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Devyl
Mar 27, 2005

It slices!

It dices!

It makes Julienne fries!
I haven't worked for a call center in 10 years... And tomorrow starts my 6-week training period for the call center I got hired to. I have a feeling I'm going to be ranting in here soon. I'll be working for a company that handles Verizon's billing & support.

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Spooky Chris
Aug 18, 2003
Harleyite Extraordinaire

Hughmoris posted:

Do you work for a certain nationwide ISP? They seem to be handing out mandatory OT like its going out of style.
Nope, a less than popular mobile phone company.

sbaldrick
Jul 19, 2006
Driven by Hate
Do you work for Bell?

newtestleper
Oct 30, 2003
I got a new job out of a call centre for the firsttime in 5 years. I was pretty amazed at the interview when they told me 'it doesn;t really matter when you come in so long as you work your 35 hours per week'

Seamonster
Apr 30, 2007

IMMER SIEGREICH

newtestleper posted:

I got a new job out of a call centre for the firsttime in 5 years. I was pretty amazed at the interview when they told me 'it doesn;t really matter when you come in so long as you work your 35 hours per week'

Most places I've been at let employees work coverage schedules out amongst themselves. Its not too unusual.

Robin Sparkles
Apr 23, 2009

sbaldrick posted:

Do you work for Bell?

I was going to guess WIND since they mentioned they were about a year old.

sbaldrick
Jul 19, 2006
Driven by Hate
Working for WIND would suck...wouldn't 99% of there calls be "why does your coverage suck"...I work for ATT and can go days without those kind of calls.

Robin Sparkles
Apr 23, 2009
.

Robin Sparkles fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Dec 6, 2010

Seik
Apr 15, 2006

Yes, I am indeed purple.
Pillbug
Quit my lovely Capital One call centre job! gently caress you Capital One, you greedy morally bankrupt fucks.

Aerofallosov
Oct 3, 2007

Friend to Fishes. Just keep swimming.

Seik posted:

Quit my lovely Capital One call centre job! gently caress you Capital One, you greedy morally bankrupt fucks.

Let the unsquishing of your soul begin, my friend. I imagine there are some decent call centers to work in, but - they are far and few between, while the rest of them are exploitative hellholes.

Don't get me wrong- I understand they have to compete with overseas support (And god, did I get a lot of people bitching about people from India, Taiwan, BROWN PEOPLE and how companies like Microsoft MADE THEM WAIT AND PAY so I as their ISP person should totally fix their ailing windows 98 computer. Yeah. Sure) and everything, but.

There's just a tiny part inside of me that breaks down at the idea of ever going back. I feel like I should MAN UP and BOOTSTRAPS IT if I ever need the job but...

Spooky Chris
Aug 18, 2003
Harleyite Extraordinaire

sbaldrick posted:

Do you work for Bell?
ATT wireless

noELrunes
Jan 23, 2004

Bah gawd he had a family!
If any of you work for APAC they are currently going under and are doing A LOT of layoffs. We have an APAC in town here and Verizon is pulling their contract in November. My friend still works there though and she said that they're still laying off people regardless. They got rid of about 100 or so and most of them were people who worked longer than 4 years.

I got off that sinking ship about 8 months ago and haven't looked back since.

Prince Reggie K
Feb 12, 2007

I've been denied all the best Ultra-Sex.
I work at a large call center in eastern PA. I think my department is probably gonig to be eliminated. Tell me if this adds up.

1. I'm supposed to be troubleshooting but half my calls are customer wishing to cancel that I make an attempt to troubleshoot/retain if possible or else transfer to retention.

2.Our product 3g/4g mobile devices is only useful to a select portion of the populace. People who need the internet (but not at speeds in excess of about 6mb/s peak and usually significantly lower) at locations other than their home adress. This service costs more, is less reliable than, and is slower than a typical wired internet connection, but most of our callers seem to use the home as the only point of connection.

Word directly from our supervisors is that there will be no new training class (no new agents) and that the client thinks we are properly staffed, yet people quitting/being fired over trival things is getting out of hand. We are down from a staff of 50 to about 20.

The kicker, we had brainstorming sessions where 5 or 6 agents at a time would discuss with the trainers what "issues with other departments" hindered our calls.
Epiphany - My department serves no purpose, sales already sells my product in addition to all the other products the client offers, retention supposedly handles my product, billing wont handle issues regarding my product, so we technical support guys just sorta figure out the bill stuff for our product as we go along.

To sum up, I'm about 90 percent certain they are firing as many people as possible to reduce costs before finally just parting out the troubleshooting and other tasks my department supposedly serves to the other normal departments. There are 20 of us troubleshooting the entire nation's 3g/4g card users for the client and they aren't hiring any more agents.

My average handle time is shorter than the department average, and my quality scores are higher than the department average. I was ranked 3rd out of 40agents before they fired about 15 of those and 5 quit, two of the quitters were better than me.
What should I do? How long might I have?

Prince Reggie K fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Sep 2, 2010

TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

Prince Reggie K posted:

To sum up, I'm about 90 percent certain they are firing as many people as possible to reduce costs before finally just parting out the troubleshooting and other tasks my department supposedly serves to the other normal departments. There are 20 of us troubleshooting the entire nation's 3g/4g card users for the client and they aren't hiring any more agents.

My average handle time is shorter than the department average, and my quality scores are higher than the department average. I was ranked 3rd out of 40agents before they fired about 15 of those and 5 quit, two of the quitters were better than me.
What should I do? How long might I have?

Start looking for other work right now. If their organizational culture is making better co-workers start to leave in addition not hiring enough to maintain the load you currently have, they are not going to treat you guys any better and will axe you given the chance to save a few dollars for outsourcing.

Also get the hell out of there for your own health. I took a mental breakdown because the department I was heading got massive cutbacks when I took time off (my Dad passed away) and made me try to do work with 1/5 of my staff gone because they were shifting resources to other parts of the company without telling me at all. It made my best supervisor quit for a job at Staples because it was less stressful. All your company will do now is just work you like a dog and throw you on your rear end.

noELrunes
Jan 23, 2004

Bah gawd he had a family!

Whiskey A Go Go! posted:

Start looking for other work right now. If their organizational culture is making better co-workers start to leave in addition not hiring enough to maintain the load you currently have, they are not going to treat you guys any better and will axe you given the chance to save a few dollars for outsourcing.

Also get the hell out of there for your own health. I took a mental breakdown because the department I was heading got massive cutbacks when I took time off (my Dad passed away) and made me try to do work with 1/5 of my staff gone because they were shifting resources to other parts of the company without telling me at all. It made my best supervisor quit for a job at Staples because it was less stressful. All your company will do now is just work you like a dog and throw you on your rear end.

If/When he gets fired though won't he qualify for unemployment or will they do anything/everything they can to try to not get him to get any?

TacticalHoodie
May 7, 2007

noELrunes posted:

If/When he gets fired though won't he qualify for unemployment or will they do anything/everything they can to try to not get him to get any?

I can only comment on my area in Canada (East Coast), but from my experience, Both the company and the government will do anything to make sure you don't get EI. Getting fired does not mean you get EI, you have to be forced to leave in a situation beyond your control. Mine was for mental health reasons, thus allowing me to get back to university.

The turnover rate is so high for call centers here, most EI applications are pretty much rejected if the quit is not even significant enough.

Prince Reggie K
Feb 12, 2007

I've been denied all the best Ultra-Sex.
Also I've only been here 4 months. It's through a temp agency, so im hoping they'd move to another assignment in the building, it's huge, we're third party for a ton of companies. I contemplated asking to be moved to another department now though. Not sure if that will get me fired.

Fil5000
Jun 23, 2003

HOLD ON GUYS I'M POSTING ABOUT INTERNET ROBOTS
Good luck to any RBS goons in the thread - I'm assuming that the 3500 job losses announced today are going to include call centre staff. Probably a lot.

Spooky Chris
Aug 18, 2003
Harleyite Extraordinaire
Anyone else mildly looking forward to Sunday and Monday? Labor Day last year was probably my best day at the company. Back then we were allowed to have paper and pens at our desks though so I could doodle between calls. Maybe I can sneak some comics in or something this time.

G-Spot Run
Jun 28, 2005
Aussie call centre, graveyard shift, wondering why it's so quiet, just realised it's a mother loving public holiday

:911::hf::australia:

Septic Knothead
Jul 23, 2009

Boris S Wart
The Second Meanest Man In The World

Spooky Chris posted:

Anyone else mildly looking forward to Sunday and Monday? Labor Day last year was probably my best day at the company. Back then we were allowed to have paper and pens at our desks though so I could doodle between calls. Maybe I can sneak some comics in or something this time.

Y..You're not allowed to have paper or pens at your desks anymore? Why?

MrMoose
Jan 4, 2003

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Septic Knothead posted:

Y..You're not allowed to have paper or pens at your desks anymore? Why?

I know the reason we're given at my call center is FCC regulations -- they want to cover their rear end incase someone accuses us of stealing a credit card number

Ygolonac
Nov 26, 2007

pre:
*************
CLUTCH  NIXON
*************

The Hero We Need

MrMoose posted:

I know the reason we're given at my call center is FCC regulations -- they want to cover their rear end incase someone accuses us of stealing a credit card number

"FCC regulations" is the excuse that West (formerly Dakotah Direct) used for the three- or four-pay-cycle delay in getting direct deposit running, with "pay cycle" being two weeks. Considering every other job where I had DD running took one or two cycles at most, I suspect it was more a matter of "we're not going to do poo poo until it looks like they'll stay". (I was inbound CS for ShopNBC, and they still didn't have me on DD until after I quit 90+ days later. They did gently caress up and give me my 90-day "longevity bonus" twice, but the added stress of hassling about my pay didn't help my ulcer development.)

I'm not sure that the FCC is in charge of regulating/enforcing wire-fraud issues relating to call-centers - I may be wrong, and I certainly don't care enough to wade through the FCC regulations meself. :suicide: I do know that when I was a phone monkey, it was no reading/phones/electronic devices, and any call-notes had to go in the secure shred-bin. <shrug> I actually had to get full card-numbers out of people for troubleshooting a few times, and I was certainly getting 'em every time we got a new customer/CC change/order-on-the-CS-line.

alreadybeen
Nov 24, 2009
Does it matter / do you guys appreciate if I hang around at the end of the call and answer the four question survey?

Fil5000
Jun 23, 2003

HOLD ON GUYS I'M POSTING ABOUT INTERNET ROBOTS

alreadybeen posted:

Does it matter / do you guys appreciate if I hang around at the end of the call and answer the four question survey?

I know I used to be targeted on how many people I put through - completing it didn't seem to get me any more benefit than you agreeing to go through to it and then hanging up.

Spooky Chris
Aug 18, 2003
Harleyite Extraordinaire

Septic Knothead posted:

Y..You're not allowed to have paper or pens at your desks anymore? Why?
I stabbed a guy. But seriously, yeah it's because of CC and SSN numbers. Guess they figure someone who wants to commit fraud can't remember anything up to 16 digits long without writing it down.

Harminoff
Oct 24, 2005

👽

alreadybeen posted:

Does it matter / do you guys appreciate if I hang around at the end of the call and answer the four question survey?

These surveys are funny, at least for my company. If someone calls sales, and gets transfered to me in retentions, the auto dialer sees the customer is off the sales calls, and calls them with the survey.

So I have to deal with people always saying "hey wait, why are you calling me?" in the first two minutes of the call.

I've also never had a manager come to me and say that I did good/bad on the survey. Hell, I don't even think my managers know that there is a survey at all.

Hughmoris
Apr 21, 2007
Let's go to the abyss!
I have just left the clutches of call-center employment. Tonight will be the most peaceful sleep I've had in two years.

Spooky Chris
Aug 18, 2003
Harleyite Extraordinaire

Hughmoris posted:

I have just left the clutches of call-center employment. Tonight will be the most peaceful sleep I've had in two years.
Tell us about the awesome poo poo you'll be doing now.

Devyl
Mar 27, 2005

It slices!

It dices!

It makes Julienne fries!

alreadybeen posted:

Does it matter / do you guys appreciate if I hang around at the end of the call and answer the four question survey?

For my job it does. I work for a call-center outsourced to Verizon Wireless. That survey is what makes my bonus pay. It goes like this:

You call in with a problem and opt in for the survey.

I fix your problem after a few moments.

You take the survey, and they ask if the problem was fixed during your call.

You say "yes", and I get an "FCR", or First Call Resolution.

The more of these I get, the bigger my bonuses are as well as my future pay raise.

Plus, evidently, if outsourced call-centers that work for Verizon Wireless don't meet the standard set by each of them (75% FCR average) per month, the call-center has to pay Verizon Wireless around $23,000 per month.

Harminoff
Oct 24, 2005

👽
So my employer decided today that regular agents are more then qualified to handle all calls, and have gotten rid of our escalations department.

Will be fun to see how customers react now when I tell them there isn't any supervisors for them to speak to.

Ygolonac
Nov 26, 2007

pre:
*************
CLUTCH  NIXON
*************

The Hero We Need

Harminoff posted:

So my employer decided today that regular agents are more then qualified to handle all calls, and have gotten rid of our escalations department.

Will be fun to see how customers react now when I tell them there isn't any supervisors for them to speak to.

Does that mean that regular agents are now authourised to do any/all escalation/floor manager actions? 'cause goddamn if I'd not mind going back to the inbound CS line if it was up to *me* to tell those knobs that "No, just because you decided to refuse the large truck-delivered parcel doesn't mean it came back - it still needed the RMA, which has to be approved by us. Oh, and I said "needed" because it's long past the approved-return time. Not only is that poo poo yours, *you* have to pay the shipping company for the storage fees, and for having it redelivered to you. Have a nice day, and thank you for shopping ShopNBC! :v:"

Well, I wouldn't mind it as much, anyway. It would still suck overall...

froglet
Nov 12, 2009

You see, the best way to Stop the Boats is a massive swarm of autonomous armed dogs. Strafing a few boats will stop the rest and save many lives in the long term.

You can't make an Omelet without breaking a few eggs. Vote Greens.
I love my job - I'm allowed to tell customers to sod off when they're being unreasonable. Like the guy who set up internet on the 'wrong' phone number (he had two phone lines and apparently applied with 'the wrong one'). When he called up demanding a credit, I had this wonderful conversation with him:

:argh: This is referring to case number 123456, we found out what the problem is.
:j: What was the issue? It says no sync fault here.
:argh: We've got the internet on the wrong phone number. The socket I was using was for [phone1], while the socket I should have been using was for [phone2]. Anyway, I need a credit.
:j: Uh, I just pulled up your application. Did you fill this out online?
:argh: Yes
:j: Then we can't provide a credit. You wrote here that that [phone2] was the number you'd like the adsl connection to be on.
:argh: THIS IS BULLSHIT, YOU GUYS WENT THROUGH ALL THIS TROUBLESHOOTING WITH ME AND I'VE BEEN OFF THE INTERNET FOR OVER A WEEK NOW.
:j: We were working off the assumption that you only had one phone number. If we had known you had multiple line at the business we would have figured it out pretty quickly.
:argh: I'M GOING TO TELL ALL MY CUSTOMERS ABOUT THIS!!!

Yeah, like I really care that he's going to tell all his mates about how awful the ISP I work for is. :rolleyes:

rockinricky
Mar 27, 2003
Ever get dinged because a piss break was a little too long? Here's your achievement!



Make 'em here:

http://teamfortress2.fr/achievements.php?eng

Nerdlord Actual
Apr 14, 2007

Awaken to your true self with Wisconsin Potatoes
Grimey Drawer

WampaLord
Jan 14, 2010

man thats gross
Sep 4, 2004
A quick example of the level of English proficiency possessed by most of the agents I support.

:what: What's the customer's wireless number?
:byodood: Nokia 2720.

:what: What device is the customer using?
:byodood: John Smith.

I've had these exact exchanges multiple times with multiple agents. This was my personal favorite exchange:

:what: Is this issue occurring everywhere or only in a specific location?
:byodood: The customer is at home.
:what: Okay, but does this happen everywhere or just in one location?
:byodood: ... They're at [reads me the customers address].
:what: Okay. We've established they are currently located at their home address. (slowly and clearly) Does the problem they are experiencing occur everywhere, or only at this or any other specific location?
:byodood: Location? What's that?

That's when I gave up. How the gently caress am I supposed to help you if you don't understand a single god drat word I'm saying? I didn't ask you for the customer's modus operandi or to briefly explain the history in phrenology in the United States. I asked you whether the problem you're loving calling me for assistance with is happening everywhere or in one or more specific loving locations.

These people have no loving business being anywhere near anything more complex than a string with a ball on the end of it, let alone an honest to god telephone.

Oh, and let's not forget this ungrateful little oval office: I let her put me on hold THREE loving TIMES to get info she should have had before she called us. Do you want to know how many times I am supposed to allow these agents to put me on hold? ZERO. I let her put me on hold INFINITY MORE TIMES than I was supposed to. I only hung up the third time because she had surpassed the two minute hold limit which DOES NOT EVEN APPLY TO HER GROUP BECAUSE THEY CAN'T PUT US ON HOLD IN THE FIRST PLACE. Not only that, but upon reading her case notes after I hung up, my suggestion SOLVED THE CUSTOMER'S ISSUE.

So pardon me for being a little god drat bitter that she sent FEEDBACK to me and my manager stating I was IMPATIENT AND UNHELPFUL.

These loving people.

froglet
Nov 12, 2009

You see, the best way to Stop the Boats is a massive swarm of autonomous armed dogs. Strafing a few boats will stop the rest and save many lives in the long term.

You can't make an Omelet without breaking a few eggs. Vote Greens.
Working tech support is a real eye opener.

Last week:
:j: Tech support, froglet speaking, how can I help you?
:byodame: I'M BEING HACKED!
:j: Okay, so are you unable to access webpages...? what exactly makes you think you're being hacked? (considering this is the first time I've had a customer say I'VE BEEN HACKED, I think my question was appropriate)
:byodame: Well THINGS CHANGE ON MY COMPUTER WHEN I SWITCH IT OFF!, AND MY DAUGHTER VISITS HACKING WEBSITES IT'S SO EASY TO HACK INTO COMPUTERS IT'S ALL UP ON WIKIPEDIA.
... I think you get the picture.

After a bit of troubleshooting I ended up telling her that it was highly unlikely she'd been hacked (security settings all in place, and I assume she'd hear from us if there was a lot of unusual activity directed at her IP address) and that she should see an IT security consultant if she thought her computer was at risk. We're Level 1 tech supports and her computers security is her own responsibility, so it's not like I could help her beyond basic antispam setup.

This week I was following up on a customer callback:
:j: Hi this is froglet from your ISP, just letting you know the issue you called about yesterday has been resol...
:byodame: I'VE BEEN HACKED!
:j: ... Oh, I remember you, I spoke to you last week.
:byodame: I'VE BEEN HACKED!
:j: Okay, so what do you mean by you being hacked?
:byodame: I CAN'T TELL YOU RIGHT NOW I'VE BEEN UP ALL NIGHT WITH THIS PROBLEM AND I NEED TO CHANGE MY IP ADDRESS AND ALL MY PASSWORDS AND YOU GUYS NEED TO FIX THIS IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!
:j: Okay... Last week we determined that your wireless network has a password on it. If you're concerned about your wireless network you should connect by a cable and switch off the wireless.
:byodame: I HAVE DOCUMENTS THAT PROVE I'M BEING HACKED!!!!!!
:j: Okay, considering you don't want to discuss this with me on the phone, would it be possible for you to email our support with your documentation? I can get this taken further if we have further information.
:byodame: WELL I'VE BEEN HACKED I'VE BEEN HACKED I CAN'T STOP THE HACKERS THEY'RE AFTER ME.
:j: Can you describe how you're being hacked?
... and so on. All the issues were vague enough to be a basic configuration problem that I could fix, but I couldn't get her to describe what was happening.

I'm still not entirely sure what she was meaning when she says 'I'm being hacked' and considering she can't explain what "being hacked" means aside from "somebody's out to get me :tinfoil:", I have no idea what to think. Also, last week she was talking all about her daughter being an evil hacker who ruins her things, while this week she'd claim "a hacker" was after her.
I reckon there's a couple of possibilities in this case:
:tinfoil: there's a hacker out to get her.
:v: her Mac has malware on it.
:downs: she can't figure out how to save settings on her Mac.

I can't wait for next week. :allears:

man thats gross
Sep 4, 2004
Sounds like a paranoid schizophrenic off her meds, to be honest. It's exceedingly common for them to blame their families of spying on them, conspiring against them, stalking them, etc.. Whereas someone not suffering from a mental illness might not be so inclined to repeatedly tell total strangers about their daughters hacking their computers and spying on them. I know way too many people who have to deal with that poo poo... :(

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skipdogg
Nov 29, 2004
Resident SRT-4 Expert

Back when I was on the phones I had a user call in absolutely convinced that there were Russian spies in a small 2 person submarine capturing his wireless traffic in the pond outside his house. He wanted to know how to turn the wireless signal off on his gateway/router box. He seriously had it covered with pots and pans from his kitchen trying to block the wireless signal.

Crazy people are the most fun.

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