just got told that there's no hope for a promotion, being as myself and the one other person who got hired on to do telemarketing (the other 4 in the department getting shoved there after failing at inbound calls after we started doing telemarketing last year) are the only two that make our numbers every day. fml. In a department of six, there's really no room for one of us to be supervisor, and the rest of the department hates us because well, we're the ones that they measure them against. gently caress. I mean, I like the job security and all, knowing they won't can me because I'm the most profitable person in the company, but...nothing sucks like your boss telling you "you're stuck there forever because you make too much money to move to inbound calls" Dr Jankenstein fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Feb 16, 2012 |
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Feb 16, 2012 05:02
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AA is for Quitters posted:hooray for being good at telemarketing. Sounds like it is time to start applying else where. I got told pretty much the same thing recently, "Currently the company is too small and you are too good at your job so you won't move up for awhile." I pretended to be cool with it, but I am just hanging around until I graduate college. I'll be able to find a new full time job after that. I've already gotten some pretty good offers (40k a year) but they were all full time which meant quitting school my senior year, so I had to decline. :\
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Feb 16, 2012 07:11
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AA is for Quitters posted:hooray for being good at telemarketing. This is the point at which you start working just hard enough not to get fired. Stop making your numbers. It doesn't make any logical sense, but it's working for me. I have my old boss back again for a few months while my new (and much better) boss is out on maternity leave. He was questioning why I was producing half as much as I used to when I started (I gradually decreased my numbers over time, but he didn't see the progression since I was with another boss). I made up some bullshit about being more thorough and attentive to the customer experience. But I don't want to get pigeonholed as the person who's too good to promote. There's also the fact that the harder you work, the fewer people they have to hire.
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Feb 16, 2012 10:44
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Yeah there is certainly a point in the corporate hierarchy where below it hard work gets you nothing good. If you are able to smash it out every day and destroy the rest of the departments targets\productivity figures unless you're specifically being incentivised for that and don't really care about promotion there is literally no good reason to do it. If you want to be bumped up, 'good' job performance is enough, and if you consider opportunity cost, actually pushing yourself at your defined job is a net loss. You should be charting in the top x% of your team consistently, but you should also be looking for ways to demonstrate clearly skills that are not necessarily related to your job but are valued in higher positions, and you should use the spare time you have from not killing yourself to do double the amount of work of the next best person to do so. Its a lovely game, but we all have to play it.
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Feb 16, 2012 12:33
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I'm so disappointed in how corporate our call center has become. Not only did they automatically disable Call Forwarding, Anon Call Rejection and something else on the phone and force customers to go to our crappy website to turn it on, they just took away an internal website that we used. This website was fast and had tons and tons of information and helpful links and things for us to use. They took it away. Why? "To fit better within Corporate Guidelines." That means we now have to use a website that is slow to respond, information CONSTANTLY moves without notice (Bookmark a link and a week later the link name changes, now you have to use their inherently retarded search engine to find it and rebookmark it, only for it to change a few weeks later). On top of that they changed how we are rated to make extra money and keep our jobs. The way it used to be, I did fairly well. Now I can't make their "minimum" requirements because two of the ratings are how often we send technicians and how often a "customer" calls back. No matter what they call back for (Even if it's a completely different issue), and also the techs that we regularly talk to count in this field. Blah, time to kick the job search into high gear.
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Feb 16, 2012 16:32
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martyrdumb posted:This is the point at which you start working just hard enough not to get fired. Stop making your numbers. It doesn't make any logical sense, but it's working for me. See, this is the advice that I gave the other person that got hired with me who is rather more upset about getting pigeonholed as too good to promote. I told her to go home, watch office space (she's never seen it) and follow it's message. I don't do anything as it is. I'm apparently just easy to talk to. I spend most of my shift loving around and reading wikipedia (work computers are firewalled - only time wasting site i can get on to), and still produce awesome numbers. I did ask my supervisor if I could at least get trained to do more, even if I never use it. Mostly because of the fact that 3/4 of the department got hired to do inbound and failed at it, so we get viewed as the people that couldn't hack it doing inbound calls. My supervisor (who's awesome) is working on doing something with upper management so that I can at least be able to say "I am here because this is where I am most profitable. It is not that I am not capable of doing more within the company, but that the company cannot afford to have me move from this position" I already office space my way through every day as it is. I'm just apparently really easy to talk to. Which I don't get as I'm a goon, and thus, socially awkward as gently caress, but I manage to get top numbers while spending all day loving around not trying. Plus, we get a $2 bonus for every successful sale, and I average one an hour - if i moved to inbound (which has a much different bonus scheme) I'd be taking a $2/hr paycut. It just sucks to get told "nope, this is a dead-end position for you". I love my job, as I get to spend all day slacking, has hella awesome hours (12-9, wed-sun. I get to sleep in, still get to go out with my friends, and get days off to run errands when there's no one in stores. It's great), I just hate getting told by upper management that it's a dead end. Dr Jankenstein fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Feb 16, 2012 |
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Feb 16, 2012 22:34
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Cracked wrote an article just for us guys  http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-idiotic-misconceptions-about-calling-customer-service/ Everything is pretty spot on, though it should have touched on how if you demand to speak to a supervisor, you probably don't even get one. The part about us being customer hating assholes is so true. I don't hate our customers, I want to help them as much as possible on every single call. I also want to make them understand our policies and procedures, because I'm sure it's rare, but I actually agree with 99% of the ours at Progressive.
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Feb 17, 2012 05:53
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It amazes me that most of you work for companies that don't pay commission at all. What incentive do you have to work hard? I get paid commission on each sale, so I work my rear end off to try and sell as much as I can as fast as I can. Hell I hope I don't get asked to move up because I've been doing this for 5+ years and know how to sell, so I make more then most of my managers without having to stick to a strict work schedule.
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Feb 17, 2012 06:16
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At the mortgage company I work at there are borrowers who still try the "I'm taking my business elsewhere!" ploy except it's "I'm going to refinance with MY OLD BANK!" As if you convincing some other bank to payoff your entire mortgage with us INCLUDING back payments AND late charges AND corporate advances is something we wouldn't want. What's even more hilarious is because you are such a worthless loving borrower, even if someone would refinance you with your lousy pay history your loan will probably get transferred to us again for us to try and fix you which means we will be down this whole road again. Maybe next time you'll listen to us trying to help you and maybe take some of our advice and take steps to pay your mortgage on time! Ha ha ha who am I kidding.
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Feb 17, 2012 06:27
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Loving Life Partner posted:Everything is pretty spot on, though it should have touched on how if you demand to speak to a supervisor, you probably don't even get one. I love this part, because I know how many "levels" of "supervisors" there are. You have us > The leads (The actual technical supervisors) > The actual "supervisors (The guys who sit in cubicles all day) > The Department Manager > The Department director > FINALLY out to the Regional Vice president's office. These are the guys who basically fire you from being a customer. "I'm sorry, we've done everything we can to remedy the problem, and it seems to not be able to be fixed. Therefore, we request that you find service else where, a technician will be by tomorrow to retrieve your equipment and shut off your service". That's the job I want. quote:It amazes me that most of you work for companies that don't pay commission at all. What incentive do you have to work hard? I get paid commission on each sale, so I work my rear end off to try and sell as much as I can as fast as I can. Hell I hope I don't get asked to move up because I've been doing this for 5+ years and know how to sell, so I make more then most of my managers without having to stick to a strict work schedule.
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Feb 17, 2012 07:32
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Harminoff posted:It amazes me that most of you work for companies that don't pay commission at all. What incentive do you have to work hard? I get paid commission on each sale, so I work my rear end off to try and sell as much as I can as fast as I can. Hell I hope I don't get asked to move up because I've been doing this for 5+ years and know how to sell, so I make more then most of my managers without having to stick to a strict work schedule. see, this is one of the reasons I love my job. It's base hourly plus bonuses for every sale. So there's incentive to sell, because more money, but it's not 100% comission so if I get a bad day with lovely leads, it doesn't sting quite so badly. (considering a solid fifth of the leads we get are poo poo from people who sign up for those "get paid to take online survey" things and who have no interest at all in an ambulance chasing lawyer, the base is really nice). It's the only thing stopping me from being really pissed I'm stuck doing inside sales forever. Making an extra 200/paycheck is nice as hell. I would hate to be on inbound's bonus scheme. (which is based on how many call in clients they get to actually return a signed contract - I just have to get the contract in the mail- which is a whole lot easier than getting them to return it). Besides being told I'm stuck in inside sales is a bargaining chip come review/raise time. "I don't mind being here, and I'm willing to stay, but the fact that I was not provided the opportunities for advancement because I do so well in telemarketing is not my fault, my raise should be commensurate with someone who was give the chance to get trained as level 2/3's." Because no one else wants to work my shift. Everyone looks at me like I'm crazy when I say I like working weekends, but all my friends are in retail, and nothing starts until 10-11pm anyway, so it's not like I'm missing out on social activities. So I really don't want to go to inbound if it means losing my schedule. I get to blast the radio cause I'm the only one in on weekends, come in in my PJ's, and be the epitome of a slacker who somehow manages against all odds to pull awesome numbers. So I really don't mind I'm stuck there, but having your boss tell you to your face flat-out that "this is what you were hired for, this is what you're going to do" kinda sucks. Dr Jankenstein fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Feb 17, 2012 |
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Feb 17, 2012 08:03
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I make between 900-1100 dollars a month (prewithholding) in comission, which sounds like it's a good setup, but... I sold $250k in December. 1000 bucks comission. $245k in November? 900 dollars. My hourly pay isn't so hot, so that's pretty much highway robbery from my perspective. Plus, we have a new sales director who's a goddamn tyrant, so I'm so glad I have my "I'm OUT!" date picked, submitted, and marked on the calendar.
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Feb 19, 2012 01:31
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martyrdumb posted:This is the point at which you start working just hard enough not to get fired. Stop making your numbers. It doesn't make any logical sense, but it's working for me. This. I busted my rear end for years to try to get promotions. Never got anywhere. I have barely been making "acceptable" metrics for about a year now. I just got a sizable raise and a promotion of sorts. My day consisted of doing my homework, watching American Dad on my tablet, and doing a few customer emails inbetween other things I had to do (i.e. watch TV and do my course work). And this is acceptable now.
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Feb 19, 2012 01:35
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WE ARE NOW TAKING INBOUND TICKETS VIA SMS. FROM REGULAR PEOPLE. THIS IS THE WORST loving IDEA I HAVE EVER HEARD. I CANNOT HELP BUT TYPE IN CAPS.
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Feb 21, 2012 20:06
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Tennis Ball posted:WE ARE NOW TAKING INBOUND TICKETS VIA SMS. How come I get the impression of this announcement getting sent to you(your team) in caps lock?
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Feb 21, 2012 20:13
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trunkwontopen posted:How come I get the impression of this announcement getting sent to you(your team) in caps lock? It wasn't. But jesus loving christ. We aren't even responding back to them via text message, we have to then call them back. All that is going to happen is a bunch of people are going to send in: mY eNtErNeT AiN't Wrkn. FIX ASAP. PLZ K. We will call them back, "Oh, its working now." repeat 20x a day.
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Feb 21, 2012 20:19
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Tennis Ball posted:WE ARE NOW TAKING INBOUND TICKETS VIA SMS.
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Feb 21, 2012 20:35
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Tennis Ball posted:It wasn't. But jesus loving christ. We aren't even responding back to them via text message, we have to then call them back. We have a website set up that customers can not only create their own tickets, but they can escalate them. We get tickets that have been opened for an hour, that are already escalated to VP level, because one computer out of 36 cannot get online. We provide internet services. Our responsibility ends at the router.
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Feb 21, 2012 21:18
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trunkwontopen posted:We have a website set up that customers can not only create their own tickets, but they can escalate them. We get tickets that have been opened for an hour, that are already escalated to VP level, because one computer out of 36 cannot get online. We have a web form for tickets, and those are already pretty bad (They cannot escalate though). We usually get really weird things like: "My mac address doesn't work" or "Can you please fix my washing machine," because they think they are submitting a request to their apartment's maintenance facility. I can only assume that the level of discourse from a text message will be even worse.
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Feb 21, 2012 22:15
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So I've been looking for another job since my current call centre refuses to give me even one day on the weekend off. They declined my leave for a Saturday a month away because of 'call queues' too. I interviewed yesterday for another call centre and it seemed to go well. The only thing is their target for adherence is 97%, whereas the call centre I'm at at the moment only wants 90%. It pays a few k more and has weekends off, worth it you think?
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Feb 21, 2012 22:29
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kells posted:So I've been looking for another job since my current call centre refuses to give me even one day on the weekend off. They declined my leave for a Saturday a month away because of 'call queues' too. Adherence is one of those things that can be easy or impossible to hit depending entirely on how it is enforced rather than the target figure itself. The calculation method can vary as well which is something to watch for. As an example I worked at a place where if you got stuck on a call past the start of your scheduled break time they'd move it for you (if you are delayed 5+ minutes) so you wouldn't be hit for adherance. Then they changed it and they wouldn't move it anymore. What this meant is if you got one of those calls you could easily end up out by 30 minutes from a single break (15 minutes of phone when it should have been break and 15 of break when it should be phone). Obviously stats dropped drastically across the board except for the handful of us who had other duties and therefore had the ability to self adjust. And yet management just scheduled a bunch of meetings where they complained about how hard a schedulers job is (hint: anyone with a brain could have done it in their sleep at that place). Long story short, it entirely depends on management and how poo poo they are at the new place. Take it or not based on that. Tennis Ball posted:"My mac address doesn't work" or "Can you please fix my washing machine," because they think they are submitting a request to their apartment's maintenance facility. I can only assume that the level of discourse from a text message will be even worse. The thing I found was that there's a certain zen in answering user submitted texts where it's not easy to ask immediate questions. My favourite one will always be "Balance sheet doesn't" as the entire ticket. The best bit is that somehow this is enough information to fix their issue without any questions required.
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Feb 22, 2012 09:21
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God, I can't imagine doing any type of PC tech support for a living, especially handcuffed over the phone as you are. When I have to deal with a website call at my job, I do my best to get them off the line as FAST AS POSSIBLE. "I'm having trouble logging in to your website, it's not accepting the info you guys gave me to log in" "Oh, no problem sir! I will e-mail you a new username and password. Just check your e-mail and it'll be waiting for you. Anything else I can help you with? No? Good!" *release* And loving scumbag insurance agents who sell policies with Paperless discounts attached to 75 year olds who only ever SEE a computer on TV or at their grandchildren's house. "Can you just type Progressive dot com into the address bar please?" "what's an address bar?" "  "IT SAVES THEM $27 OVER 6 MONTHS, DID YOU REALLY NEED TO ADD THAT ON TO PUSH THEM OVER THE EDGE!?!
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Feb 22, 2012 09:27
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It's the irate customers that really make the job special, in my mind. I don't even get upset anymore, I turn it into a game of seeing how nice I can be so they completely lose their minds. I can't even understand the mindset of 'I need help so I'm going to be a total loving rear end to the person that offers to help me'. I know it's usually 'These people can't help me, thus an rear end I will be' but they really do want a solution, deep down, don't they?
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Feb 22, 2012 13:35
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BlackIronHeart posted:It's the irate customers that really make the job special, in my mind. I don't even get upset anymore, I turn it into a game of seeing how nice I can be so they completely lose their minds. Sure, but they don't think you can give it to them. They think that its like a game where they have to get past you to get to the real person that can fix the problem. Tier 2, a tech on premises, a supervisor, etc. The rules of the game are "be an irate customer who has a super important issue that has to be resolved now or X bad thing will happen to the customer and as a result your company will loose their business and owe them an amount of money for lost job productivity, missed online classes, <insert important thing here>. My favorite is business customers. Selling internet to small businesses is hell. They get to play the "well this is a business mister" card, which of course I know because I'm looking at your loving account, and yet they think that gives me the ability to teleport a repair man to their building. If I can get a tech there in 45 minutes to fix their problem, it is literally not fast enough. The laws of physics themselves bend to the phrase "this is a business" apparently.
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Feb 23, 2012 04:41
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BlackIronHeart posted:It's the irate customers that really make the job special, in my mind. I don't even get upset anymore, I turn it into a game of seeing how nice I can be so they completely lose their minds. I make people mad all the time and nobody at my company gives a poo poo because I smash all their metrics and don't call off. I'm reliable and all the people who judge my performance see that I'm outperforming all my coworkers. They literally don't care if the customer had a good experience. I pissed someone off today, and the funny part is her complaint was "he is a good employee who knows what he is talking about but talked down to me." Well, in my defense, I had to. Because I'm trying to tell you that for your problem a tech has to come out because your having a line problem that we can not repair over the phone. You don't have tools to fix coaxial cable and I don't have a magic phone. Explaining this, in a somewhat less sarcastic manner, is talking down to someone. Well sure, it is, but you wouldn't accept the simple "this is the problem, this is how we fix it, we'll have a guy out there tomorrow morning" so I was forced to treat you like an idiot.
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Feb 23, 2012 04:45
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