Working in Call Centers

faceman

kittenkiller wrote:

Hi,

If you guys could come up with 4 or 5 things that'd make call centre life a little more pleasant, what would they be?

We're switching our department to a more call centre-type envirnoment and I'd be really interested to know how to not fall into the robot/battery hen atmosphere you guys are describing.
I know that the customers will always be problematic, but until the killing spree that won't change.

Any advise?

I suggest reading a book about management and morale called "fish!" and taking putting its principles into use. Google it. (I couldnt be ar$ed postin a link, sorry!)

J.S. Pill

kittenkiller wrote:

Hi,

If you guys could come up with 4 or 5 things that'd make call centre life a little more pleasant, what would they be?

We're switching our department to a more call centre-type envirnoment and I'd be really interested to know how to not fall into the robot/battery hen atmosphere you guys are describing.
I know that the customers will always be problematic, but until the killing spree that won't change.

Any advise?

When you typed "management consultancy" into google did this thread come up? Very strange:rolleyes:

I'm joking - I admire the fact that you're eager to avoid a "battery hen atmosphere"

I don't think I'd be in much of a position to tell you how to get the best results for your business but from a worker's perspective a few pointers might include:

-making sure you're appropriately staffed - in many businesses staff shortages can be dealt with temporarily by OT but it isn't that simple with answering phones. If your employees are under constant all-day pressure to answer calls without pause quality will suffer

-give regular and appropriate feedback. An agent will not know how they are performing and will not have the chance to improve unless they're given quality feedback. I find that a lot of places rely on quantitative statistics for measuring performance. Stats may be very amenable to power point presentations but often have sh!t all value besides that.

I'm sure I could offer a few more points but I'd have to know a bit more about the nature of your business.

Hope it helps.

Anna23

I was working for the finance department but I was dealing with customers over the phone, I was doing this for about one year, when all of a sudden we got moved into a building with customer care and we were no longer part of finance but customer care. the head of customer care sat us down and told us nothing will change....so we all said excellent, 4 weeks down the line a new manager was hired, who basically transformed it into a call centre, its been a year since that was done, it was very bad in the beginning considering the fact that I was able to get up from my desk and go get a coffee whenever I wanted, without logging into a special code. anyway I've been here 2 years, I had numerous problems with management and HR, I almost got fired once back in February, I had explained to them I did not sign a contact for a call centre but for finance, anyway the union helped a lot and I believe because of them I am still here, the reason why I havent left its because I like the ppl I work with and I get on with them. its close to home, there are many negative things about this place but at the end of the day I am on a finance salary not a call centre salary hence why I am still here, well one of the reasons anyway. I am so glad I was a member of the union though.
It might have been changed to a call centre but they still have to follow the previous finance "rules" we had in place which is excellent!

Wook

sorry to rock the boat but i have been working in Call centers for the last 8 years, and they give a lot of chances to people who otherwise never had any, work hard and you move up do nothing and stay on the phone.
From my own experience its people that sit there day in and day out bitching about how life is hell in a call center and do absolutly nothing about it that are venting the loudest.
Any decent sized CC will have some training facilities or career plan or a decent HR that can help you along the way, but only i you want to.

I knew people who came in every day and got their paycheck every month and were perfectly happy with that. It provided them money for things they wanted to do. I also know people who arrived with no degree or experience and went to become a manager.

Off course its not the best of jobs, its not suppose to be something you do for ages. But you can learn a few things on the phone. You be surprised how many people i met who could not ask a few simple questions to get a solution.

J.S. Pill

Wook wrote:

sorry to rock the boat but i have been working in Call centers for the last 8 years, and they give a lot of chances to people who otherwise never had any, work hard and you move up do nothing and stay on the phone.
From my own experience its people that sit there day in and day out bitching about how life is hell in a call center and do absolutly nothing about it that are venting the loudest.
Any decent sized CC will have some training facilities or career plan or a decent HR that can help you along the way, but only i you want to.

I knew people who came in every day and got their paycheck every month and were perfectly happy with that. It provided them money for things they wanted to do. I also know people who arrived with no degree or experience and went to become a manager.

Off course its not the best of jobs, its not suppose to be something you do for ages. But you can learn a few things on the phone. You be surprised how many people i met who could not ask a few simple questions to get a solution.

I totally agree with all the above.

In one place I worked though, the agents who tended to get promoted were not necessarily the agents who knew the most, were the most competent or who were good with people but the agents who towed the line, the really docile people who management knew would never ever question anything. Really infuriating but I suppose that's the case in a lot of places.

Your last point is bang on - I think we often take it for granted how many interpersonal skills we pick up.

the_syco

Wook wrote:

Any decent sized CC will have some training facilities or career plan or a decent HR that can help you along the way, but only i you want to.

I work in a decent sized call centre, and when I first joined, the manager told us of courses we could do once we were there 6 months, etc. Never heard anything more, even when I chased him up on it later. The HR are incompetent. They've already lost all my details (and everyone in my sections) at least once.

Wook wrote:

Off course its not the best of jobs, its not suppose to be something you do for ages.

I've found it depends on where you work, and where you see yourself in 5 years. If you see yourself as a manger in 5 years, you may be disappointed.

Wook wrote:

But you can learn a few things on the phone.

Agreed. Esp how to handle the most stupidest/irate/dumb/intelligent/civil people the same.

Wook wrote:

You be surprised how many people i met who could not ask a few simple questions to get a solution.

Heh. Agreed 100%

Lizzykins

I had the misfortune to work in one of the Big Two banks call centre and frankly I'd rather eat razor blades than repeat the expererience! It was appalling -from the attitude of management and team leaders to horrible customers on the phone screeching about the ATM in Ballygobackwards not giving receipts. I really needed the money at the time as my kids were small and it was a suitable option from the point of view of hours. I worked several evenings from 7 to past midnight. Your social life goes out the window and your self esteem goes down the pan mighty quickly.
We had no union representation when I arrived and management said there was no need for one! I along with a few others spent the best part of two years fighting for union recognition and the only way we got it in the end was by voting for strike action and following it through 'til the bank conceded!!
One great day for the workers!
These places wouldn't be half as bad if they didn't tie you to the phone like a battery hen. You had to log off to go to the loo or have a break and if you were too long or often gone to the loo you would be pulled up over it.
The work is incredibly boring-we werent allowed to do anything else while waiting for a call so during quiet times you just sat looking at one another.
I got pulled up for talking to a guy one evening on the phone for too long so I gave my resignation on the night. My team leader was a positive b**** who missed her true calling in a concentration camp!
I could write a book on the whole horrors of the place. 21st century sweatshops is what they are.
Thank God I got out after 3 years -I would have cleaned public loos in preference to staying. I'm now in the NGO sector and couldnt be happier.

Anna23

And I thought it was bad here, the only thing that I really really really hate its the supervisor she is a bully makes fun of color people and in general she is a racist, she is from the UK well spent most of her time there( funny enough cause she is of color herself) she is the worst supervisor I have worked with, you have to watch her moods all day long and play along that, just to stay out of her way, but I really dont care, I will have my degree soon and hope the new job next year will be better and different.

But I just tend to bite my lip and ignore all the sh ite that is happening its not worth stressing about, as nothing will be done anyway!

Stephen

kittenkiller wrote:

Hi,

If you guys could come up with 4 or 5 things that'd make call centre life a little more pleasant, what would they be?

We're switching our department to a more call centre-type envirnoment and I'd be really interested to know how to not fall into the robot/battery hen atmosphere you guys are describing.
I know that the customers will always be problematic, but until the killing spree that won't change.

Any advise?

Yeah, don't be anal about stats. I've a few friends who worked in certain call centres that were utterly statistic driven. I worked in an internal corporate support desk where it was much more easy going. Surprise surprise the work got done quite efficiently, employees weren't treated like suspects and everyone got on with everyone else.

Get a decent software system for logging and tracking calls (calls as in incidents or support tickets, not actual telephone calls) and don't be one of those places that requires employees to log the 5 minutes they spent having a poo in the morning

If the manager is around the staff much at all and is any good they'll know who's taking the piss and how to deal with them rather than needing some excel spreadsheet to tell them.

nesf

Stephen wrote:

If the manager is around the staff much at all and is any good they'll know who's taking the piss and how to deal with them rather than needing some excel spreadsheet to tell them.

Definitely. The problem is the amount of inept managers (who think they are good) make the above strategy look like it doesn't work.

kittenkiller

Thanks for the feedback everyone.
We're in a very good position being that we're a brand new department (brought over from another department) and the manager seems very willing to take on suggestions in order to ensure we still have off-phone times to complete our regular duties so hopefully the baterry hen atmosphere won't develop.

Metacortex

John Kimble wrote:

Again, well said. Unfortunately, because our business sells a 'higher-end' consumer electronic product to the UK and Irish market, the majority of our customers tend to be arrogant English middle to upper class snobs who can never concede when they are actually wrong. Nor do they bother themselves with such trivial matters as Terms and Conditions.


.

You and i definitely work in the same place.

Now, UPS have lost my package, what are you going to do about it?

lol

the_syco

Metacortex wrote:

You and i definitely work in the same place.

Now, UPS have lost my package, what are you going to do about it?

lol

Ensure that DHL wasn't meant to pick it up, then ask the people did they get a reciept from the UPS man. or did they just hand it over, and we have no record of it ever being picked up...:D

Anna23

Personal Time

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00:34:53
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I was just told today that I took to many breaks, personal breaks, well I went to the toilety 2 many times today....does anyone know how to deal with somethings like this, as I AM going crazy!!!

The 7 minutes in the morning were for a coffee

John Kimble

Wook wrote:

sorry to rock the boat but i have been working in Call centers for the last 8 years, and they give a lot of chances to people who otherwise never had any, work hard and you move up do nothing and stay on the phone.
From my own experience its people that sit there day in and day out bitching about how life is hell in a call center and do absolutly nothing about it that are venting the loudest.
Any decent sized CC will have some training facilities or career plan or a decent HR that can help you along the way, but only i you want to.

I knew people who came in every day and got their paycheck every month and were perfectly happy with that. It provided them money for things they wanted to do. I also know people who arrived with no degree or experience and went to become a manager.

Off course its not the best of jobs, its not suppose to be something you do for ages. But you can learn a few things on the phone. You be surprised how many people i met who could not ask a few simple questions to get a solution.

Some fair points there. And although I'm glad that folk like yourself have some good experiences to relate, you must realise that a large proportion of us find the work tedious and soul destroying.

Yes, I do bitch and moan about my job. My poor girlfriend has to put up with this a daily basis! However, I'm not the kind of person who blindly accepts what I believe are poor work practices. Any attempts made by myself to provide decent and constructive feedback have been pretty much ignored, or at best given the token response of "I'll mention that to management". Look at the post above from Anna23. That kind of stat-driven nonsense is plain wrong. Do you think she is over-reacting? Hardly.

Maybe its unrealistic but I firmly believe that people are entitled to enjoy their job, not merely tolerate it. Sure, you can argue that "if you don't like it, you can always leave", but life's not that simple. I have been actively seeking other employment for a while now but to no avail yet. I'd leave tomorrow with out notice if I could, but I can't afford to do that.

I must stress that not all Call Centres are the same, and that depending on the nature of the line you're working, you may be fortunate to have decent, appreciative customers. I do, for the most part, but I also get to encounter some of the rudest, dullest, pampered and idiotic people on this planet. Invariably these are the ones you remember.

Rant over. Good luck to those who enjoy their job, because I envy you.

J.S. Pill

John Kimble wrote:

Yes, I do bitch and moan about my job. My poor girlfriend has to put up with this a daily basis! However, I'm not the kind of person who blindly accepts what I believe are poor work practices. Any attempts made by myself to provide decent and constructive feedback have been pretty much ignored, or at best given the token response of "I'll mention that to management". Look at the post above from Anna23. That kind of stat-driven nonsense is plain wrong. Do you think she is over-reacting? Hardly.

But you see if line managers don't have stats then they can't give power point presentations to their superiors where they put the figures into fancy looking pie charts and use arse-head words like 'going forward' - they need that sort of thing to justify their existence.

John Kimble wrote:

Maybe its unrealistic but I firmly believe that people are entitled to enjoy their job, not merely tolerate it.

C'mon man, we can't all be Ron Jeremy...

Going Demented

Until recently i worked in a call centre. I was there for seven years. First 18 months of constant phones then a different department after that. I have got to say it was a soul destroying experience . Not so much the customers but the management. I ended up suffering depression from the whole freaking stress of it in the end. The reason i stayed so long were the people i worked with. Having given so long service i left on bad terms and now it's going threw solicitors. I ended up stuck in a rut, what should of been a three month job turned into seven years. Never again will i set foot in a call centre. My sanity couldnt take it.

John Kimble

J.S. Pill wrote:

But you see if line managers don't have stats then they can't give power point presentations to their superiors where they put the figures into fancy looking pie charts and use arse-head words like 'going forward' - they need that sort of thing to justify their existence.

That phrase drives me mad! Hearing it initially was a mildly irritating experience, but now I've noticed how often it gets used, pretty much on a daily basis. There's nothing worse than company talk. I almost feel sorry for those who use it, it's as if they're beyond redemption.

Anna23

I've no words to describe the management in our department!

J.S. Pill

John Kimble wrote:

That phrase drives me mad! Hearing it initially was a mildly irritating experience, but now I've noticed how often it gets used, pretty much on a daily basis. There's nothing worse than company talk. I almost feel sorry for those who use it, it's as if they're beyond redemption.

I just hope they don't speak to their friends and family like that

kittenkiller

I like "actioning".

We should be actioning that now next quarter...

Classy stuff!

nesf

kittenkiller wrote:

I like "actioning".

We should be actioning that now next quarter...

Classy stuff!

A friend of mine actually had a manager suggest that they should "put a sunset on this issue"....

Stephen

That manager should have been given an offer to put that issue where the sun don't shine alright :mad:

lostexpectation

Wook wrote:

sorry to rock the boat but i have been working in Call centers for the last 8 years, and they give a lot of chances to people who otherwise never had any, work hard and you move up do nothing and stay on the phone.
From my own experience its people that sit there day in and day out bitching about how life is hell in a call center and do absolutly nothing about it that are venting the loudest.
Any decent sized CC will have some training facilities or career plan or a decent HR that can help you along the way, but only i you want to.

I knew people who came in every day and got their paycheck every month and were perfectly happy with that. It provided them money for things they wanted to do. I also know people who arrived with no degree or experience and went to become a manager.

Off course its not the best of jobs, its not suppose to be something you do for ages. But you can learn a few things on the phone. You be surprised how many people i met who could not ask a few simple questions to get a solution.

you said yourself this companies are set up for high turn over, infact it seems the companies are set up so nobody rocks the boat.

Wook

lostexpectation wrote:

you said yourself this companies are set up for high turn over, infact it seems the companies are set up so nobody rocks the boat.

i didnt say the companies are 'set' for high turn over , i said that the job can be so tedious and boring after awhile, that people tend to leave. Everyone in the industrie knows you will have a constant move in cc, its normal, management will not openly say it's a normal thing, because we still live in that vague dream that people should stay with the company for as long as possible. thats the 70's and 80's, right now employee retention is different.

how do i explain this.. hmm currently cc will give new starters what 1 week to 4 weeks of training ? i highly doubt that it takes a full year before thats paid back in services rendered by that agent. Any longer is fine, but after awhile it starts costing the company in higher wages, perks etc..

'rock the boat' well, its a different topic alltogether but from my experience as a foreigner working in Ireland, all meetings i have attented most Irish people will sit there and say nothing during the whole meeting , and once they come out and the Team Leader and manager are away, they all start bitching

J.S. Pill

Out of interest, what's everyone's average call volume during a day?

Mine's 90. That means I have to say "good afternoon *********, ***** speaking, how may I help" 90 times a day.

I wonder could I legally change my name to something rude to give people on the other end a bit of a shock.

digitally-yours

J.S. Pill wrote:

Out of interest, what's everyone's average call volume during a day?

Mine's 90. That means I have to say "good afternoon *********, ***** speaking, how may I help" 90 times a day.

I wonder could I legally change my name to something rude to give people on the other end a bit of a shock.

Thats a bit too much

sounds like eircom,conduit or something like that

90 calls !

if thats matched by 30+k its ok but not on 20 k :mad:

John Kimble

Wook wrote:

'rock the boat' well, its a different topic alltogether but from my experience as a foreigner working in Ireland, all meetings i have attented most Irish people will sit there and say nothing during the whole meeting , and once they come out and the Team Leader and manager are away, they all start bitching

I'm not surprised. Most meetings are mere token gestures on the part of management. I've been to enough of these so-called "feedback sessions" to realise that constructive criticism is forgotten the moment the meeting ends. I would always have considered myself to be outspoken on matters I think that need addressing, but even I have reached the stage where I couldn't be bothered anymore. Despite what you may have contributed to a meeting, none of it matters because management don't really care what you think.

Today was a particularly bad day at work, the lowest point of which was some vile character who chewed his way through the entire conversation. I actually felt physically sick. It genuinely saddens me how little regard some people show towards others, and this job has shown me some of the worst examples ever.

J.S. Pill

digitally-yours wrote:

Thats a bit too much

sounds like eircom,conduit or something like that

90 calls !

if thats matched by 30+k its ok but not on 20 k :mad:

20k! I wish - Try 19.

In fairness the calls often last a matter of seconds - I just hate parroting that greeting 90 times a day.

digitally-yours

J.S. Pill wrote:

20k! I wish - Try 19.

In fairness the calls often last a matter of seconds - I just hate parroting that greeting 90 times a day.

I believe you work for an outsource company.You always loose money as the outsourse people always employ staff at lower rates.

Once you have some call centre experience i would definately advise moving out of this "outsourcing" thing and look for a company where you have something which leads to career.

Min wage 8.65 x 40 = 346 weekely pay

346 x 52 <number of weeks > = 17992 Euros - 19000 = 1008 euros above minimum wage !

Not pleasing picture to be honest

* didnt counted any tax deductions in this !