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I work at an ISP call center, not only that but their biggest call center... which happens to be located in a state which is entirely outside of their footprint. Thursday was my 2-yearaversary and marked the point where I've begun to hate this job. Up until lately it's been great. Well not great, but pleasant at least. The company started doing QA on our calls, you'll get QA'd on two or three "random" calls a month (any call below six minutes is probably not going to get QA'd and any above twenty absolutely won't), via a few teams throughout the country. Our QA team is a few states away and god drat if they aren't the most arbitrary and senseless lot. We're graded on a scale of 1-5 in three categories (efficiency, knowledge, and courtesy) and getting anything above a 3 in them during the time frame of a call they'll actually hear is essentially loving impossible. I got a 7 on a call, where I got dinged for not recapping the call with the customer (telling the customer why they called, what we did to fix it, and assuring them that the problem is fixed), not providing any self-help options (here's how you can fix poo poo in the future without calling us), and not using the closing script to bump them into the customer survey at the end of the call. The notes from the QA reviewer also stated that I said the problem was probably her router, never explained what a router was, and the customer sounded really confused as to what a router was. My notes on the call? quote:Customer called in unable to get online. Able to connect to and ping modem, cust said didn't have time to troubleshoot, adv cust modem seems to be online and to try bypassing router when she had an opportunity, cust hung up. And now word is coming down the line that if anyone gets less than a 9 on a call there's a chance we'll get written up for it. Not less than a 9 on our monthly scorecard, less than a 9 on a single call. Seriously gently caress this job.
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Feb 15, 2014 06:56
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 13:34 |
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Haha, this company is such dogshit at managing the call queue. They just finally let reps start taking Saturday off again in March, because they think this huge influx of new hires in February is going to do the trick to stop the bleeding on Saturday, and we're halfway through the month and it just hasn't happened yet, we're 450 in the red and climbing right now. I'm one of the ones who got off Saturday, can't wait to be a part of them being even more screwed, I hope they're making GBS threads themselves right now.
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Feb 15, 2014 17:12
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2 more weeks fully on the phones. Then I transfer to the new account verification dept. 3 hours a day on the phones verifying that people are who they say they are, the rest is operational. It's considered a lateral move. Lose my shift differential, but I do get a salary bump that makes up for most of it. I'm pretty happy about the move. The company decided to train a bunch of new people in my department on chat (which I really liked) relegating me to chat backup. I also got voluntold to take overflow calls for another department. To take these calls, I received ONE DAY of training (which covered nothing I actually get questions on) and no on job learning. I feel like a moron when I can't answer the clients basic questions, when I know that they're expecting me to be able to. It's also reduced my interest in ever going to that department from "not very interested, but I might as means to an end," to "no way in hell." Add in a new and ridiculous adherence standard, and I decided to jump when the possibilty presented itself. Hope I made the right decision, but I'm ready.
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Feb 16, 2014 00:39
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I feel like adherence is a stupid metric that only exists because call center work is so awful that people will do anything to sneak an extra minute off the phones somehow.
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Feb 16, 2014 02:40
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you ate my cat posted:I feel like adherence is a stupid metric that only exists because call center work is so awful that people will do anything to sneak an extra minute off the phones somehow. This is entirely true and the main reason my call center has two people full time dedicated to keeping people's asses in their seats as much as possible. And I'm actually one of them. Great way to make everyone in the call center hate you.
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Feb 16, 2014 06:37
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you ate my cat posted:I feel like adherence is a stupid metric that only exists because call center work is so awful that people will do anything to sneak an extra minute off the phones somehow. Half that and half is centres running their staffing incredibly close to the line (or under it) either by poo poo recruitment strategies, poo poo scheduling, poo poo holiday management or other poo poo.
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Feb 16, 2014 08:37
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TokenTrevor posted:This is entirely true and the main reason my call center has two people full time dedicated to keeping people's asses in their seats as much as possible. And I'm actually one of them. Great way to make everyone in the call center hate you. Haha you poor RTAs (Real Time Associates aka workflow management). So many people hated our girls for doing their jobs. People would get SO MAD when they would get "pinged" for being on the phone too long, or taking extra 5-10 minute breaks in Aux. It was hilarious. I would have loved that job.
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Feb 17, 2014 14:26
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Our call center doesn't have anyone like that and they also have real issues with people using to much aux time. Also they have a policy management can not question restroom time. After all what If you are taking a dump or have a medical condition? So obviously everyone takes an extra 20 or so minutes restroom time every day.
jassi007 fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Feb 17, 2014 |
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Feb 17, 2014 14:32
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jassi007 posted:Our call center doesn't have anyone like that and they also have real issues with people using aux time. O also they have a policy management can not question restroom time. After all what I'd you are I'll taking a dump or have a mescal condition? So obviously everyone takes an extra 20 or so minutes restroom time every day You were either drunk or driving when you posted this, weren't you. (Hopefully not both.)
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Feb 17, 2014 14:46
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Weatherman posted:You were either drunk or driving when you posted this, weren't you. (Hopefully not both.) In the shitter at work on my smartphone!
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Feb 17, 2014 15:08
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jassi007 posted:In the shitter at work on my smartphone! Playing a game of Angry Turds?
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Feb 17, 2014 15:13
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Volmarias posted:Playing a game of Angry Turds? The noises I make put those birds to shame. My favorite part of abusing lenient company policies is being blatant about it. I pick up my kindle when I go to the restroom. When I started here I used to be on the phone constantly, and slowly over time it dawned on me that everyone else abuses lenient policies and I'm just doing more work for no good reason.
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Feb 17, 2014 15:30
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When I worked in call centres (with the exception of a two week return in 2010 - see my posts in this thread) it was before the advent of smartphones. I really can't imagine how much of an impact mobile devices has had on dropping anchor. If I've had a particularly heavy night, I might spend 15 mins squirting out lava bursts in installments, all the while fiddling with some bullshit on my phone. I can't imagine I'd have gotten away with that back in the day when I was actively being monitored.
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Feb 17, 2014 20:55
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Queue has been triple digits or 0 all day. Thanks, email outage.
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Feb 18, 2014 00:53
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Our staffing and workforce group started a new thing where when we're busy they scroll SERVICE LEVEL ALERT MESSAGE (S.L.A.M.) on the TV to let us know we're busy. This accomplishes absolutely nothing and they've scrolled it every loving day since starting the policy. The ponderous loving glacial reaction abilities of this group are hilarious. We had a 25% abandon rate last Saturday and were like 400 under staffed. This has been going on for a full year and its still not fixed.
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Feb 18, 2014 16:19
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Loving Life Partner posted:Our staffing and workforce group started a new thing where when we're busy they scroll SERVICE LEVEL ALERT MESSAGE (S.L.A.M.) on the TV to let us know we're busy. We're going through the same thing on a much smaller scale. More or less all companies view call centers as a liability so they spend as little as they can, and just try to squeeze more work out of each person, which doesn't work and they just don't understand why gosh darn it so lets try some other dumb loving idea. Our company is like a baby in the whole call center game, they honestly don't even have people who monitor aux states and hound people yet, and are just now considering tracking utilization. The best joke is a lot of people have special assignments, ticket processing etc, and get off the phones for some period of time. Those people, who I am one of, get a pass on metrics like calls taken, and won't be graded on utilization either. That being said I get 10 hours a week off the queue and I still beat our departments average calls taken per month, which shows you how loving pathetic most people are, I only hit the queue 75% of the time and still beat their metrics.
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Feb 18, 2014 16:29
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jassi007 posted:We're going through the same thing on a much smaller scale. More or less all companies view call centers as a liability so they spend as little as they can, and just try to squeeze more work out of each person, which doesn't work and they just don't understand why gosh darn it so lets try some other dumb loving idea. Enjoy this while you can. At some point someone will read a book about call centres or get a sales pitch from a workforce management software vendor, and then you're in for having your time tracked left right and centre.
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Feb 18, 2014 16:31
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Fil5000 posted:Enjoy this while you can. At some point someone will read a book about call centres or get a sales pitch from a workforce management software vendor, and then you're in for having your time tracked left right and centre. You'd think but this call center is closing on a decade. I think that eventually they get there, but there is a million layers of bureaucracy, so I expect it will be 2-5 years before we get close to things like that.
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Feb 18, 2014 16:33
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Verizon call center week 1 update: Plus column: 1) Fully staffed cafeteria that is fully stocked. Gym with fully staffed trainers who also offer nutrition advice. 15 minute break? Let them know before hand, they will have whatever you need ready and will maximize your time. Verizon realizes healthy employees = happy, productive employees. Game area with a foosball table/basketball hoop scoring game (keeps count of how many shots you made) etc Half off phone bill, 35% off accessories, faster upgrades Extra new models of phones to carry around and take home (so you can get a good feel for them) A masseuse comes in regularly Hired dry cleaners you can just drop your stuff off and they will have it back the next day, etc etc. They really push that you can get promoted after 3 months on the floor and you are rewarded based on your results/effort. It is not a "who you know" type deal because everyone knows everyone. On my first day the director (the boss of the whole call center) stopped me in the hall and talked to me. This is very common apparently. Several branches of growth in the call center alone. Everyone starts at customer service, then you can branch out almost anywhere: IT, HR, Training, etc etc. They pay for moving if it comes to that. 7 weeks of training. Thats right, 7 loving weeks. My last job was a week of training and then they threw you into the deep end. After that it is transition for more weeks. Thats like training wheels. No time metrics. 1 call resolution/Happy customer > a series of 3 minute calls. From what I have seen though they want to keep it under 9 (thats from what I have observed, no one has said anything). Still, 9 minutes? Holy poo poo thats an eternity. The vacation time, overtime bidding, sick time, etc etc seems really flexible and seems to have a lot of options. They seem to want to work with you and make it work since they acknowledge they are investing a lot of money in training you. Unless you are in management, no "dress up" days. Shorts? Fine. Sweatpants? Fine. Open toed shoes? Fine. The general vibe I get is they refuse to cut corners if they have a choice in investing in employees. It isn't going to be like working for google but my last job seems like a loving dungeon so far. Every place I have ever worked offers tuition assistance. This is the first place that actually has an area you can go to DEDICATED to school. They also have a partnership with a distance learning college and have instructors stop by to help. Yep you read that right. Bad column: It IS a call center. No more vacation time than other jobs. Same accrual rate. I have only been here a week. I don't know why people leave. When researching the job I read about people being stressed out. So I am kind of waiting and expecting things to go bad. However, I think my last place was just so bad that this job might actually be the dream call center job in comparison. After I got home yesterday I did a bunch of searches and the fact that they actually rank in a "top place to work" let alone high in a lot of them, and higher than any other place in the telecom/customer service industry I think I might have sold this place short. I am being overly optimistic though because I really want this job to work. Favorabilis Solitud fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Feb 23, 2014 |
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Feb 23, 2014 09:56
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Favorabilis Solitud posted:Verizon call center week 1 update: People leave because clients are assholes. Shockingly working direct for a company and not an outsources is a pretty good deal.
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Feb 24, 2014 20:55
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sbaldrick posted:People leave because clients are assholes. You either leave because being treated like garbage every day is pretty difficult to cope with long term or you loose the ability to give a poo poo about other peoples feelings and emotions. I've been doing this for long enough that I'm firmly in the #2 camp! Thankfully I can for the most part leave work at work, when I leave I just go about my life and enjoy my family. At work I'm a soulless phone answering robot who doesn't feel and recites lines perfectly to get good QA scores.
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Feb 24, 2014 21:04
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Man sounds like wireless definitely has it better than we do in wireline. Guess that shows what happens when your part of the company actually makes money.
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Feb 24, 2014 23:08
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I want to strangle my company. I take back all the nice things I said about working here upper management is useless and they majorly botched this new contract and now they have my team doing a ton of work for another team that doesn't have their poo poo together, and the company we're working for is still dragging their goddamn heels on giving our agents basic access that they absolutely need to do their job. And making us do all this poo poo is very likely breaching their contract.
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Feb 26, 2014 14:58
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Favorabilis Solitud posted:Verizon call center week 1 update: Verizon just built a huge new building here in Lake Mary(Just outside of Orlando). I wonder if this is another call center or a more corporate office. Oh, looks like it's their finance dept. http://newscenter.verizon.com/corporate/news-articles/2013/09-26-verizon%E2%80%99s-lake-mary,-florida-and-tulsa-finance-offices/
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Feb 28, 2014 20:47
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Working in a call center that has more computers then equipment (phones and and whatnot) is terrible. Let alone a lot of the equipment doesn't even work and is from 1995. I don't really get how an inbound sales center wouldn't have call quality as a high priority.
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Feb 28, 2014 21:51
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Favorabilis Solitud posted:Plus column: This one is the rub, and the reason people quit / hate their jobs. No matter how nice the company is to YOU, it will set bullshit inane customer-abusing policies and "empower" you to do exactly jack poo poo about them. 90% of the people that call you will be righteously pissed, and you won't be able to do anything about it other than maybe comp them 25 bucks on next month's bill or some other worthless gesture. When you hang up, that customer goes to a phone survey. Think they'll be a happy customer for your metrics? Uh huh. Then they'll fume for a few minutes or google and get the genius idea to call back and demand a supervisor. There goes your FCR along with your happy customer. </bitter>
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Mar 5, 2014 04:54
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At my last job, call length was thee metric. You had no loving shot at even finding another position in the call center, even if it didn't involve being on the phone whatsoever, if your call time was 10 seconds over your "goal". If you don't get the call over under this amount of time, you are WRONG. But don't worry, if you have a long call, you can make it up by just having 3 calls that are waaay too fast. The amount of repeat callers in a week was insane considering how many people we served. The speed will just come to you, and its actually ingenious. There are 3 tiers of answering positions. In order to get to each level you have to perform at a certain level. And its not like something that comes around every few years. You move up when you are ready whether it be a few months after training/transition or months. The incentive to make more money is 10x more powerful than sitting down and scolding someone over their call length. I was playing airhockey with a guy on break and he knows a bunch that moved to the top tier within a year. Thats a huge pay jump. Disclaimer: I am new and still in the honeymoon. But it meant a lot to me when my supervisors sat down and said their performance evaluations from their supervisors are tied into how I am performing, period. Wow. It wasn't like a pressure statement, I just knew that they would do whatever they could to get me ready.
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Mar 6, 2014 03:18
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Our company has started complaining about costs for commercial customers. Our company also has a lick the bootheels of commercial customers policy. If a commercial sub wants anything, and you push back, your wrong. If they tell you the modem is broken and must be replaced right after they tell you 19 of their 20 networked pc's have internet access and the one says 'hard disk fail' then you roll a truck at our expense for our tech to swap equipment that isn't broken because if you say "i think its the pc" and they say "i want someone out" that is it. You can't push back any more than that. If you ask them to do something like, reboot the modem or router manually and they say "I don't know how" thats it. Send someone out to unplug the loving box. Trying to explain that perhaps if they'd trust a little that we simply be a little more resistant to unreasonable demands to cut down on unnecessary expenses meets with this dismissive nod. We could say something like "We do need to do some basic over the phone troubleshooting before we can schedule a service technician, it isn't rude, it is just using resources effectively. Medium businesses are the worst. Small businesses usually need the modem for credit cards, so they'll reboot it, and they know where it is. A doctor's office or company will ALWAYS have the receptionist/secretary/least knowledgeable person possible call and they can never do anything.
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Mar 6, 2014 03:51
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3 days of training my new position. So far, it seems like it will be a pretty good spot, despite requiring a crazy amount of attention of detail. The good news...I won't be on the phone for 3-4 months. At all. It's pure processing until then. After that, it's 3-4 hours per day on the phone, the rest processing and risk analyzing. I think I'm going to like this.
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Mar 6, 2014 04:00
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jassi007 posted:Our company has started complaining about costs for commercial customers. Our company also has a lick the bootheels of commercial customers policy. If a commercial sub wants anything, and you push back, your wrong. If they tell you the modem is broken and must be replaced right after they tell you 19 of their 20 networked pc's have internet access and the one says 'hard disk fail' then you roll a truck at our expense for our tech to swap equipment that isn't broken because if you say "i think its the pc" and they say "i want someone out" that is it. You can't push back any more than that. If you ask them to do something like, reboot the modem or router manually and they say "I don't know how" thats it. Send someone out to unplug the loving box. Trying to explain that perhaps if they'd trust a little that we simply be a little more resistant to unreasonable demands to cut down on unnecessary expenses meets with this dismissive nod. We could say something like "We do need to do some basic over the phone troubleshooting before we can schedule a service technician, it isn't rude, it is just using resources effectively. Medium businesses are the worst. Small businesses usually need the modem for credit cards, so they'll reboot it, and they know where it is. A doctor's office or company will ALWAYS have the receptionist/secretary/least knowledgeable person possible call and they can never do anything. Businesses/Commercial subs are lucrative and most companies will suck a business's dick in a heart beat to get that money. I never worked on our business class side, but I know that the Residential side would get hosed in a heart beat if they thought it would help businesses.
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Mar 6, 2014 05:00
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Gothmog1065 posted:Businesses/Commercial subs are lucrative and most companies will suck a business's dick in a heart beat to get that money. I never worked on our business class side, but I know that the Residential side would get hosed in a heart beat if they thought it would help businesses. Right, and I get that mostly, but when they tell you it is costing to much to monopolize a lot of your time and roll a lot of unnecessary service calls, but yet basically they expect you to talk your way into more profit without ever telling the customer just go find the thing that looks like this and do X is horse poo poo.
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Mar 6, 2014 05:32
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Yep, love management. Don't know what the gently caress is going on, complains about not making money but then does stupid poo poo to keep losing it.
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Mar 6, 2014 16:47
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So, could "I need to get my average call time down," be the reason every now and then people just get disconnected?
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Mar 7, 2014 21:55
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Wizard of Smart posted:So, could "I need to get my average call time down," be the reason every now and then people just get disconnected? I've seen people do that, so yes.
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Mar 7, 2014 22:23
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I mostly just disconnected people for being assholes. Lower AHT was just a bonus.
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Mar 7, 2014 23:37
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We had a guy who would randomly drop or transfer calls. He was given a prize card for consistent low call times. ... yeah. Most of us hated him a lot. Even though a few of us tried to tell the supervisors, they wouldn't hear it about their Golden Boy.
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Mar 8, 2014 02:09
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Heh. Not only did we have to work on our AHT, but we also had to watch our FCR (First call resolution) which means that customers weren't supposed to be calling back. AND we had to watch our transfer rates. Ours were more lax on the AHT and stricter on FCR and Transfer as we were supposed to be the last level of customer facing support, which means we were supposed to fix it.
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Mar 8, 2014 04:06
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We recently had our AHT raised back up because the powers that be finally realized that having us go out of our department to mention something about another department to the client results in that client having another five minute conversation with us, while we suffer wondering why we had to open our big mouths and mention it to them. They think it's as easy as "mention it and ask to transfer if they're interested" but they don't realize people RARELY give yes/no answers to things like that. They always have an excuse, or a story about it, or a rant about it... ARGH. Let me do my job!
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Mar 8, 2014 04:19
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Aerofallosov posted:We had a guy who would randomly drop or transfer calls. He was given a prize card for consistent low call times. We had a guy who would drop calls if it didn't look like he was going to get a sale. He got fired, and the whole centre got briefed on why he got fired. Also there was a girl who was terminating calls EXACTLY as her shift ended. I get that it sucks to get caught on a call but c'mon, don't be so obvious as to cut off the call within 60 seconds of your stated finishing time every shift for like a month straight. Even the most oblivious supervisor is going to notice. Most ACDs record who terminated a given call so it's possible to see if someone's terminating more than everyone else, but it sounds like your supervisors couldn't give a poo poo.
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Mar 8, 2014 07:40
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Man y'all got it rough. Call time isn't even a recorded metric where I work. One time a dude put me on hold and forgot about me and I let it sit on hold for over a half hour.
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Mar 8, 2014 07:45
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