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I work in an insurance claims call center for (mostly) commercial policies. My building takes new loss reports for workers comp, commercial auto, commercial property, and general liability claims (but mostly work comp). We also handle inquiry calls on existing claims, as well as default calls--which usually need to be transferred to policy services anyway, because at least half the default calls are Spanish-speakers who need to pay their bill (and we don't have a loving Spanish options menu  ). I wish policy services handled default calls instead, it would make more sense since they're more often where the defaults end up. But I think they get paid more than us, because they have to be quasi-licensed to bind coverage, so we get stuck with the retards who can't press 1 or 2  I've been there over three years now. It's the best job I've ever had, if only because my experience working in retail was a jungillion times worse. But I still hate this place with the fire of a thousand suns. Mostly because ever since we got a new CEO, they're selling off portions of the company and slowly outsourcing poo poo all over the place. I feel like I'm party to a slow but inevitable brownslide into the hellshitter. They're holding our jobs over our heads like carrots on tree branches at every available opportunity. We had a meeting today (we almost never have meetings, so they're always about some stupid upcoming bullshit changes) where we were told that the higher-ups, who have never outsourced anything customer-facing in the past, are now thinking about considering it for us: -- Department manager: Hay guys! The higher-ups are going to start considering whether they should consider outsourcing our department to India 8 months from now! Us:  Department manager: Just thought you'd like to know! Alright, no questions then? Now back on the floor! Us:  -- Yeah loving right! I mean, we're already old hat at being outsourced, because a bunch of our fax work was outsourced to EXL in '09 and we managed staffing numbers exclusively through attrition, with no lay-offs. But this is different, this is customer-facing. Sending this work to EXL would be loving suicide in this field. Not to mention, our department takes default calls every day from the largest political lobby in America, and they don't take kindly to listening to foreign accents. The San Antonio branch of our department takes their claims and services their policies--old cantankerous incompetent assholes basically make up our entire personal lines bloc. Can you imagine your loving half-deaf grandparents trying to add a car to their auto policy with an Indian rep they can't understand? Me neither. I suspect that the higher-ups will, logically, decide not to outsource my department at all, making all of this a mere power play to force the underlings to fear for our jobs again. I anticipate this given that our last 2 "crises" easily resolved with no layoffs, and during the most recent one we've actually had to hire (because morale dropped so low that attrition was higher than anticipated). I've definitely noticed that they seem to enjoy dropping big-rear end bombs on the rat maze, then everything turns out fine a year later. So why the gently caress should we worry? There's only so much drat I can give before I run out, and I'm all loving out. So color me apathetic, you over-bonused wastrels. -- Bullshittery aside, at least it pays pretty well (not well enough to put anything in savings or ditch the roommates until my car is paid off, but enough not to be living with the folks). And since I work a midday to evening shift instead of early morning, I usually get to spend the second half of it entering claims from faxes, which saves me from being on the phone every single second. It could definitely be worse... at least I don't have to sell poo poo. However, I wouldn't recommend call center work to anybody. Not even mine, which as far as call centers go is fairly cushy. The managers suck, the coworkers suck (unless you're an old married woman with kids), the QA department sucks and is out to get you, the callers especially suck, and the work sucks. Anytime I meet someone else who's remotely cool, they're gone within 6 months. I'm going prematurely gray, I've gained like 60 pounds, I had to start smoking cigarettes again after successfully quitting once before, and have had to smoke progressively more as time goes by. I'm alternately suicidal and homicidal. During an average commute to work, I will fantasize at least 4 times about getting T-boned by a semi truck so I won't have to go into work today. I'd say  helps, but my former supplier is now my ex so  fake edit: it's really loving hard to quit smoking with a job like this, but I'm still trying. I'm almost up to day 3 nic-free, totally cold turkey. Which is how I quit the first time I quit, before I had this job. It's theoretically possible. I just have to make it through Saturday morning and the physical withdrawals will be gone. The biggest issue is resisting a goddamn relapse when I have to talk to more loving morons next week 
martyrdumb fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Sep 30, 2011 |
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Sep 30, 2011 08:12
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My job was a lot better before they installed monitoring software. Our calls have always been recorded of course, and going over audio recordings for QA (along with reading the claim system output, sometimes weeks after the call was complete) was how it worked when I started there. Now they have an application that records your screen as video, along with the audio, so they can actually see what we're doing as we're doing it. The problem, of course, is that I like to gently caress around on the internet during dead air on a call, which is a no-no. But before they installed spyware, nobody was any the wiser. And it wasn't affecting my times or customer service anyway. blahh
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Oct 2, 2011 20:29
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Drimble Wedge posted:Have there ever been any serious studies done on the psychological effects of that level of monitoring? Because, seriously, working in a call centre means you're living the life that the Yeah my performance tends to decrease as my perception of being micromanaged increases. Leave me alone, and I'll do just fine. Spy on me, and I'll gently caress around and waste time just to spite the company. It hasn't gotten me fired yet, but my recent QAs have been excessively unfair and anal-retentive. Either the QA reps are grilling everyone extra-hard as of late, or I'm being set up to be "involuntarily separated." Guess I'll find out which, next year!
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Oct 3, 2011 10:53
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brigade are always claiming to have. It's hilarious what people will do with work email, though; at my old job a guy (married) and a girl (unmarried) got fired for sending, oh, let us call them unprofessional emails to each other.
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I would get severance if I were laid off by my call center, because I work at an insurance company and all of the employees get severance (one week per year of service). Except temps. We work in the same building as adjusters and underwriters, so it probably makes a difference when you're considered "part of" the company. I'm sure that if they end up outsourcing claim intake calls like they're considering, they wouldn't pay THOSE call center employees severance after a layoff. Because they'd be working at a freestanding call center that isn't considered part of the core company. Drimble Wedge posted:Oh, and gently caress interrupters. You know the ones. 
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Oct 13, 2011 06:41
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froglet posted:Turns out nobody had switched on the dishwasher or done any dishes at work since Thursday or Friday. People really should be washing their own dishes, but if nothing else then the sups should be checking that they're done by the end of every day shift. It's also illogical that you would get in trouble for work other people didn't do. Do you have a boss you can talk to about this? Accountability should fall on the manager from the previous shift who failed to follow through. I can't believe all of this poo poo even needs to be said. I just wasted two paragraphs about adults who can't wash their own loving coffee cups.
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Oct 16, 2011 20:29
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mobby_6kl posted:I'm surprised they make some of you clean up after yourselves (speaking of first world problems...), surely it's cheaper to hire someone for minimum wage to clean up than it is have a bunch of employees spend their time washing dishes? Besides, the cost of employing a whole new person is generally more than just their salary. There's life insurance, health insurance, or if those aren't offered than they at least have to offer FMLA/disability/work comp coverage in case they get hurt. etc
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Oct 20, 2011 03:57
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I'm wrestling with whether to send this email to another CSR's supervisor. On one hand, it's ratting out another call center worker, and I'm all about solidarity. On the other hand, I'm sick of assholes dumping calls they should be handling themselves, especially when they purposely dump them into the wrong queue, and especially when they don't tell the caller what they're doing. And since the other CSR works in another state, I've never met him, never will, and there will be no social consequences. Here's the email (the stuff in italics is redacted to protect the "innocent"): Hi, (other csr's boss's name). I'm not sure you know me, as I work in (my office). But I'm on the transactional team, so we've interacted via email a few times in the past. I am concerned because a CSR on your team dumped a (certain kind of auto claim that I don't handle) into the (kind of auto claim I do handle) auto queue today, and it came to me. He started a claim with the caller but failed to pull up the policy, then did a cold transfer. The caller was confused as to why he had been transferred to me, because the CSR had not explained it--as I recall the caller’s words, he had been on the phone with the guy, and then he was just gone. The worst part was, I couldn't even help the caller because we don’t take (those kind of) auto claims in (my office)--I had to transfer him right back to a (that kind of) auto claim rep. The policy# the caller gave me pulled right up on my first try, and it was undoubtedly (that kind of) auto policy. It didn’t even have a (special) policy designator, which might be mildly excusable to confuse for (the kinds of auto claims I do handle). So I'm confused as to why the rep thought it was appropriate to transfer the call. The rep also failed to do a warm transfer and let me know that a claim had already been started, as is procedure. I found out who he was because his alias was logged in (our claim intake system), along with his aborted call ID, which pulled up when I searched for the caller's last name. I did a reverse-alias lookup in Outlook, which indicated the representative was (John Doe). This has been happening increasingly often lately, with (those kind of) calls being dumped into (my) queue, which is why I invested effort into searching for this information. I hope it's appropriate to bring this to your attention. If it's not, I apologize and would like guidance as to how to address similar issues in the future. Thanks for your time! --(my name & office)
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Nov 30, 2011 20:20
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Thanks for the advice. I decided to sleep on it and I'm not going to send it. My normal boss is out on maternity leave for the next 3 months, and my interim boss is an incompetent breasticle, and it might raise some hackles if I go around his head. meh. I don't give a poo poo about this place anymore. I just found out the other day that the way they calculate our QA ratings is utterly hosed-up. I just can't care anymore. I'm going to do some jagerbombs when I get home tonight, they'll make me feel better.
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Dec 2, 2011 19:38
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Thankfully I have a common first name with no homophones, so nobody messes up my name unless they're deaf. Although I have worked with an Eola, Avivah, and Jamila (black ladies) who consistently have to spell their name to callers.legsarerequired posted:- I really wish there was some kind of free non-profit interpreter service for people who are hard-of-hearing. I just feel so stressed out when I'm screaming something repeatedly into the phone for someone that just can't hear me, and it happens multiple times a day, every day. I'm aware that there is an interpreter service for deaf people who need to make phone calls, and I wish there was something similar for people who are just too hard-of-hearing to use the phone effectively. It sounds like you and I have similar jobs. We have a very substantial elderly customer base that I rarely have to service. I take commercial claims (whoopee), but we take default personal lines calls when needed for overflow. The only thing we can do for them is look up the adjuster's name on existing claims, though. If they need ANYTHING else (to file a new claim, to ask for any claim details, to ask a coverage question, to make a policy change), we have to transfer and babysit them through the menus. So, because they couldn't sit through a phone menu and push buttons for 10 seconds, they get to listen to hold music while I push buttons for them. Lovely.  I think people commonly think they're getting around waiting on hold by pressing zero, but generally you're getting to an operator who will just have to transfer you anyway. I can understand losing patience through a 5 (or more) tiered menu--like when I tried to call the IRS last year--but ours is not bad at all.I sit next to a row of new hires, who take new personal auto losses (it's part of a cross-training initiative, which I hope to god I don't become part of, because my entire office has only handled commercial lines since its inception). They have a whole different scripting for PL auto claims than I do for commercial auto claims that involves more compassionate phrasing. Their acknowledgement phrase is "I'm sorry to hear that, was anybody hurt?" vs mine, "I'd be glad to help you with that today." Because people reporting their own auto claims are bound to be more emotional than an HR manager reporting an accident to vehicle 687 in their fleet of 1k. Those reps also often get last-minute calls, and since I work til 8pm I never do anymore. Our CL volume drops waaaay off after 5pm PST, but the PL calls keep on coming. My least-favorite kind of call is from small business owners who are very resistant about filing legitimate work comp claims. They'll whine and whine about how the employee is taking advantage of them, wants to collect free money all day, is taking revenge on the business that's been SO KIND to them (yeah minimum wage for 35 hours a week and no benefits, you're so kind), and complain that the employee got a lawyer (often with the added bonus of them thinking they know more about medical problems than a fuckin' doctor). Then we'll get to the injury description and it's something that was totally NOT the employee's fault--fell off a ladder in high winds, got their hand run over by a lawnmower, a car hit them while they were planting flowers, or whatever. There aren't enough in the world for these cheap assholes, but I have to maintain a professional demeanor. It gets very trying not to shame them, but I figure the adjuster and the late-reporting fines will give them a reality check later. So at least I can smirk.
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Jan 27, 2012 06:19
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Buried alive posted:As a person who has done this, that operator is basically what I'm after. When I call I'm after some help with <problem>. If <problem> is not in the call menu, or if it's buried two or three levels deep and I miss it, my last resort is to get around it to a human who can either help me or transfer me to a different human who will be able to help me. Staying on hold or not isn't part of the equation for me. It probably shouldn't be for others doing the same, but, well, this is partially a "bitch about stupid customers" thread, so there you go.  Hi, this is myname with mycompanyname, how can I help you? My account number is 1234567890. My bill last month was $100 more than it used to be. Oka-- I'm not sure why, insurance is such a ripoff. Look up my account and tell me why it's so high. Ma'am, I-- I mean, I've never filed a claim! So-- Not a single claim on my policy history! There is no reason for my premium to go up.  Ma'am-- I mean this economy is just terrible. I have to pay more for everything, and now I have to pay more for insurance? So, did you pull up my account yet? Why did my rates increase? *pause* I apologize, ma'am, but you'll need to speak to the billing department. I'm in claims and I don't have access to your policy or payment information. Well why didn't you say that in the first place? FINE, transfer me. *sigh*
martyrdumb fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Jan 28, 2012 |
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Jan 28, 2012 03:39
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AA is for Quitters posted:hooray for being good at telemarketing. This is the point at which you start working just hard enough not to get fired. Stop making your numbers. It doesn't make any logical sense, but it's working for me. I have my old boss back again for a few months while my new (and much better) boss is out on maternity leave. He was questioning why I was producing half as much as I used to when I started (I gradually decreased my numbers over time, but he didn't see the progression since I was with another boss). I made up some bullshit about being more thorough and attentive to the customer experience. But I don't want to get pigeonholed as the person who's too good to promote. There's also the fact that the harder you work, the fewer people they have to hire.
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Feb 16, 2012 10:44
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sbaldrick posted:Do you work for the government as I know if you live in Canada you want to work for a Service Canada call centre. 40k a year, government hours, no call monitoring by anyone (it's illegal) plus after a while they let you into other departments. Wait, how does the company do QA if higher-ups can't review calls after the fact?
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Feb 26, 2012 08:18
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sbaldrick posted:corporate call centres are very different then a call centre like most of these ones. It would basically be talking to people that work in stores bitching about things. It's the best kind of call centre job. Yeah I'd say B2B call centers are bound to be more pleasant than dealing with customers or the general public. Inflexibility on salary is a bad sign. However, I still think you should apply for the job. You may not think salary is negotiable, but you should always try to haggle when they give you the official offer. You might be surprised. If they're still inflexible after interviewing and offer you the job, though, and the wage sucks, I'd decline the offer.
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Mar 3, 2012 18:11
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I'm so tired of my job that I've completely stopped caring whether I get fired or not. Paradoxically, that makes my time on the clock much more enjoyable. Thus far, I have: Spent 2-5 minutes in after-call mode, after every single call, for weeks on end. Clocked in 2-6 minutes late every day (more than that would be counted as a tardy). Given people information that we are forbidden to give out (whether a claim is open or closed, liability determinations, internal claim notes, poo poo like that). Hung up on people who put me on hold (you're calling me, motherfuckers, call back when you have time for this poo poo). Blind-transferred people into oblivion if I didn't want to deal with their problem, after asking them to hold. Blatantly hung up on assholes. Spent half the time I am supposed to be entering faxes loving around on the internet. And, when I get a multiple claim call (that fucks my adherence and weekly call time all to hell), I take the first claim then transfer them back to get somebody else to do the rest (after I ask them to hold for just a moment, heh). And here's the kicker: I've done ALL of this without a single negative repercussion. Either nobody's noticed, or nobody gives a poo poo. It's so liberating.
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Mar 16, 2012 03:31
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legsarerequired posted:The main thing holding me back is that I currently make $38,000 a year and I don't want to take a paycut yet (yes, I know that's crazy and unreasonable for my post-college work history). Same here. I'm pulling in almost $30k with my shift differential (could be more but I refuse to do OT, I'm burned-out enough as it is). I applied around to other call centers in the area, and none pay as good. I got this job pre-recession, which sucks a bag of dicks because I can't find any other companies willing to pay that much and match my current benefits.
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Mar 20, 2012 08:10
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I will say, the nice thing about working in insurance is you only deal with customers who have something worth insuring. So, while I get an unfair share of calls from crackpots and belligerent assholes (insofar as having to deal with even 1 crackpot or belligerent rear end in a top hat, ever, is unfair), I don't have to deal with the lowest rung of society on a regular basis. I'm betting it's a lot worse for employees in cell phone or cable tv call centers. Because no matter how broke-rear end a deadbeat is, you can rely on them "needing" their phone and television. It's gotta suck to deal regularly with people I never have to worry about, like the uninsurable, people who are too mentally deficient to get a driver's license, and people who are too financially irresponsible to buy a home or car. Still, I manage to be unfailingly nice, even to the borderline-retarded and the criminally-negligent. I talk to a lot of people who are both, unfortunately, since I take work comp claims every day. Rant time: some ruddy bint called claims today at 730pm and insisted on making a payment for her employer's work comp policy. I told her firmly (though apologetically) that customer service was closed for the day, and she would have to call back in the morning. But she is very upset with our horrible customer service! It's not her fault she called after business hours to make a payment over the phone on the last possible day before incurring a late fee! By god I am going to help her! She is not paying a late fee because billing just happened to not be open when she called!  gently caress off bint, call back tomorrow, there is poo poo-all claims can do for you. Unfortunately, my department is required to be open 24/7. We are the only department that functions this way. If you don't understand how this works, you should not be allowed to be responsible for paying your company's insurance bill.
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Jun 6, 2012 03:39
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Nobody should ever have their life threatened over their job. But, it's call center 101 for reps to never give out their last names. I never do this. First name, last initial if they insist on more. Firm but polite redirects if they ask for my last name. This has never failed me.
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Jun 9, 2012 06:22
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I hung up on a guy this week. He asked me whether making a claim would cause his rates to go up. Boilerplate question, boilerplate answer (there are many factors that determine your rates, we cannot determine what your new rate will be until your next renewal period, at which time you can blahblahblah). He didn't accept the answer. Then I said, "Sir, that's how insurance works. If the underwriting department thinks your claims history makes you more likely to file claims in the future, then your rate will increase." He didn't accept this, got rude, and asked to speak to the underwriting department. "Sir, customers cannot speak to the underwriting department. Even I can't speak to the underwriting department. Besides, they would be going off of incomplete information, because your policy isn't up for renewal yet." At this point, he demanded a supervisor or another department. I told him that nobody would be able to answer his question satisfactorily, because his question doesn't have an answer. He called me a liar, so I hung the gently caress up. If I hadn't hung the gently caress up, I would have shouted, "What do you think we are, you bitter twisted old fuckwit?? fortune-tellers!?" and THEN hung the gently caress up. So I think I chose the lesser of 2 evils. I am so loving burnt out on this poo poo. I goddamn hate old people, stubborn old people, stubborn and stupid old people, but most of all stubborn stupid old people who live in loving Jersey. I have transferred off calls without saying a word for weeks now, just because I didn't feel like talking. Not even a single write-up. I really think nobody there gives a poo poo. As long as I pull down perfect claim QAs (and I do), nobody bothers me about my phone shenanigans. On one hand, I feel like I really want to get fired because I will finally be goddamn free. On the other hand, I have debt. fml
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Jul 3, 2012 07:02
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Congrats, man. My fourth anniversary is in 20 days... I've got all the makings of a lifer. I'm jealous of people who get out because, by the time I get home, I'm too drained to even update my loving resume, much less look for another job. The one time I tried to look for another job, I couldn't find anything with comparable pay to my hourly+differential that wasn't just another call center. The fiery flames of hell don't have a thing on being forced to listen to stupid old people ramble about their car problems and financial woes 40 hours a week. 
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Jul 27, 2012 16:50
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Hahah! The reason my long ACW/call avoidance has gone unnoticed is because our management can't figure out how to do reports on the "new" phone system. Yeah, the phone system that's been in place for 6 months now. The phone system they stopped rolling out after a quarter of the company got it and complained night-and-loving-day about it. It's hilarious, even the managers are on our side at this festering shitpit. My boss told me he is unable to monitor calls live anymore (they can only go over recordings+screencaps after the fact, and we never get QAd on anything shorter than 5 minutes). Oh, and! My softphone comes with a handset, and it is literally impossible to distinguish between a hang-up and an unintentional disconnect. *snicker* So, I've been hanging up on assholes and transferring assholes into oblivion and hanging out in ACW ever since, with zero ramifications. Needless to say, my job satisfaction is very high. A first writeup for call avoidance, incidentally, is not a term-able offense. I'm sure they'll figure out the reports eventually, but I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing until I get called on it.
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Aug 31, 2012 09:16
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Ever since my department moved from a QA rubric to a "holistic" QA method, there's always room to argue your score up. Like yeah, I made a mistake in forgetting to ask one question, but my good tone and the customer's high satisfaction made up for it. My supervisor has told us to argue any score that's less than 100%. There's a very good chance of getting it bumped up at least a half-point (and on a 3.0 scale, that's significant). The corresponding bad part of the holistic method is that a single typo in a really important field (like SSN or last name) can bring an otherwise-perfect claim QA down to a 1.0 (the lowest rating possible).
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Sep 14, 2012 16:42
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cuntvalet posted:You guys actually get 100%s? I've never given anything higher than a 97%. The way our QA works is, calls are scored a scale from 1 (worst possible call) to 3 (good call, can have minor flaws but nothing that substantially affects the claim process). You can only get scored down in half-point increments. The next-to-highest score is a 2.5. It's not possible for us to get a free-form score like 97%. We have an overall quality index that we have to surpass to get a "satisfactory" rating at the end of the year. I believe it's .79 (although they change the target year to year, it was only .69 or so when I started). Oh, and 2.0 & 2.5 scores both have a quality index of .66, because our QA department head is a loving moron. Every call starts at a 3. You are expected to get 3s most of the time, unless you are retarded/lazy. You can't get a whole lot of 2.5s without dragging your index below .79, since a 2.5 counts for .66. To put it in terms of the American grading system, we have to maintain at least a B-average when the only possible test scores are 100%, 66%, or 33%. It's loving stupid as hell. So the scores are generally slanted toward the 100% end of that spectrum, unless you're retarded or lazy. Anyway, so far I've only gotten one 2.5 all year, and the rest of my scores are all 3s. And I'm #10 in my department (obviously below the people who've gotten straight 3s on every call), which consists of about 80 people. Maybe slightly less, we have a new hire class now and people quit left and right. Goddamn that was a lot of  . It's a dumb system though, making it hard to describe concisely.
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Sep 16, 2012 05:29
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My job has gone down the shitter as of late, but it's mostly due to technology and partial outsourcing. We upgraded from hard phones to softphones this year. At the same time, our calls started getting visually-monitored in realtime (as opposed to the old audio recordings, no video or even screencaps). Before, nobody could tell if we were surfing the internet when a caller put us on hold. It didn't matter as long as it didn't affect the sound of the call. But now if you alt tab during a call and it gets QA'd, you get docked. Even if you're on hold for like 5 minutes (which happened to me twice last week). gently caress that poo poo, I'm not sitting there for 5 minutes twiddling my thumbs. I'd have blown my brains out 3 years ago if that was a requirement. And with the new tech came a hard-on for cross-training (which has got to be businesspeak for "training that makes you cross"). The more lines of business each rep learns how to handle, the fewer employees are needed, and the higher our occupancy becomes. It's great because we're more flexible! loving hooray. Our center hours were also pushed back, due to midday hold times and lack of calls in the evening (they shoved those off onto our 24-hour office in another state). And because all the paper claims we used to handle have since been outsourced. So now, we close at 8pm instead of midnight. We lost a good amount of staff when the hours changed. When I started this job, there was plenty of downtime between nearly every call, every day. It was vanishingly rare to have anyone on hold. We always have calls on hold now, and no downtime. None. People are starting to camp out in ACW for multiple minutes after every call they take. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they start live-monitoring that, too.
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Sep 24, 2012 07:45
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For customer service week, I got a piece of cake and 4 hershey's kisses. They raffle poo poo off for people who do a bunch of loving crossword puzzles, but they don't give us time to do them. I think it'd be better for morale to cater a small lunch on Friday instead of giving a chance to win one of 20 $10 gift cards. I'll be damned if I'm going to work off the clock for a chance at 45 minutes' worth of pay.
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Oct 6, 2012 14:45
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Loving Life Partner posted:My company recently blocked SA forums, but I was able to get the IP for forums.somethgingawful.com and use that instead. So yeah. YMMV though. What's the IP?
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Oct 11, 2012 11:47
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Spent 4.5 years in the same call center now (insurance company). I hosed around so much on the phone last year. So, so much call avoidance: racked up massive ACW, was late coming back from breaks/lunches on a daily basis, hung up on rude people, transferred foreign language calls back into the queue instead of getting a translator, hit mute and recycled random calls from my phone back into the queue when I didn't feel like talking. But I just found out that due to the new phone system we started using early in 2012, they couldn't track ANY of those metrics--no ACW, no call times, no # transfers or where we transferred to, nothing. So my annual review was based entirely on attendance and claim QA scores (no calls shorter than 10 minutes ever get QA-checked). And those metrics, being the only 2 I bamfed, means I'm getting a HUGE loving bonus. /fistpump They've said they can track all that poo poo now. We'll see. Haven't seen hide nor hair of January metrics yet.
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Feb 11, 2013 00:58
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Been working at an insurance company call center in IL for 4.5 years. The job is a shitter compared to how it was when I started. They used to send people home early at least once a week because of how dead it was... we've since outsourced our easy calls to India and the Philippines and taken on additional (far more complex) lines of business. The job has just loving sucked donkey dick for 3 years. I'm in the final stages of vetting for another call center job, but it's doing tech support for a local bank... in New loving York. I really need this job. Skype interviewed like a boss. Just waiting on my references to check out. PLEASE GOD LET ME GET OUT OF THIS SHITHOLE. Also, my new neighbor in cubicleland is none other than Dilbert's Loud Howard. If I don't get this job, I swear I'm going to choke a bitch. martyrdumb fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Apr 27, 2013 |
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Apr 27, 2013 07:03
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I finally heard back from the bank I interviewed with. And... I'm hired! I put in my 2 weeks' notice yesterday! I'm moving to HOLYSHITNEWYORK!! In... holy poo poo, 13 days.  Unfortunately, I'll be moving from one call center to another. But I'm also moving from a massive soulless corporate behemoth in the Fortune 500 with concomitant arcane rules and technology (still using IE6 ffs) to a small tech-savvy local bank filled with rainbows and bunnies. They have a mobile app. They interviewed me on Skype. With a webcam. They're going to give me a company laptop.  Okay, so nothing to write home about in the grand scheme of things, but comparatively I am moving the gently caress on up.I did have to take a small paycut since I'm moving to an area with a lower cost of living. I'll be getting way better benefits, though. They provide vision coverage and will pay for my gym membership, neither of which I get here. And it'll be the first time I actually respect the company I'm working for. I can't help but think it'll make a massive difference in working conditions when the CEO lives and works in the same city as the peons. Not to mention, I'll be doing a job that's more closely aligned with my nerdy-rear end interests. Instead of taking insurance claims from retards, I'll be resetting retards' passwords and teaching them how to use the company's mobile app. I can't wait! Oh, and now I have an excuse to go shopping for fancy clothes, because I have none! We wear jeans every day at my current job. The bank's dress code is business formal.  I'll probably end up back here to rant once the shine of the new job wears off. But until then, optimism ho!
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May 10, 2013 00:38
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New job, website support. Still in a call center, but the environment is way less regulated than I'm used to--very little oversight, calls aren't recorded, my boss doesn't give a gently caress as long as we answer 90% of calls we're presented with (which essentially means we can safely ignore 10% of the ones that come to us), I can go pee anytime I want with no hassle, and no more cubicles! Been a pretty easy month and a half so far, mostly just password resets... until today. Last night we did a server migration from onsite hosting to an offsite vendor. That meant a completely new URL for my department's website. But instead of doing the sane, logical thing and implementing a redirect, they just changed the link destination of the login button. So everyone who had the page cached (meaning, everyone) got a "page not found" error when trying to log in. So our phones were queuing off the hook and I spent 8 hours telling idiots and assholes how to clear their browser cache. Now truthfully, my job wouldn't exist without the idiots, but I could do without the assholes and the hard-of-hearing-I-don't-wanna-wear-my-hearing-aid-you-can't-make-me-now-speak-up-please-oh-you-can't-yell-any-louder-dear? Oh well, at least we got bagels.
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Jul 10, 2013 00:26
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Gothmog1065 posted:I must really hate myself. We had a bad storm come through last weekend and all of a sudden we're in "OH MY loving GOD WE'RE SO BEHIND" That's crazy good. At my last call center, for every hour of overtime we worked in a week, we got one entry into a drawing to win a  FREE IPAD! Yeah, that's such a good incentive. With over 100 people in our department, there were plenty of people working themselves to the bone for nothing but 1.5x pay. Because (chance at a) FREE IPAD! Keep chasing that carrot, guys.
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Jul 10, 2013 18:29
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that they opened up overtime. I picked up 30 hours. But they do incentives, which make it better. Each 2 hours of overtime I work I get a $20 gift card, so I'm now making pay + (pay*.5) + 10. an hour. not too shabby.
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My employer duplicated almost 3000 transfers today. Including over a thousand mortgage and auto payments. Many balances are negative, overdraft fees are being assigned automatically, checks are bouncing... Now it's up to us to reverse everything within 24 hours while keeping a smile in our voices. What kills me is, we know which admin hosed it up. The dumbshit was in my manager's office laughing about it afterward. Isn't this the kind of mistake that a head would normally roll for? We'll be dealing with (justifiably) pissed customers all week. But hey, it's ok because he bought us bagels. Right? P.S. Never open an account here. No, I can't say where I work. But seriously, don't.
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Jul 16, 2013 15:31
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cuntvalet posted:Found out today that a coworker (who is rather quite upbeat, happy and friendly) had been on leave of absence because he tried to kill himself due to job stress.
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Jul 18, 2013 04:02
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SpartanIV posted:I like wearing nice clothes to work. I like having the option. You can wear nice clothes with a more casual dress-code. The reverse is not true.
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Jul 19, 2013 15:30
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If there are rules against having paper at your desk and no internet to play around on, I wouldn't worry about what to do with your time between calls. Because chances are, you won't get any. Good luck at the job, though. What really helped calm me down on my first day was the realization that no matter how shittily someone treated me, I'd never have to talk to them ever EVER again.
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Jul 20, 2013 01:06
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SiGmA_X posted:At the two centers I worked at, griping about customers was 100% normal. We also would tell each other to STFU if we didn't want to hear it. No one had a problem with that either!
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Aug 12, 2013 07:30
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liz posted:After reading this thread a bit, I'm a little afraid to post this... But anyways, I had an interview earlier this week for what is essentially an inbound call center dealing with FMLA benefits. I have never worked in a call center before, and am honestly just trying to better my financial situation and earn more money. The benefits and pay are already better than my current job (along with better hours M-F 830-5) so on paper it looks good, but basically how hosed am I? Am I going to completely hate this? There's no guarantee I'd even get the job, but its hard to say no to something that is seemingly better than my current position (Teller).
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Aug 22, 2013 20:22
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I used to sit next to a real-life Loud Howard. I ended every shift with a full-body headache. The only way to fix it, unfortunately, was to get a new loving job.
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Sep 1, 2013 06:29
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I've had some dumb dreams about my call center. Getting assigned to take my phone home at night and keep falling asleep and missing calls, that kind of thing. No matter what your job is, you're going to dream about it.
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Sep 6, 2013 14:00
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WampaLord posted:Y'all need to learn how to compartmentalize your thoughts. Despite years of call center work, I've never answered the phone by using my work intro or had nightmare thoughts about callers. Granted, maybe I'm the lucky exception and should check my privilege.
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Sep 6, 2013 20:48
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everyday. That should help with the voices, or at least make them more fun to talk to.
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you ate my cat posted:Is it weird that I'm sitting here wondering if I could have de-escalated that call? Screams or a single curse word on their own get a first warning from me. If he didn't calm down, it would be an instant hang-up. I've never worked anywhere that didn't let you hang up on abusive callers, as long as you warn them first.
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Sep 13, 2013 00:39
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