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I've been working in a call center for about 5 months answering billing and general questions for a satellite company. I find it so frustrating and stressful to enforce company policies that don't always make sense, and constantly breaking bad news to customers (since they always call about lost payments, cut off services, or wanting instant refunds) Plus all my stats are mediocre this week. Even when I feel like I fail most customers as far as actually "helping" them and they make me want to cry, the metrics are what decide whether I'm good or not. And everything is blah. I don't want to play any more.
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Nov 10, 2010 04:06
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 01:03 |
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fret logic posted:I really really wish that handle time wasn't an issue because there are a few customers who are quite friendly and don't mind spending a long time on the phone shooting the poo poo with a stranger. I like those customers I've sacrificed my handle time a couple times last week talking to awesome old ladies about their pets or their awesome island vacations or whatever. Figure if I'm not talking to someone pleasant for 30 minutes, I can argue/do real work for 30 minutes with a tough customer instead, then make it all up on big paperview nights selling boxing events every 50 seconds.
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Feb 2, 2011 05:24
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Loving Life Partner posted:I've never worked call center before, and I had to leave early today because I'm sick. I've never called off work sick, I usually just soldier through it, but after 10 calls with multiple mutes for coughing, and my voice disappearing in the middle of important information, I knew I wasn't going to make it through another 75-80 calls. The call center where I work offers same day PTO if it's available. It's there if the site ends up over staffed and to help with vacation planning, and since it's planned time off, it doesn't work against you. I usually use it to take off after lunch if I feel too fed up with the job. Maybe your site has a set-up like that?
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Feb 23, 2011 21:51
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For stress toys, I have a little plastic thing, kind of like this that the company gave everyone for Christmas (with chocolate and a gift card, they aren't the problem at the call center). It's fun to twist around and break by squeezing. I also bite the sides of my thumbs till they hurt and bleed when on a particularly awful call, which is not so fun.
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Apr 6, 2011 04:16
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How does this tier 2 position work? At the call center I work at, everyone's in a team with 2 designated supervisors that are there to answer questions and other administrative things, and only take over calls if a customer demands to speak to them. I never speak to another agent over the phone; if I need help on a call, I ask in a chat program or put the customer on hold and ask someone in person.
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Apr 30, 2011 01:36
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man thats gross posted:I would do the repetition thing a lot too, depending on the customer. Some people are actually interested in having a reasonable conversation like adults, but when someone asks "But why x?" And you respond with "Because a, b, c, y and []z[/i]" and they reply with "Yeah but why x?", I'm done. Once it becomes clear they won't be satisfied until I basically tell them whatever they want to hear, despite the fact that what they want to hear is impossible, I don't even bother rephrasing anymore. I will repeat the same sentence verbatim until they give up. I found the only drawback of this is if you don't completely understand the customer's question (or they are phrasing it poorly), making repeating yourself very pointless. Feel free to try to ask for clarification when they repeat the question
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May 5, 2011 04:25
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Cowslips Warren posted:Anyone here work in a hospital switchboard? Is it hell or pretty good?
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May 6, 2011 06:00
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Cowslips Warren posted:How dead-end? Just in the sense that you can get a steady job operating the switchboard but there's no room to move up in the position
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May 6, 2011 23:08
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Cowslips Warren posted:I don't think I can do the hospital switchboard thing. They haven't even offered me a place yet, but thinking over the interview, the lady was clear that I would be working alone, no lunches, bathroom breaks if I couldn't hold it for eight hours, and I might work four days of graveyard and then a day or two of second shift and the next week could be first, who knows. Do you have a chance to ask the current switchboard operator how she liked it? Maybe the lady you were speaking with was exaggerating. I personally would have liked to try it, since it's something different than most jobs out there, but if you got feelings about it then it was probably best to walk away.
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May 14, 2011 03:11
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Customer of a disconnected account asked me to change or remove the credit card on file, because it belongs to her husband and she had to do a bunch of stuff that some judge ordered her to do regarding removing her husband's info from her accounts. Couldn't do it, probably because the account was disconnected. So customer ended the 30 minute call saying that if I read in the news tomorrow that some woman was killed by her husband in her city, it was probably her.
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Jun 24, 2011 04:24
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My center allows for 10 minutes of pre-phone time to get started. I believe that is because people were coming in early then demanding to be paid for that start-up time, and won. So, 10 free minutes of every shift to boot up my brand new computer. Not all call centers are created equal.
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Jul 5, 2011 07:07
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I quit my job this week. It was unexpected, so knowing that my final call was actually my final call was stolen from me. One of many regrets.
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Jul 10, 2011 03:02
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Fil5000 posted:I think we'd all like to hear more about how this happened so suddenly... The call center I worked at wasn't too bad, but some recent changes to coaching and QA scoring bummed me out, and dealing with angry customers was something I had a hard time with right off the bat. During the days following my decision, I was feeling guilty, as if I could have stuck it out longer, but I'm enjoying some peaceful time off and looking for something else to do. Maybe if luck isn't with me, I'll be back there next year. I tried not to burn any bridges.
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Jul 12, 2011 06:40
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ratbert90 posted:Only if you have a better job lined up before hand.
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Jul 14, 2011 00:30
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JackRabbitStorm posted:It is a lovely day in my call center. Why do the phones never go down in situations like this?
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Jul 21, 2011 02:49
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NerdyNautilusGirl posted:This, basically. I've had people tell me to kill myself, threaten to rape me, kill me, hurt me, wish that I would die in a car crash, hope that I get struck by lightening, hope that I get cancer/aids/hiv other horrible illness... and the best part is is that I have to sit there and listen to them and apologize that their television got turned off because they did not pay their bill in the 50 day time frame we give them. Ugh. The tv company I worked at... I was in billing, this was every call. If I ever go back there (extremely unlikely) I'm going to be the meanest, by-the-books, uncaring rep in the center.
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Nov 17, 2011 22:33
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Console Parade posted:
Were they screaming words or just screaming to make noise?
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May 17, 2012 00:23
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<screaming>
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Chicken Doodle posted:Ahhh so THIS is what call centre fuckery is like. Take your MONITORS away?
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May 24, 2012 03:20
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cuntvalet posted:Has anybody worked Quality Assurance in a call centre before? I never worked QA, but I feel I have a good sense of what they did at the center I worked at. Each agent was subjected to having 3 random calls analyzed by a QA person per month. Tons of random call were recorded, and QA would pick one from a big list, usually between 3 and 20 minutes. Then they would listen to them and write up an oh-so-helpful report to send off to the agent and their lead. No real-time jacking-in. I personally hated receiving QA reports. Thanks for telling me my screw-ups after the fact. QA at my place was largely regarded as a huge step up from agent. They even had private desks with tall cubicle walls! Monday through Friday hours! Wowie! I also came into contact with the FISH! thing toward the end of my employment. I was feeling incredibly frustrated and upset with my job and being told it was up to me to make myself happy about getting yelled at for customers' inability to pay or read bills made me even more resistant to being happy about it.
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Aug 11, 2012 06:19
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supkirbs posted:but I still am harassed almost daily about the time I am clocked out into 'personal'. If you get two regular 15-minute breaks and the issue your supe is concerned about is time off the phone, can you shorten those breaks to 10 minutes each or so to accommodate the extra time you take off the phone? I would take advantage of this occasionally when I worked at a call center. It kept my availability in the green. I rarely adhere to my break times anyway (ie if break was scheduled 1-1:15 I'd go at 1:20-1:35 if I felt like it) and no one seemed to care about that as much. 10 min break followed by a 4 min bathroom break/scream and cry break later? That was ok.
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Dec 19, 2012 21:13
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 01:03 |
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Long ago when I worked at a call center, other agents would sometimes be put in charge of accepting supervisor calls, which could never be declined. So yeah. Even if the "supervisor" was just another perfectly capable agent, talking to someone who was supposedly in charge was enough for most customers. If their account needed something a supe only had access to, they were always willing to make the change for the agents if we asked on hold or after the call.
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Jul 31, 2013 22:55
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