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I recently started working at a call centre calling hundreds of job-hunting American Citizens trying to sell them education every day and it is extremely depressing. The pay is good, and the atmosphere is enjoyable, but how do I maintain a postive attitude when everyone is annoyed at me all day long and managers are breathing down my back?
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May 13, 2014 03:41
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I have no personal advice, but the good folks in the call center thread in BFC should. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3309332
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May 13, 2014 04:15
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Work, go home, drink. Repeat daily until you have enough to retire or die.
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May 13, 2014 04:23
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I have no direct advice about call centers in particular, but having an option is always a good way to increase job satisfaction. Make sure you have some money tucked away, and a "back up plan." Knowing that you always have the option to say "gently caress this poo poo, I'm out, deuces" can remove the crushing feeling of hopelessness and dread, even when day after day continues to suck.
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May 13, 2014 04:36
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For two years I was actually really happy at a call centre. My situation was a bit different, I did tech support instead of cold calling. I did it by picking a goal and making it my personal mission to get it. Like being promoted to Tier 2, or getting a certain reward goal, or saving up for some holiday. It helped take my mind of crappy customers, or the little annoying things. Every day it was about '$50 more towards Melbourne' or 'lets go a little further with this guy so I can win the parking sport'. It might have worked forever, but I had issues with depression that stemmed from something other than work. So I ended up losing the job when I stopped going in to work one morning.
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May 13, 2014 06:42
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quit
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May 13, 2014 07:25
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You could do that. I also wouldn't really read that call center thread in BFC. It is really negative, or at least it was when I was there.
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May 13, 2014 08:42
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This. If you have no choice, do as someone mentioned above: try to save some money, make a back up plan and, if possible, hunt for another job while you are there. Nonetheless, my 2 cents: • Unless you work in a very special call center, you are always going to be facing a lot of pressure to deliver to customers and management. Call centers are notorious for sucking the life out of you. If you take one thing away from my post, take this piece of advise: DO NOT LET IT WIN! FIGHT IT WITH EVERY FIBER OF YOUR BEING! Find hobbies that help your relax and relieve stress when you are outside of work. Keep positive family members and friends closer than ever and make sure to laugh a lot. Avoid toxic relationships; you do not want to hate your life outside of work as you need that space to recover daily. • Psyche yourself up. Imagine you are playing a sport where you still have to score points and make goals, but you have no ball to make plays with and you can't snarl/growl... You have your voice, your wit and "maybe" a hold/mute/timeout button if you are lucky. You will need to set you mind similar to that of a parent who doesn't let their kids tantrum influence their behavior when dealing with annoyed customers. Instead, you have to be the one who influence the customers to: buy your stuff, give you a good survey and get off the phone ASAP. Kill them with kindness. Always remember, they cannot physically hurt you, so some will try their drat hardest to get under your skin. Don't let them win the game. • Adapt! Find someone who has been there a long time, and figure out how they are doing it. Most call centers will track 5 - 7 metrics to see how well you perform. Which ones are the most important ones? (sales and talk time are usually top) Are sales goals based on a % of your calls? Or just a static goal? Adjust accordingly. Some call centers don't care if you tank some metrics so long as you hit the key ones. If you have a good supervisor or coach, ask them for tips on how to do things, and put their feedback to use. Most of those guys started out like you and got to where they are now by working the system in their favor. Network and keep in touch with the people who know what they are doing. • Read the mood. I mean REALLY, seriously, learn to read the mood. This applies to any/every work place, but probably doubly so for call centers. It is very common for call centers to turn into giant play grounds with people talking behind each other's backs and trying to sabotage one another, all in the hopes that they get picked to sit in a shiny desk next to a window with a fancy title. Management and HR is not immune or somehow exempt to this type of behavior, so be careful! Try to avoid being drawn into cliques and rumors mills. If you can smile while staying above it all you should be OK. • Avoid standing out too much. If supervisor "A" teaches you how to get ahead, keep that poo poo to yourself. Do not brag to anyone. If someone asks, just give them a pat answer, or better, tell them you have no idea how you do it as you are just being yourself. Sometimes the less people scrutinize your work the better. You don't have to be the best; in most places you can get by simply by just being a familiar, reliable and consistent face so long as you are not gunning on climbing the corporate ladder faster than anyone else. • Learn the rules. Some call centers will not bat an eye lash if you hang up on a customer for flipping out on you; others will fire you on the spot even if the customer was recorded while claiming to work for al'qaeda, being racist to you, making threats on your life, or threatening to bomb the local office. Learn where the lines are drawn, and then how far you can bend them (if at all). Above all, GOOD LUCK!
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May 13, 2014 09:24
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The way to win at call centers is to use it for experience and then leave. For me it was staying on the help desk long enough to get some experience and certs and then leave. For you, if sales is your thing, stay long enough to gets some sales experience so you can apply to jobs you want that require sales experience. Suffering needlessly sucks, but putting up with poo poo for a little while to help you get to a better place is ok.
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May 13, 2014 14:34
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Call centers are the worst. It's one of those experiences no one should ever try as long as one isn't a passionate call center guru. It doesn't even matter whether you have to sell things, spread ads, ask for opinions in a survey or anything else. It's literally hard to survive in that business. As I experienced it there are some people who just don't give a poo poo who to call at what time of the day and who doesn't care at all if they get insulted, others immediately cry and quit after someone said 'Ewww, screw you.'. Of course there are some strange individuals who actually like to work there and stay for longer than just a few weeks during holidays or while studying more important things. If you want to stay there for longer, you should try to stop caring about things. Ignore the insults of your customers and this "Get a real job"-stuff mad people may yell. You should have relatively clear instructions how to treat the people you call and you should have a sheet about what to say, how to speak to annoying fucktwits etc. Stay on your sheets, don't make it too personal and if your supervisors and bosses are giant dickheads, ignore them as well as far as you can. Many call centers employ plenty of supervisors and they change basically every day so you don't have to deal with them that often. At least that was the case in most call centers I worked so far. If it sucks too hard and if people, bosses and everything and everyone are unusable idiots - quit and if you have to, search for another, bigger call center. Otherwise change the business, many possible jobs out there for many situations in life.
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May 13, 2014 16:44
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SubjectVerbObject posted:The way to win at call centers is to use it for experience and then leave. For me it was staying on the help desk long enough to get some experience and certs and then leave. For you, if sales is your thing, stay long enough to gets some sales experience so you can apply to jobs you want that require sales experience. Suffering needlessly sucks, but putting up with poo poo for a little while to help you get to a better place is ok. Yep, even moving to B2B calls, for instance, should be a ton better. I don't work in this area myself but my company employs a ton of these services, and we spend a lot of money and effort to make sure that the companies/people getting contacted are the ones most likely to be interested in the products, so it won't be nearly as depressing as selling crap to broke people that they don't need.
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May 13, 2014 18:12
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Paramemetic posted:Knowing that you always have the option to say "gently caress this poo poo, I'm out, deuces" can remove the crushing feeling of hopelessness and dread, even when day after day continues to suck. As someone who just said 'gently caress this poo poo, i'm out.', this is a fact.
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May 14, 2014 17:02
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Very true, the greatest thing about working at a call center is actually quitting one day. When that day comes you will have more experience and will be moving on to better things. If you kill yourself first, you'll be denied that satisfaction!
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May 14, 2014 17:36
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mechacop posted:The pay is good, and the atmosphere is enjoyable, but how do I maintain a postive attitude when everyone is annoyed at me all day long and managers are breathing down my back? You know, I think you're already on the right track by asking this question. Odds are, you are not the only person at your call center wondering how to remain positive through a long day. For certain, you would not be the only person to struggle with a job that stresses and tires them out. Today, it's you who's asking, "How do I remain positive?" Likely someday someone will be asking this of you. The time you're spending at your work, it's not only giving you a paycheck and call center experience, it's giving you an experience in a ubiquitous and chronic form of human suffering. Even if you discover no silver bullets, you are at each moment becoming more equipped to empathize with someone in your situation. I believe that you're also becoming better at empathizing with the jerk managers and the annoyed customers. And if you quit, the question that might follow you next is, How do I maintain a positive attitude while looking for work, or at a new job? And then you will be working towards becoming an expert at responding to those questions as well.
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May 14, 2014 18:12
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Caufman posted:It's giving you an experience in a ubiquitous and chronic form of human suffering. Even if you discover no silver bullets, you are at each moment becoming more equipped to empathize with someone in your situation. I believe that you're also becoming better at empathizing with the jerk managers and the annoyed customers. This is a really important answer. I feel like with each day, I am becoming more and more empathetic and able to build that relationship with the customer. I feel like by doing so, I'm really starting to improve my own social skills in my personal life.
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May 14, 2014 18:54
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Switch to an inbound, non-sales program/center. Take courses while you're there so you can eventually not work at a call center.
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May 15, 2014 09:57
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mechacop posted:This is a really important answer. I feel like with each day, I am becoming more and more empathetic and able to build that relationship with the customer. I feel like by doing so, I'm really starting to improve my own social skills in my personal life. Take this as an opportunity to better yourself. I started out in tech, and went to an outside sales role. Even in outside sales, cold calling is the hardest part of what I have to do. I hate it and I suck at it. If you can master cold calling and learn how to convince people with a phone call, you can sell anything. Maybe sales isn't your calling in life; if it is, the better you get at this, the easier it will be.
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May 16, 2014 01:34
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The only thing that made me feel better when I worked in a call center was going home and applying to better jobs. It took three months but I finally found one.
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May 16, 2014 05:29
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I used to work in a U-Haul call centre, and since I didn't care about the job, I had fun making stuff up on the phone. What's that? You need cardboard moving boxes? Sorry, our boxes are made of steel, quite heavy too. Easy to cut yourself on the edges. No, they don't sound very good do they. But that's the U-Haul Difference! Half the time though U-Hauls terrible policies and completely broken scheduling software made enough comedy on their own. Guess what, we changed the pickup location on your truck to the next store over. Yeah, the store is 35 miles away. Have a nice day! They had secret callers who would catch me all the time, but I guess they were so desperate for staff that never bothered to fire me. Not surprising since the one other staffer they had was a 300 pound hambeast that would deal with walk-in customers while eating pizza in their face, dripping ranch dipping sauce down their chin like an animal.
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May 17, 2014 13:41
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I got a cold call yesterday. I respond, as I always do, that I don't accept telephone surveys or solicitations, and I told them to have a nice day. Most time, people will catch on, but this woman just wasn't going to have it and continued talking. Don't be that person -- that's when the people you're calling will get pissed off and be rude to you.
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May 17, 2014 16:37
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PT6A posted:I got a cold call yesterday. I respond, as I always do, that I don't accept telephone surveys or solicitations, and I told them to have a nice day. Most time, people will catch on, but this woman just wasn't going to have it and continued talking. Don't be that person -- that's when the people you're calling will get pissed off and be rude to you. What's the story on the other side of the line, mechacop? Are callers 'encouraged' by their managers to read to at least a certain part of the prompt before letting the call go?
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May 17, 2014 16:44
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Caufman posted:What's the story on the other side of the line, mechacop? Are callers 'encouraged' by their managers to read to at least a certain part of the prompt before letting the call go? Yeah, unfortunately we have to hit a certain point before we let them go.
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May 17, 2014 20:03
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Jerk manager here. I can attest that it takes a certain type of individual to thrive in this environment. They were usually the people who didn't give a gently caress about the constant rejection, screaming customers, and the sensation of treading water. Conversely, they also didn't give a poo poo about the quotas, the pep talks, and the role playing. The fly by night folks, who were looking for a place to work while they completed college, looked for something better, etc, burned out very quickly. And I never blamed them. I worked the job and hated it as well. Everyone does on some level or another. As a manager, I liked to think that I wasn't a jerk, but it is insanely difficult to manage people who hate their jobs. My advise is to only do what you can handle. If you are feeling burnt out, see if you can get your hours cut and find another job in the interim. You may have to work more to compensate for the lower wage, but it will do wonders for your psyche. If you stay and your managers aren't complete fascists, I would recommend deviating from your script as much as you can. A loose conversational style will help it feel less like work and people will occasionally surprise you and make your day.
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May 17, 2014 20:36
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Just started out at a call center, had this exchange: Supervisor A: You must read the entire script verbatim every time. Me: What about in common situation X, where this part of the script obviously doesn't apply, and reading it would confuse the customer and give them bad information, possibly leading to them calling back? Supervisor A: You must read the entire script verbatim every time. Yeah, gotta love it. At least I technically report to Supervisor B, maybe he will be less of a dick, but I've learned from previous jobs how not to give a poo poo when supervisors don't use basic logic.
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May 17, 2014 21:07
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There is no way to not want to kill yourself while working at a call center. I spent 6 months doing political fundraising. This wasn't cold calling; everyone had previously donated before and given their phone numbers. But the amount of (deserved) negative feedback we got was unbearable. poo poo made me have anxiety stomach aches the entire time. And it's still the only job that did that to me. Also, I only worked evening shifts because I was in school at the time. So I always called during 5-9pm and it was way worse than an afternoon shift calling polite grandparents.
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May 17, 2014 21:12
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Hello Sailor posted:Switch to an inbound, non-sales program/center. Take courses while you're there so you can eventually not work at a call center. I was inbound support on two programs: one for a credit card, one for an airline. Nothing but people screaming at me stranded at a hectic airport with hosed up travel plans (often with screaming children) or people who think the credit card company is stealing their money (and they are!). You didn't talk to me unless you had a problem. Got laid off just before the holidays after giving my all for a year and a half, and decided to take the opportunity to polish off my bullshit university degree with a short community college course for paralegals. About to start my for-credit internship now and soon I'll be making more money than my old supervisors who never gave a gently caress about me. TOTALLY NOT BITTER ABOUT CALL CENTERS/THE ECONOMY
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May 17, 2014 22:44
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I read this article recently and it helped me feel better about my lovely job, I've started saving for a trip to Spain to walk the Camino for 2 months: http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/want-travel-get-job-hate/ Call center jobs are a dime a dozen, you can easily find another when you get back. Probably even at the same place.
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May 18, 2014 16:55
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mechacop posted:This is a really important answer. I feel like with each day, I am becoming more and more empathetic and able to build that relationship with the customer. I feel like by doing so, I'm really starting to improve my own social skills in my personal life. What a positive outlook on life. Keep doing it. I've done it for longer than a person should, and eventually you'll find this. Very few customers truly give a gently caress about you. You are the mouth for the company, but everything you say is someone elses words, policies, and procedures. The customer will take their dislike of the company out on you, and you have no power. Going to be five days until they can get a service man out? That is your problem even though you aren't in charge of staffing, nor did you cause that blizzard that quintupled the number of service calls in the customers area. The customer can't be reasoned with. You can apologize, empathize, they don't care. They need their service on by tomorrow or else and no other answer will satisfy. This isn't every call, but they are the ones that stand out. The easy part of the job doesn't bother you, you fix the thing, resolve the call, and go on. The job becomes defined by the negative interactions where you can not please the customer, and they take it out on you. So you stop caring. If you can't fix it, and they don't care what you say if you can't fix it, then why should you care? So there goes that empathy thing. Now its just a game to get through the day with doing as little as possible, getting people off the phone if you can't give them what they want, and keep your work metrics positive. Thankfully call centers value almost any other metric other than satisfying the customer. Keep those call times up, learn to word things to minimize supervisor escalations and maximize one call resolutions, and really gently caress the customer. It is about getting them to call someone else. Do you find people talking to you, that also are working with some other company? "Well company X told me I needed to talk to you because blah blah." This is getting the customer to call someone else and not call back. So now you have to do the same thing. It is your one call resolution stat vs. the person in the call center for the other company. I could go on and on, but basically if you are a person with drive and motivation, spend every free moment getting the gently caress out. Use any benifit the company offers for furthering education, get certifcations, etc. If you are lazy like me, or this is the best job in your area and you can't/won't move, learn to deal with it. I do what I can for people quickly and efficiently, and for the rest I just tell them the bad news, get to the end of the call as best I can, and go on. Konstantin posted:Just started out at a call center, had this exchange: I love this. Basically after a customer calls and we can't satisfy their demands or resolve their issue, and they are clearly unhappy, we HAVE to say "is there anything else I can do for you today?" We have to say this after every call, not just the unhappy customers mind you, but obviously in a logical world you wouldn't throw it in the customers face that you can resolve their issue. People get quite upset and usually have some comments like "you weren't any help at all!" or basically a much nastier version of that sentiment. But hey, when I get QA scored on the call, the fact that I can't help them isn't a negative, but not reciting my script is, so I'm sure to throw in their face that I was of no help so I get that 100% on my QA score. Obviously we've tried pointing out that this makes people angry, and thats not the right thing to do to a customer, but hey maybe they wanted to pay their bill or had something else to ask, so we have to remind them. mechachop, think about your job. You are trying to sell something to someone who is out of work and likely has very little/no income. This is not a thing most people are going to be happy about when they are stressed out 24/7 about their lack of income. You are never going to find satisfaction in that situation. GTFO. jassi007 fucked around with this message at 20:54 on May 18, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 20:43
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2X2 Eyes posted:This. If you have no choice, do as someone mentioned above: try to save some money, make a back up plan and, if possible, hunt for another job while you are there. This is treally good advice. Check out the suicide thread also op if you do give up hope for quick methods of ending your life with zero (0) pain.
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May 19, 2014 04:38
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I work at an inbound call center doing sales and make a lot of money and have a lot of fun, guess I'm lucky.
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May 19, 2014 07:25
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He expended too much energy and got tired
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Dangersim posted:I work at an inbound call center doing sales and make a lot of money and have a lot of fun, guess I'm lucky. Yeah I'm sure if people call you because they want to buy something from you, then it is generally a much better position than outbound calling, or resolving issues with a product or service your company has sold a customer that is not meeting expectations. Those things, cold calls and bad product/service calls, are generally things that put people in grumpy moods.
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May 19, 2014 13:40
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Yeah I worked in an inbound call centre for a major UK bank in their "anti fraud" team (i.e. if someone has a charge they don't recognise, they'd phone). I quite enjoyed it, although you did get the odd dickhead customer. After I was a bit more experienced, they moved me on to outbound calls - I still enjoyed this, as it was calling custoemrs to tell them we'd detected strange behaviour on their account, although I did feel like I was a phisher, as I would have to start with "Hi, this is XX from YY. For security, can you confirm to me your full name and date of birth, please?". They would normally have received a letter beforehand telling them to expect this call, but half of them won't have read it.
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May 19, 2014 23:21
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Ewan posted:Yeah I worked in an inbound call centre for a major UK bank in their "anti fraud" team (i.e. if someone has a charge they don't recognise, they'd phone). I quite enjoyed it, although you did get the odd dickhead customer. After I was a bit more experienced, they moved me on to outbound calls - I still enjoyed this, as it was calling custoemrs to tell them we'd detected strange behaviour on their account, although I did feel like I was a phisher, as I would have to start with "Hi, this is XX from YY. For security, can you confirm to me your full name and date of birth, please?". They would normally have received a letter beforehand telling them to expect this call, but half of them won't have read it. I work for an insurance company in the UK handling inbound calls to register new car claims. The job is a loving paradise compared to some places I've worked, the calls are long (20 to 50 minutes) so the day goes in fast, we're targeted on metrics that are generally simple to achieve, and our audits are based around whether the customer is going to have to call back based on a mistake you made (basically any call that won't result in an angry customer or an angry regulator is a pass). And the internet is unrestricted save videos, uploads and social media. I sometimes help train new staff and you can tell who has worked in a call centre before from the skeptical looks on their faces when we tell them we don't care how long their calls are as long as it's right first time. Whereas a friend of mine works for an outsourcer handling returns for a major online retailer and he gets mercilessly micromanaged and works longer hours for just barely over two-thirds of my wages. And no internet. It's a shame his type of call centre is the norm. 
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May 20, 2014 01:42
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This advice has been said a few times, but I'm going to repeat it. As you work at the call center, look for ways to improve your skillset or knowledge to get a different/better job. That's what I did, working for three months in a call center. I networked relentlessly with people at my company in order to move up, then leveraged my position at the lovely company into moving to a new one. If your company isn't conducive to moving 'up' and out of the call center, just learn a skill on your own (IT isn't very hard, and you can self-train easily, same with any sort of coding if you have the mind for it) or through a school that works with your schedule. The absolute best day of your call center career will be the one where you let your boss know you won't be coming back.
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May 21, 2014 06:53
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My advice is to learn what you can and don't get too attached to the job. If you're not a top performer on metrics, then be ready to be shown the door at anytime. The world is huge and there are plenty of better things out there. Like others, I recall leaving the job being one of my happier days.
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May 22, 2014 16:50
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So just a follow up, I'm lately getting the best numbers in the room and have figured out the script to a tee. I don't even put in effort or look at my screen anymore, and I can still make it through the script while getting people to say yes to me. I've figured out my rhythm, character, and loopholes in the script just enough to start producing really well, and I'm beginning to look forward to going to work and making more commission. I guess I really just needed to get a handle for it, because there are good days and bad days. Relatively speaking though, I feel really lucky to be in such a chill call center as opposed to a routine one.
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May 22, 2014 23:44
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There's no way. Start looking for a new job before you're totally turned into a shell. At least it's easy to interview because you probably don't work M-F.mechacop posted:This is a really important answer. I feel like with each day, I am becoming more and more empathetic and able to build that relationship with the customer. I feel like by doing so, I'm really starting to improve my own social skills in my personal life.
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May 23, 2014 05:59
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:There's no way. Start looking for a new job before you're totally turned into a shell. At least it's easy to interview because you probably don't work M-F. I'm full time 8-4, M-F every week and M-S on every second week. So not really a lot of time.
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May 23, 2014 22:33
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Quite frankly, you won't. Every day is going to be a constant battle with anxiety and depression. You will gain weight. You will get sick. You will become more dependent on alcohol than you ever thought possible. Really, the only thing halfway decent about call center work is the joy when you quit. Call center work is a special kind of hell where you are ground into servile paste. As someone who used to work in one of these hellholes. GET THE gently caress OUT. Do whatever it takes, take classes, schmooze, apply every day, offer to work for family if you can. Whatever you do..GET THE gently caress OUT! Call centers are where dreams go to die, don't be caught in that trap. OH and you will never forget your stupid phone greeting...ever. "Thank you for calling {redacted}. Welcome to Technical support! My name is Madmarker, how can I help you?" RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:I thought this too but that won't last. How ridiculously loving true, the honeymoon period lasts about a month, mostly because you are excelling and still care. Do you know how you can tell who is the new person in a call center? They still smile. Oh I guess I should give my credentials here, I worked for a year and a half as a outsourced Technical Support/Customer Service agent for a VOIP company. Madmarker fucked around with this message at 23:20 on May 23, 2014 |
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May 23, 2014 23:02
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Madmarker posted:Quite frankly, you won't. Every day is going to be a constant battle with anxiety and depression. You will gain weight. You will get sick. You will become more dependent on alcohol than you ever thought possible. Really, the only thing halfway decent about call center work is the joy when you quit. Call center work is a special kind of hell where you are ground into servile paste. Even after you're long gone, by the way, that weight doesn't come back off.
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May 24, 2014 00:52
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