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Mr Plow posted:Is call center work as bad as you are all making it out to be, or does it just seem that way because this is the rant thread? I was thinking of getting a job in a call center with Shaw Cable but you are making me think twice. I've got some questions, I don't know how many you can answer with any accuracy but it would help me nonetheless if someone would take a stab at any of them: I can only speak for me here, working as tier 1 support for internet/VoIP for a nationwide cable company. Call-center work sucks, no way around it. However, it does pay the bills and it beats living out of a car. Saying that, I'll try and answer your questions. Would you recommend against working in a call center? Yes, if you have other options that pay the same. Do I have a fair chance of making $14 an hour? $16? As level one support for an ISP, no. How boring does it get? Very but my employers are lenient with internet access so I can surf the web (I'm talking to a customer right now!) How rampant is the abuse from customers? Pretty drat rampant. Every now and then I get a nice customer but the vast majority are angry, bitter and extremely stupid people. Very, very stupid. How stressful in genenral is the job? I wouldn't say the job is stressful, its just demoralizing. You pretty much just have to sit there and soak up all the hate and stupidity that people give you. I leave work at work so its not too bad but I still find myself dreading having to go in to work everyday. Do you get much down time between calls? Depends on the day, lately we've been balls deep in calls. Typically I take between 60-70 calls in an 8 hour day. Some days I take 30. How casual/enjoyable does the atmosphere tend to be? Pretty casual. Do your fellow employees tend to be cool or insufferable? For the most part, my coworkers are pretty cool. We have something in common, which is our hate for the customer. Its like a binding force that brings us together. We few, we miserable few, we band of brothers.
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Jul 19, 2010 17:01
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Mr Plow posted:Is call center work as bad as you are all making it out to be, or does it just seem that way because this is the rant thread? I was thinking of getting a job in a call center with Shaw Cable but you are making me think twice. I've got some questions, I don't know how many you can answer with any accuracy but it would help me nonetheless if someone would take a stab at any of them: As a "senior account manager" also known as "someone who is not in the Philippines" this is my experience: You will spend a great deal of time defending your morally bankrupt employer while at the same time being essentially powerless to resolve issues, being shouted at by customers and being brushed off by supervisors. Some call centers do pay fairly well but a lot of them are barely over minimum wage. I would advise other options if they're open to you. At the same time, it's warm and dry and not physically taxing. There always seems to be a great sense of camaraderie between coworkers because they're the only people in the world who know exactly how lovely your day is going. I spend a great deal of time when traveling to work fantasizing about being injured in some way so I don't have to go. The problem with call I find with call center work is it's never ending. It's like an infinite conveyor belt of misery. It does not matter how much you bust rear end for a customer, you'll never speak to them again nor will you be recognized for your efforts. You can do the bare minimum and 99% of the time it just won't matter. The bare minimum more often than not looks exactly the same as busting a hump on a stats printout. The calls I take can be very stressful, but I've worked in other call centers where the calls are not stressful at all. Your mileage may vary. Boredom: No internet. No pens and paper. No electronic devices. Some people knit, some people do rubics cubes for 10 hours a day, some people bring in play-doh. There's a horrible balance between the day dragging on because there's a lot of time in between calls and being back-to-back calls but having your brain assaulted by relentless retardation.
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Jul 20, 2010 04:50
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Mr Plow posted:Would you recommend against working in a call center? Do I have a fair chance of making $14 an hour? $16? How boring does it get? How rampant is the abuse from customers? From supervisors? How stressful in genenral is the job? Do you get much down time between calls? How casual/enjoyable does the atmosphere tend to be? Do your fellow employees tend to be cool or insufferable? How exhausting is the job? It's not a bad option if you're leaving a situation that's even worse. I worked as a retail manager prior to doing this. And that was far worse. I make more than $16 an hour. I'm in the minority. Most other people I know who do call center work make in the 10-12 per hour range. Abuse from customers? Depends on the companies policies. I really only have to give you one warning and then I can just end it. Abuse from supervisors? Abuse, no. As in, my supervisor does not scream at me. But my job is kind of a parade of corporate B.S. and pettiness. Down time? Sometimes it's back to back, sometimes it's pretty quiet. 80% of the time is back to back. I do about 70-75 calls per day if it is back to back, quieter days max out ~45. Stressful? Not really. I've been at this for so long I can beat any metric the company wants to throw at me. But definitely demoralizing and repetitive. Casual/enjoyable? Well, we're now down to the point where we can wear jeans and polos. Which is fairly casual. But enjoyable? Not at all. Employees? Some are OK. Some are insufferable. You do bond with them, because they're the only ones who understand. But we're not really a holiday party, "lets all go to the bar after work!" kind of company. Exhausting? Sometimes I go home and feel way more tired than I did after a day of setting planograms at Target. At least you have something to be slightly proud of when you finish building an endcap and it looks pretty.
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Jul 20, 2010 05:52
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Well I got my first check under the new company. $980 for 60 hours= 16.33/hr not bad at all for a job with no college requirments at all. Got to say, if I keep making this much /hr I can see myself here for some time. Pretty happy, even though retention for time warner in new york isn't the worlds greatest job I am glad that it pays good now.
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Jul 20, 2010 06:39
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If overtime is available, abuse the hell out of it. I used to work in a call center 6 days a week (the max allowed) and averaged 10 hours a day or more. I could only do it for about a year before I got burnt out. After that, working less than 50 hours a week was cake and my car was paid off.
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Jul 20, 2010 13:32
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Well, I put in my two weeks' notice. The supervisor's been pretty awful to me ever since. But oh well. I suddenly am filled with glee that I won't have to listen to someone lie to me about why they can't be assed to print their own receipt, so this is all somehow my fault.
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Jul 21, 2010 02:05
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Aerofallosov posted:Well, I put in my two weeks' notice. The supervisor's been pretty awful to me ever since. But oh well. I suddenly am filled with glee that I won't have to listen to someone lie to me about why they can't be assed to print their own receipt, so this is all somehow my fault. You should gently caress with some of your more terrible callers and tell us about it.
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Jul 21, 2010 02:54
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Aerofallosov posted:Well, I put in my two weeks' notice. The supervisor's been pretty awful to me ever since. But oh well. I suddenly am filled with glee that I won't have to listen to someone lie to me about why they can't be assed to print their own receipt, so this is all somehow my fault. I'm soooo jealous. I can't wait for the day I turn in my notice. I dream about it sometimes while I'm getting yelled at.
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Jul 21, 2010 03:05
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The day I put in my notice, I've already decided I"m going to speak the whole day in a comical Spanish accent till they kick me out of the building.
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Jul 21, 2010 03:33
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Solkanar512 posted:You should gently caress with some of your more terrible callers and tell us about it. And by callers, I really meant managers.
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Jul 21, 2010 04:40
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sbaldrick posted:The day I put in my notice, I've already decided I"m going to speak the whole day in a comical Spanish accent till they kick me out of the building. You can't do this already? We can talk however we want as long as it isn't so crazy the customers call us out on it and as long as we can speak it during the entire call. I used to try out my southern accent all the time. My employer could care less, as long as I could sell while doing it.
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Jul 21, 2010 05:37
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they would pretty much fire me if I did that. I got yelled at because my handle time is too low already, for only having done it for 5 weeks.
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Jul 22, 2010 03:38
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sbaldrick posted:they would pretty much fire me if I did that. I got yelled at because my handle time is too low already, for only having done it for 5 weeks. You work for a sex line or something? Usually most companies want a low handle time as it allows more customers to be talked to.
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Jul 22, 2010 03:42
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Harminoff posted:You work for a sex line or something? Usually most companies want a low handle time as it allows more customers to be talked to. poo poo, I've been pulled aside several times for too low of a handle time, and I work tier support for an ISP. Their reasoning is that "You can't take care of the customer in 4 minutes." The poo poo is not rocket science, I don't need 8 minutes to determine if the computer is hosed or if its a modem/signal issue.
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Jul 22, 2010 03:55
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drat really? We actually have/had team leads that just watch for calls over 7 minutes, and then run to that agent to try and assist them to end the call. Of course we are 30 deep in queue all day though. I also get paid $1.35 per call, so like hell am I going to sit on each call for an extra five minutes for no reason at all.
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Jul 22, 2010 04:00
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Harminoff posted:drat really? We actually have/had team leads that just watch for calls over 7 minutes, and then run to that agent to try and assist them to end the call. Of course we are 30 deep in queue all day though. Ditto. They /really/ get on us for long calls. And yeah, I'm being encouraged to do at least one nutty thing my last day. I'll see what hand fate deals me that day* *Or how disgruntled the callers/managers are. I had another Tea Party member rant to me today. Oh boy. Yes, I know those illegal immigrants are getting mad money while you toil...
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Jul 23, 2010 02:46
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We are allowed to be on a call for as long as we want, they will even write in our stats "long call" so it doesn't effect them. They even just raised our handle time, but I did think it was weird that I got yelled at. I got my first 20grand phone bill today...and they forgave 17 grand of it right off the bat. She still owed 3 which she paid to get her service restored, I almost poo poo.
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Jul 23, 2010 03:12
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I work in tech support, and today I was responding to email queries. After answering an email and signing 'Regards, Ann (Customer Care Consultant)', I got the following email response (emphasis is mine):Customer posted:Thanks Andrew, Who's Andrew? It'd be understandable if my name was Alex or Jo as those names are a bit more gender neutral than "Ann". Edit: Ann isn't my real name; but it's a similar type of mistake. froglet fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Jul 24, 2010 |
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Jul 24, 2010 09:50
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sbaldrick posted:I got my first 20grand phone bill today...and they forgave 17 grand of it right off the bat. She still owed 3 which she paid to get her service restored, I almost poo poo.
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Jul 25, 2010 15:26
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Cicero posted:How do you get a twenty grand phone bill? Watching youtube without a data plan? Yeah, what the hell? I guess that's what you get for streaming 4K and 1080p videos on your phone all day. edit: Also, for the person considering call center work, whether or not you'll be on commission makes a BIG difference. If you're not on commission I think the work's a lot easier to rationalize as you can just completely tune out, read, etc. Being on commission is very stressful as many of the factors that determine your success are completely beyond your control.
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Jul 25, 2010 19:07
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International travel. Yes, you are going to get raped cost wise for travelling, honestly they should put up big signs in airports.
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Jul 25, 2010 23:46
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My last day is Friday, although my manager apparently scheduled me beyond this and has been an utter pain. After I called in sick, I got the 'OMG UR AT HOME PLAYING STARCRAFT II YOU FAKER' treatment. Would you recommend against working in a call center? Yes, if you have other options that pay the same. - Agreeing with this. Don't get me wrong - it's a steady job, and there will always be spots and hours, but ... at what cost to your SOUL? Do I have a fair chance of making $14 an hour? $16? As level one support for an ISP, no. - This too. Unless you get into one of the VERY few management slots, I've found you tend to make 8-11 dollars an hour here. How boring does it get? Depends on how slow it is and how good you are at getting around the filter. It's not so bad though, I tend to bring a book or my PSP just in case it's mega slow. Just be aware that some employers install key loggers or monitor what sites you go to and CAN generally fire you if you post something like 'our customers suck' on facebook. How rampant is the abuse from customers? Pretty drat rampant. Every now and then I get a nice customer but the vast majority are angry, bitter and extremely stupid people. Very, very stupid. - Yup. Quoting this too. Once in awhile I get an awesome old person or someone who just has a simple question but usually I get 'I've done something stupid and it's YOUR fault and I want you to fix it RIGHT NOW without me doing anything arghleblarghleRAGE'. I've heard racists, misogynists and almost everything from tea party lines to AH HATE THE GUBBERMINT WHERE'S MY INTERNET/LICENSE. People are cruel, entitled and unfortunately ... have you ever watched a war movie? Where the first wave of guys sent out against the enemy and literally gets bombarded? Guess who those first wave of guys are? Ayup, level 1. And unless you work in a good center, you generally don't get many tools. We're almost never allowed to hang up on abusive people. How stressful in genenral is the job? I wouldn't say the job is stressful, its just demoralizing. You pretty much just have to sit there and soak up all the hate and stupidity that people give you. I leave work at work so its not too bad but I still find myself dreading having to go in to work everyday. - This too. Mostly it's the fact that people just tear into you even if it's /their own freaking fault/ and just can't grasp things as simple as 'fill out the boxes'. Or you spend half an hour plus with someone and get nowhere because they just. Don't. Get it. It also depends on how anal they are about QA. I've been docked points for being one word off a greeting. Horray. Do you get much down time between calls? It really varies. They stopped giving us wrap time between calls, so if it's swamped, I can get back to back to back to back calls. Urk. Other days, like weekends I can get 1-3 calls an hour at most. How casual/enjoyable does the atmosphere tend to be? Fairly casual. Come to work with all your naughty bits covered and try not to be obviously stoned/drunk/hung over. Do your fellow employees tend to be cool or insufferable? For the most part, my coworkers are pretty cool. We have something in common, which is our hate for the customer. Its like a binding force that brings us together. We few, we miserable few, we band of brothers. - Nthing this too. Although I've got some horrible boneheads, perverts et al where I work. One guy's been warned repeatedly to not leer at people, take showers, etc. and yet ... he keeps being a creeper, smelling funny and being a sort of sugar daddy to one of our barely legal sorts. So while most of your co-workers are alright, you'd be surprised at how remarkably dysfunctional some are.
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Jul 28, 2010 19:39
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If you're considering a Call Center job, remember this: I've been out of the center for almost 2 years. My soul is still decompressing.
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Jul 30, 2010 03:37
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Well, I worked my last day today. Wasn't too bad. My manager was surprisingly cool and distant. They should be getting in touch for my exit interview eventually. I feel strange knowing I won't go in anymore. I think my brain got settled into 'work in, work out, sleep' mode. Bwah.
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Jul 31, 2010 04:09
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Aerofallosov posted:Well, I worked my last day today. Wasn't too bad. My manager was surprisingly cool and distant. They should be getting in touch for my exit interview eventually. I feel strange knowing I won't go in anymore. I think my brain got settled into 'work in, work out, sleep' mode. Bwah. Tell me about that glorious feeling that overcame you when you took your last call. I want to go to there.
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Jul 31, 2010 13:20
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Had no net for three weeks and I'm glad it back now. We now have more freedom with out script. Woohoo, I might hear you say. Yes it's great.... but apparently we still have to read the explanations after questions if a customer answers "yes"... when if they answer yes they don't need the explanation {the question about dependent children comes to mind here}  .Things have being going well for me customer wise recently, though I think that's more to do with the fact that the vast majority are students and people who do term time work. Still get a few idiots through now and then {no I'm not from Poland you twat! You never heard a Scottish accent before? When you're clearly from Newcastle?} Most of my rants are about the stupid flightpath targets. Now I understand having to do the calls in less time, but let's face it, not everyone is going to have the information we need right off the bat {even if they're calling up for information about a job they've found. Half of our delightful customers don't think to have a pen and some paper handy}. Will be quite amusing to see peoples' heads explode when I finally hit my peak way before everyone else {when I've currently got some of the best stats in the entire centre}. The other stuff is about things I can't really rant about here because of the department I work for and we can't really control it anyways  .ETA Do I have a fair chance of making $14 an hour? $16? The above really depends on who you work for. I'm civil service so I get a bit of a pittance compared to private companies, but I get better perks to make up for it. If you are looking for call centre work, look around and see what the employers are offering you, not just for wages, but for other things like holidays and stuff. How boring does it get? Like most have said it depends on how slow it is. I'm hardly ever bored during our busiest periods, but for when it is quiet I can sit and read a book, draw or write. No internet access except from your own time {essentially lunch time}. How rampant is the abuse from customers? Due to the nature of the work I do, it varies considerably. Some customers are the highlight of my day and remind me that there are actually good people in the world. Others make me want to walk around to their houses and punch their lights out. If the customer is actually abusive though, we warn them and terminate the call and have a marker put against them {just in case they're the type to go punching people that work in the next stage of the process}. I've dealt with some really properly terrifying customers {one of which was threatening to slice the guy outside the phone box open.... yeah had to let a manager deal with that}. In my case, I'm allowed to pass off the really pissy customers to another agent. How stressful in genenral is the job? The job I do can be stressful at times, but honestly, it isn't that bad. Yeah, we have targets now, but when a call generally takes about 20 minutes to complete and half our customers don't have the information needed and wander off to go get it, we can't really control how long our calls are going to be. Do you get much down time between calls? First thing in the morning, especially towards the end of the week, we can go about 40 minutes between calls. On a really busy day though, once you go back into ready time you get another one straight away. On average; I'd say down time between calls for the work I do is about a minute, maybe two. How casual/enjoyable does the atmosphere tend to be? It is fairly causual when it's quiet, people will talk about the day's news, the latest gossip from the outside world etc. Team meetings {at least for the team I'm in} tend to be a little chaotic because it's pretty much the only time everyone gets a chance to talk to one another. Do your fellow employees tend to be cool or insufferable? I can only talk about the other members of my team since the different teams tend not to interact too much. But my team mates are fantastic. We're like a little, completely dysfunctional, family. If anyone has any issues they will most likely find someone to talk to about them and we are united by our apathy towards the bigwigs and our frustration towards our more irritating customers. Like I said, team meetings tend to be a bit chaotic but ultimately they're *fun*. I got lucky with the team I'm part of though, some other teams aren't as well bonded. I guess it helps that we've got some people who have been doing this job for something like 7 years {since just before someone decided we needed call centres to handle customers} and have retained some sort of personality. gomababe fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jul 31, 2010 |
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Jul 31, 2010 18:26
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We're getting 2x for any overtime because of the iPhone 4. And I'll be adding another 1.5x to that on the holiday Monday since it's normally my day off so it's overtime and holiday pay. I am making so much money but I want to die. I took 106 calls last night.
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Jul 31, 2010 21:14
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Hughmoris posted:Tell me about that glorious feeling that overcame you when you took your last call. I want to go to there. Well, my last call was actually a pretty awesome old lady who knew a fair amount about computers. She was giving it a college try to keep up with technology and I can applaud that. I mean, considering how far computing has come since her day and this day. But it was a strange feeling of relief that I wouldn't hear the beeps of an incoming call, dealing with a caller who refuses to give me their name so I can track it, wearing my voice thin on busy days... It was just sort of like I set down a heavy bag and took a deep breath. I woke up the next day feeling strange because I no longer had to go in and be sure I was logged in a few minutes early or I was tardy. Nope. Gone. All of it gone. The headset? Gone too. I've made some good friends at the call center (Although - there's also a lot of toxic people there too. Hi, Pedobear!) and kept a few e-mails to keep in touch. I'll kind of miss the awesome people I helped who were genuinely grateful though they were far and few between; they will still be teeny tiny shining beacons of light among the sea of douche, racist, ignorant and rude. They did offer to let me come back if I wish and I've got a good reference (Tempting as it was to do something rude/epic). I think I'd only be able to go part time at most, but I'd need to work 20 hours and be available 40. I'm not so sure that'll work for me really. I'm sure some people can thrive in this environment, but not me. It's not a slight against the company (Although there are other things I /can/ slight them for...), but call taking is not my thing. So I guess I can sum it up in that leaving was liberating, and I am glad to be rid of that stress in my life.
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Aug 1, 2010 19:07
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sbaldrick posted:The day I put in my notice, I've already decided I"m going to speak the whole day in a comical Spanish accent till they kick me out of the building. Heh, my last day at Dell i answered every call in my best cockney accent... the last two hours of my shift my T2 pulled me into a meeting and we played Magic.
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Aug 4, 2010 07:46
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Thanks very much for the helpful advice everyone.
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Aug 6, 2010 07:45
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I had some belligerent guy tell me that he was a paralegal and he was going to indict "me personally" because I explained to him the timescale in returning documents he'd sent to be assessed. He gave me an ultimatum - either send them back IMMEDIATELY, or he'd have the solicitor at his office write the letter in the morning. He made sure to use my name, and made sure I knew it was me specifically that "government people would be crawling all over by morning". Either he was incredibly stupid and believed what he was saying, or, more likely, he believes all call-centre workers are incredibly stupid and can be bullied into complying with his demands. This is in complete contrast to the type of calls where someone rightfully says "I know it's not you personally, but...".
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Aug 23, 2010 00:37
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So I know some of you said that my employer switching from hourly pay to commision would suck, but man it's pretty awesome. It sucks that I can't really know how much my check will be, but it motivates me a hell of a lot more. My job had an incentive on Friday. For people that don't work between 4-9 and come in will get paid 2x the regular per call rate. We get $1.35/call + .04 cents out of each dollar for a sale. The .04 kind of sucks, but I can easly take 8-10 calls an hour. So for a five hour shift on Friday, I made $140. Who said Customer Service doesn't pay? I also started listening to some telesales podcasts that actually help with my sales. If I save a customer, it's worth $60x.04=$2.40 each customer I save. poo poo adds up, and my checks have been a lot higher then when I got paid earlier. A lot of people here can't say the same though, and somehow only make minimum wage. I couldn't do that even if I tried. I guess that is what 4+ years of this job will do for you. Finally paying off.
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Aug 23, 2010 00:39
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Harminoff posted:We get $1.35/call + .04 cents out of each dollar for a sale. The .04 kind of sucks, but I can easly take 8-10 calls an hour. That's some Verizon math right there, buddy. Surely you meant four cents out of each dollar, now four-tenths of a cent?
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Aug 29, 2010 01:25
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Weatherman posted:That's some Verizon math right there, buddy. Surely you meant four cents out of each dollar, now four-tenths of a cent?  Four hundredths.
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Aug 29, 2010 01:27
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m2pt5 posted:
Oh gently caress me 
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Aug 29, 2010 02:49
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Aerofallosov posted:(Although - there's also a lot of toxic people there too. Hi, Pedobear!)
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Aug 29, 2010 03:03
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Fuschia tude posted:Wait, did you seriously have a predator on staff? We had a convicted child molester or two. Pedobear also liked to leer at females in the area to the point where most of us had papers up to block him. He'd also been lectured several times on not being creepy, to not come in smelling funny, etc. Good times.
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Aug 29, 2010 07:50
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A customer the other day: Hi this is tech support, froglet speaking. How can I help you today? Hello, I would like to buy an internet.I wanted to ask him how many internets he would like to buy, and ask him how it should be shipped to him, but I figure I'd get in trouble with the boss.
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Aug 29, 2010 10:40
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I've been working for over a year at a call center that's a little over a year old. Tell me, does the mandatory overtime ever stop? I don't know how much longer I can do this, I miss my family and friends 
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Aug 30, 2010 00:43
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Spooky Chris posted:I've been working for over a year at a call center that's a little over a year old. Do you work for a certain nationwide ISP? They seem to be handing out mandatory OT like its going out of style.
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Aug 30, 2010 01:33
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