|
foobyfooby posted:I gotta work Sundays more often. I always hear the weirdest poo poo on Sundays. The kinda poo poo that's so aggressively stupid that it takes your brain a few minutes to register it. Do you work for a hat sellers group, or is this a third-party outsource thing? I'm mainly curious because I used to do tech support for a company that makes web sites and CRM tools for these types of companies (it's the one that was bought by a large payroll processor about three years ago) and I really have to wonder whether the whole industry is as hosed as it seemed from where I was.
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2013 07:25
|
|
is the birth of Jesus-Christ-our-Lord-and-Savior. Obviously. I completely dropped the premise of the call, promised to pass along the message, and, after disconnecting, sat and laughed for a full three minutes. It took me a while to figure out how to word my comments, because we are supposed to remain neutral. I mean, poo poo. If you're religious, good for you, it's none of my business. I just get so tickled when Christians say poo poo like that. Loving, caring, and giving was kiiiiinda Jesus's whole schtick. She was so fuckin' smug about it too. 
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 22:09 |
|
|
Kreeblah posted:Do you work for a hat sellers group, or is this a third-party outsource thing? I'm mainly curious because I used to do tech support for a company that makes web sites and CRM tools for these types of companies (it's the one that was bought by a large payroll processor about three years ago) and I really have to wonder whether the whole industry is as hosed as it seemed from where I was. No, we're third-party. What we really do is make software for Hat sellers to use, and do the bitch work like follow-up surveys and poo poo so they can hustle their wares more effectively. It's pretty hosed, though, yeah. We're getting to be too big to really be good at what we do. The Team Leads, Trainers, and Managers have been on edge for weeks and today I found out why. Big Boss has threatened all their jobs, while simultaneously making it more difficult to actually do those jobs effectively. Brilliance.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2013 07:39
|
|
|
I hate stupid people. Stupid old people are the worst. I understand technology scares you, but it scares you so much that you can't remember what you did? "Okay the internet on my iPad isn't working" *walks through verifying connections* Now open a browser and see if it's working "I don't know how" Okay, do you see Safari, Browser or anything like that? "No." How do you know the internet isn't working "I don't know." Was it you who discovered the internet isn't working? "Yes." What did you do to discover it wasn't working? "I don't remember"  e: 40 mins of this so far with no sign of letting up. quote:It's pretty hosed, though, yeah. We're getting to be too big to really be good at what we do. The Team Leads, Trainers, and Managers have been on edge for weeks and today I found out why. Big Boss has threatened all their jobs, while simultaneously making it more difficult to actually do those jobs effectively. Brilliance. Gothmog1065 fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Dec 13, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2013 13:54
|
|
|
Gothmog1065 posted:Isn't it middle management and big bosses's jobs to make their underling's jobs as incredibly difficult as possible without actually improving anything? But of course. Up until this point they had been failing miserably- the job was pretty okay. This company was small, local, family-owned, and, assuming you could deal with working in the call-center, a pretty good place to be. Seems like that's changing. Up until now, the stats were actually attainable, and they didn't expect perfection right away- as long as you were trying, you were alright. I get the feeling that soon that will no longer be the case.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2013 16:13
|
|
|
And it looks like I get to join the ranks of call centre employees once more. Starting a new job with an international technical support company in their call centre but looking to move the hell up since I was the only one they interviewed with any experience in a call centre and customer service environment. No doubt once the training period ends after Christmas I'll be moaning about the job, but for now, at least it's something permanent and my partner and I can at least start making plans for the future.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 07:27
|
|
|
gomababe posted:And it looks like I get to join the ranks of call centre employees once more. Starting a new job with an international technical support company in their call centre but looking to move the hell up since I was the only one they interviewed with any experience in a call centre and customer service environment. No doubt once the training period ends after Christmas I'll be moaning about the job, but for now, at least it's something permanent and my partner and I can at least start making plans for the future.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 15:10
|
|
|
Going to vent... For the last 3 hours of each shift, I jump off the phones and take chats from clients instead. I kind of like the change, for the most part, and a lot of evenings it's pretty laid back. Volumes have been steadily increasing since I started about 3 months ago, though. When I'm on this chat shift, there's one other person in another of our centers who is on with me. Each one of us is supposed to take about 1/2 of the chats. The key word is "SUPPOSED." See, this person spends 2 or more hours out of her 3 hour chat shift sitting in unavailable. Or, she'll be in ready, have a chat sent to her, not press the "Accept" button within 45 seconds, and get pushed into "Chat Timeout." Which she'll sit in for, oh, an hour or so or more, causing that chat and ALL subsequent ones to be pushed to me during that time. I barely know this rep, but I kind of hate her. Tonight I was running two chats at a time all evening, taking complaints galore, while she (I'm assuming, not being able to see her in person) sat there fingering herself while staring at her phone or something. Not that I always stare at my screen all evening either, especially when it's slow, but when you're in chat, you turn the sound on your computer so you can hear the tone when one comes in. She's also known for being a total bitch to our second level support group, screws up stuff constantly, and pretty much forced one of the junior reps on my team to do something she is completely untrained to do and not allowed to do while she is. Management totally does not care. Listen, if you don't want to do the chat line, that's fine. Turn it over to someone who does. I have three reps on my team asking to be a part of it just because of the resume boosting opportunity and the fact it gets you off the phones for a few hours a day. Your team in Phoenix probably has the same situation. I'm sure they'd be better at it than you.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2013 06:05
|
|
|
blackmet posted:Going to vent... and no management knows or gives a poo poo and you haven't alerted them because?
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2013 14:22
|
|
|
Yeah dude, go to your supervisor or something. If I was your supervisor I'd probably be annoyed you didn't bring it up sooner, as that's not an acceptable situation and that lady is probably dragging metrics down.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2013 14:32
|
|
|
Our call center software is down! Of course, this means we'll be slammed with calls later on from people who couldn't get through this morning. But it's down right now and I'm so happy! 
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2013 14:52
|
|
|
I just got a giddy feeling in my stomach when my job said they're rolling out a big new completely retarded initiative in second quarter of 2014 and I don't have to give a gently caress because I will no longer be here. It's impossible for me to still be here, because I'm moving across the country in early May. I may have to pretend to care for a month if that, but yeah, it's a glorious feeling already.
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2013 15:30
|
|
|
Loving Life Partner posted:I just got a giddy feeling in my stomach when my job said they're rolling out a big new completely retarded initiative in second quarter of 2014 and I don't have to give a gently caress because I will no longer be here. It's impossible for me to still be here, because I'm moving across the country in early May. I may have to pretend to care for a month if that, but yeah, it's a glorious feeling already.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2013 16:36
|
|
|
We had some policy changes at work beginning in the new year which will make working more weird than ever. Apparently now, nobody except the operations managers are allowed to send emails...so TLs, QAs, and floor support can no longer send emails, and we are no longer allowed to send emails to "external parties", meaning no longer sending info like steps to backup/restore, links to user guides, or anything helpful. I foresee AHT shooting way up. Also, whoever decided that cutting down paid sick days from 5 to 2 days per year, while bragging about being proud of providing the most "competitive" benefits program in the same email was a freaking genius. But I guess when it's so hard to find full time work in this area, let alone a place that provides full benefits that the employee doesn't have to pay a premium on, they know they can cut down stuff and not have too many people jump ship. It's one of the few reasons I've stayed so long. While the sick day reduction thing sucks, some of their new on floor policy is interesting to me because whenever they implement new rules, I like to play a game called "how long will this last for?" Because normally new floor rules "No eating on the floor! No hats! New dress code policy!" are enforced for about two weeks and then fall by the wayside and things go back to normal. I don't get terribly upset about those policy changes anymore because I've seen them change their song the moment it interferes with the actual job (not being able to link customers to self serve, user guides, etc.). A few months back, they actually made a rule that we couldn't use demo phones on the floor, which meant we couldn't follow along with customers as they did troubleshooting steps and we couldn't test integrating email and stuff like that. They started allowing it and looking the other way when we started getting yelled at and getting coaching sent from our help desk saying that we needed to have demo phones and how dare we refuse to do so.  I think my coping strategy has become gentle apathy with a side of being darkly amused. CatStacking fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Jan 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2014 06:03
|
|
|
cuntvalet posted:We had some policy changes at work beginning in the new year which will make working more weird than ever. Apparently now, nobody except the operations managers are allowed to send emails...so TLs, QAs, and floor support can no longer send emails, and we are no longer allowed to send emails to "external parties", meaning no longer sending info like steps to backup/restore, links to user guides, or anything helpful. I foresee AHT shooting way up. Was somebody misusing the email system or something?
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2014 06:45
|
|
|
Xandu posted:Was somebody misusing the email system or something? Still, cutting out email is like chopping off a hand at work in a way. That's one of our primary forms of communication. Then gain, if it's like our department, one person can ruin for everyone (Rather than punish that one person).
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2014 13:23
|
|
|
Xandu posted:Was somebody misusing the email system or something? I'm guessing so. They framed it that they were concerned about customers privacy, confidentiality, etc. but I mean, like I was saying to a coworker, if somebody REALLY wanted to do that sort of thing, they would probably just use a pen and paper in the same way.  It's going to be an interesting few days. I'm guessing they'll work out the kinks of the new policy, but until then, it should be interesting all the same.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2014 13:55
|
|
|
Not being able to send emails in an office environment is beyond ridiculous.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2014 14:32
|
|
|
Xandu posted:Was somebody misusing the email system or something? Gothmog1065 posted:Still, cutting out email is like chopping off a hand at work in a way. That's one of our primary forms of communication. Then gain, if it's like our department, one person can ruin for everyone (Rather than punish that one person). I once knew for a fact that certain people were spending about half of each working day sending non work related emails, sometimes to the point of putting customers on hold to do it. Tried to get evidence of this but HR and IT were uninterested unless it was for stuff that was illegal (like sending customer information or similar). The only way to have stopped this was by sitting on the member of staff's shoulder all day to catch them or to ban every single agent from email. We wound up doing neither but I can see why some places would take the step of banning it. It's a dumb solution but I kinda get it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2014 14:50
|
|
|
Surely if someone is spending half their day doing stuff which isn't work related then their productivity would reflect that? Of all places I'd expect that to be true in a call centre, where work and downtime is tracked to the nearest second. What I'm getting at is that it's a management problem not a technology problem so banning email is (as you said) ridiculous. But, again, I guess call centres aren't known for employing the brightest stars in management.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2014 15:08
|
|
|
rolleyes posted:Surely if someone is spending half their day doing stuff which isn't work related then their productivity would reflect that? Of all places I'd expect that to be true in a call centre, where work and downtime is tracked to the nearest second. This environment was oriented more towards call success rate than it was towards literally any other metric. It used to drive me insane because people were left with double the average handling time of the centre overall with nothing at all done about it because their success rate was high. This despite plenty of other people managing to get nearly as high a success rate without taking anywhere near as long. You're right, it was absolutely a management failing, and trying to get the email traffic details was my attempt to get upper management to understand that there WAS a problem.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2014 15:24
|
|
|
To contrast with the general doom and gloom of the thread, I've started working IT support in a call centre again and it's significantly better than most of the jobs I've held before. Good atmosphere, reasonable targets and good people. Maybe it's a different matter here in australia?
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 03:09
|
|
|
Fil5000 posted:This environment was oriented more towards call success rate than it was towards literally any other metric. It used to drive me insane because people were left with double the average handling time of the centre overall with nothing at all done about it because their success rate was high. This despite plenty of other people managing to get nearly as high a success rate without taking anywhere near as long. We have that kind of thing at my work. There is literally no formal Average Handle Time standard to meet. QA also doesn't rate calls on a point system...you get graded on basic behaviors, a couple sentences on what you did well at, and a couple of sentences on what you could have done better. You keep AHT under control through more subtle means: 80% of your time must be spent either on a call or ready to take a call. If you don't, no quarterly bonus for you! Also, the fastest way to piss off ANY manager is to be an employee who has 20-21-22% "Wrap/Idle" for most of the quarter, then spend the last two weeks trying to jam it below 20%. If you always average about a 18%-19%, though, most managers will never say a word to you about it. The big thing, though: there is NO ANONYMITY at all when it comes to stats. I, and any other employee, can pull up the stats of each and every person in the company simply by typing a few keystrokes into an internal website. One of my off the phone roles is actually to send my team our stats on a weekly basis. I don't do the discipline about it, I just send it. Almost everyone on my team is in a pretty narrow range, though I dread sending it out because I invariably will have to hear the one guy who's average handle time is about a minute lower than everyone else's gloating about being "AHT CHAMPION!" for the rest of the day. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 04:04
|
|
|
I have some call center venting, news, and questions. Have my 3rd interview with a Verizon call center. Any chance people can give me some pros/cons? I currently work at a different call center where I take death claims and have people yell at me about life insurance policies. I can live with the yelling but the death claims are no good for me. Then I found out people that have been working for years longer than me (I am not at a year yet) and have more responsibility BUT are making less than me. It makes no sense and I just get a sinking feeling at night and on Sundays knowing I have to go back. Some of my superiors bad mouth my coworkers to me or other employees. This made me very uncomfortable and very disenchanted with working there. I understand that supervisors are people too and need to vent but it just seemed like one of the worst things you could do as a manager is bad mouth employees, behind their back, to said employees' co-workers. Also once they found out I would put forth the effort and could perform my duties well, they started giving me a ton of poo poo to do..."in between calls" as they put it. So while everyone else is gabbing to each other in between calls I am working frantically to get these "special projects" done. The killer is the people talking, while im working frantically, got hired with me and make roughly the same but only have 1/4 of the responsibility...I do jobs for several departments now and I really think each one thinks they are the only ones that give me things to do. I wanted to address this with supervisor...ie: share the burden or if they think the other's can't do it, compensate me for it but was strongly advised against it by a few people who took me under their wing. They said doing that is kind of a "career killer" and flat out said there isn't a future at this place unless you know the right people...moreso than other jobs. Part of the reasoning is that just having these "special jobs/projects" should garner some sort of prestige in my mind and the fact that they chose me to do these things is supposed to mean something. But all signs point to it meaning nothing. Like I said, I have seen others who do a lot more and make less. Verizon would fix the death claim talk and it starts off higher than I make now. Any pros/cons for their call centers? Environment? Morale? (My current place did a series of surveys a year ago it recieved the lowest morale rating out of any work environment for this company) Are the discounts worthwhile? Do you get swamped with little things to do aside from answering calls?
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 04:22
|
|
|
blackmet posted:I dread sending it out because I invariably will have to hear the one guy who's average handle time is about a minute lower than everyone else's gloating about being "AHT CHAMPION!" for the rest of the day.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 15:44
|
|
|
martyrdumb posted:Can you send it out at the end of the day so there's no time to gloat? Sometimes I do. He'll still just throw it out there randomly. He's moving to a new position in a few weeks. I doubt he will be AHT champion there.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 17:09
|
|
|
Today a customer said to me "I guess I have to be a little bit more responsible in checking on the status of my account" and the clouds split and a choir of angels descended, blowing divine trumpets.
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 19:07
|
|
|
Favorabilis Solitud posted:Verizon Wireless or wireline? Core or vendor/third party center? Tech support or sales/billing? I currently do fios and copper voice tech support as an escalations "core" agent, which means I work directly for the company rather than a 3rd party. I spend my day offline, working chats from agents, escos, and doing outbound calling while working issues. There's about 300 people in my center total. I'd say it's pretty similar to most call centers that aren't that terrible - obviously no one respects you, because you're a call center employee, but the customers tend to be much more decent than many places and it's a decent product. If you're core, you'll be union, which has its own set of benefits. If you're working for a third party, then all bets are off. I really don't know much about how our vendors treat their agents, but they definitely have a lot less fun during the day than I do. And I don't have a whole lot of fun. From a core perspective, environment tends to be on the better side of ok, morale is surprisingly decent, and there really is no 'between-call' time. We're oddly slow because I think they're loving with the call routing, but we're pretty solid if not queued 24/7. Also they forced us all 8 hours OT the week of Christmas, then completely didn't need it. Fuckers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2014 23:58
|
|
|
I assume it is directly as it is a giant verizon building with signs all over it. My current place is a 3rd party service place that works for a dozen insurance companies. So you get paid jack because they have to be viable to be hired. Whether the Verizon place is union, I am not sure. It was never brought up in the 2 interviews or discussion before/after the assessment. I might ask on my 3rd interview. It would be customer support for wireless. There is one person who worked there that I know and they said it was fine I can't get ahold of them now and we don't have a common point of reference. Point of reference, its not a regular thing, but people will start crying or freak out from the stress. Its hard to pick out what stress because it IS a call center but I don't think that is normal...It really disturbs you to see it and no one knows what to do about it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2014 00:49
|
|
|
Favorabilis Solitud posted:Point of reference, its not a regular thing, but people will start crying or freak out from the stress. Its hard to pick out what stress because it IS a call center but I don't think that is normal...It really disturbs you to see it and no one knows what to do about it. People have different breaking points. A lot of people come into our call center going "I can handle the customers" until they get that one that rips them a new rear end in a top hat, fucks it then demands a supervisor because they were rude. One guy left an hour after being on the phones full time by himself. Some people simply can't handle it. Edit: The best part is when you get your review of the call back and have to sit down for "coaching" and it's all about how you should have been more empathetic to the customer.
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2014 05:40
|
|
|
Favorabilis Solitud posted:Point of reference, its not a regular thing, but people will start crying or freak out from the stress. Its hard to pick out what stress because it IS a call center but I don't think that is normal...It really disturbs you to see it and no one knows what to do about it. I had this happen one day before work at a previous call center I used to work at where I sold magazines. Constant short calls with nothing but upselling and hard pressure tactics. I just broke down crying in the car, waited till I was done, walked in and said that I felt sick so they would let me go home. Bad call centers are soul-crushingly awful. Good ones are tolerable at best.
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2014 06:07
|
|
|
WampaLord posted:I had this happen one day before work at a previous call center I used to work at where I sold magazines. Constant short calls with nothing but upselling and hard pressure tactics. I just broke down crying in the car, waited till I was done, walked in and said that I felt sick so they would let me go home. Oh hey they've started doing this where I work. I cried in my car when my day was over. That's about the third time this last month. I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to last without moving to another department or all-out quitting.
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2014 06:16
|
|
|
I've been reading the last twenty pages of this thread over the past couple days and I've enjoyed Life Partner's posts about car salesmen. They will call your insurance agent, your employer, anyone they can to close a sale. It does not surprise me in the least that they called on behalf of the customer to request changes to their policy. I don't know if this is something you deal with Life Partner, but has anyone ever called you to have the address on their policy changed and then asked for a new copy of the binder to be sent immediately? I used to work for "The Bank" that financed the purchase of the expensive policies you made for idiot teenagers with no motorcycle license buying 1600cc Victory Eightballs or whatever Organ Donormobile they were stupid enough to buy. Calling up the insurance agency to request an address change and a new copy of the binder was a common trick to get past our Proof of Residence requirement when Mommy's Little Loser Who Doesn't Pay Any Bills couldn't produce proof that he lived where he said he lived. And yeah, they literally do run away once it gets to the insurance stage and the sale is closed. I used to keep logs of when I emailed salespeople because they hosed up our lienholder information on the binder, and I would gleefully c/p it into responses to their manager when they emailed me to ask why they had not been funded. gently caress salespeople. Also I have to imagine the salespeople you dealt with were exceptionally incompetent. Any salesperson worth his salt has contacts with his local State Farm/Allstate/Independent Agent and just has them either enter a request to adjust the policy or create one with the info the customer has already given them. The fact that they're calling what sounds like a corporate office tells me that they're new or exceptionally stupid. You have an independent agent fax you a new binder and never show it to the customer if you want to make that sale. cumshitter fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Jan 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2014 09:12
|
|
|
When I was in insurance, if the dealership called me, I would take 4 pieces of imformation from them: make, model, VIN and lienholder. The clients fumbled around for ages to get the last two. I then requested to talk to the insured for everything else. No, I'm not changing coverages at your request. No, I will not make the change and place an outbound call to the insured. And I've hung up on more than a few of them for having attitudes...I took enough from the insureds, the car dealers could pretty much go gently caress themselves.
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2014 16:47
|
|
|
Yeah that's exactly what I do now. When they say someone is buying a car, I get that info out of them as fast as possible, then get them off the phone. As soon as the dealer hands the phone off to the customer they loving vanish like a mischevious pixie at sunrise, so if you don't get it all you're screwed. But these days I delight in telling dealers I can't give them jack poo poo or do jack poo poo. They get really mad when I won't even document the vehicle info in the policy notes. "Sorry, that presents a binding issue  "
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2014 18:25
|
|
|
Welp. Looks like our Buffalo call centers are closing. What does this mean? We get two departments calls, neither of which we support. Which also destroyed our availability. Instead of putting up an IVR that says to call back tomorrow, let's give it to a department that can't do poo poo to get yelled at. They're pulling this poo poo at the wrong time, when I am debating taking another job.
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2014 22:33
|
|
|
Ok 2 phone interviews, a skill assessment, and a in person interview and NOW they are going to review my application at Verizon. I hope this is a good sign and most people get weeded out in the first interviews.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2014 04:30
|
|
|
I had no idea the interview process for wireless was that long. I did a skills test and a 5-question phone interview, and that was it, but that was also for the wireline side of things.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2014 17:54
|
|
|
Over 2 and 1/2 years, I've finally put in my two weeks. Here's to hoping my new jobs works out!
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2014 02:32
|
|
Gothmog1065 posted:Over 2 and 1/2 years, I've finally put in my two weeks. Here's to hoping my new jobs works out! Congrats. When I leave in may, I'll be 4 months shy of 4 years. I'm sure nearly 4 years of phone service will let me get any type of low level customer service job I want for the rest of my life, but I'm not really loving thrilled about that. I might have to sit the wife down when we move and discuss going back to school + getting a career I can actually stomach.
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2014 02:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 22:09 |
|
|
Where are you moving to LLP?
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2014 03:21
|
|
