I work in a Call Center in Austin, Texas, and it is a converted Blue/Orange center. I've been dealing with customers for a year and half, and I must admit that if our customers knew what we dealt with behind the scenes they might treat us CSR's with a little more kindness. If there are any customers stumbling into this forum, let me first state that on average I handle 70-105 calls a day. I have become a full blown alcoholic because of this job, and went from 1/2 pack of cigarettes to nearly 1 and 1/2 packs a day. I am everything from a "peon" to an "uneducated idiot", to synonyms far more suited for describing someone from the Sopranoes. I am a therapist for customers, or their self proclaimed servant who must cater to their every desire, and if I can't make their voice mail save messages longer, than I need to go off right away and email Stan Sigman.
This is what I deal with when you, the customer calls in, and it happens, back, to back, to back.
As if this isn't enough I also work within a very strict micro-managed Big Brother environment where you have potentially 10 people listening to your call at any given time, and or watching exactly what you are doing on your monitor. We have intense stats that we have to meet, and our own Quality team is the biggest enemy against us, because they will target the most minute point, and score you low on it, which can effect everything from your bonus to your job security.
We have one of the most stressful jobs in America hands down, and the calls keep pouring in, because people are to lazy to decipher their freaking bills when it's laid out in plain English, or blame us because their 14 year old daughter went ballistic text messaging their 19 year old boyfriend 5000 times a month.
You people wonder why you may call in and we may have the "not so ready to assist you tone." It's because your the 60th person of the day with the same gripes. And then when I finish with your problem, I get to go and listen to a meeting with a director about how poorly our call center is doing and then after that I get to listen to a call I took a week ago and get criticized because I handled 15 issues, but forgot to recognize my customer year and half tenure.
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TheTroll Posts: 361
Tue Oct 18, 2005 10:47 am
Yeah, that pretty much sums up the average call center environment. But I'm definately gonna hafta dispute that point where you say it is the most stressful job ever. Try being a heart surgeon, or a marine, or a dentist, or a cop etc....
BigRUSS Posts: 2118
Phone Model: two cans ( del monte) and some string,
Service Provider: RussCo
Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:00 pm
Acutaly cs the austin call center is the best call center in the nation, out stats are better than that of the company on average, but i do agree with you on the quality thing and the par stats they contradict eachother
TheTroll Posts: 361
Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:05 pm
In order to get good PAR your quality starts to slide, and to ensure you have good QA, your par goes down..... WTH!
BigRUSS Posts: 2118
Phone Model: two cans ( del monte) and some string,
Service Provider: RussCo
Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:31 pm
like with transferes, you suposed to transfer every cust that needs it or you can fail quiality but if i did that my transferes would be over 30% every day yet they want you to stay under loike 12 -15 % damn ass backward polocies
TheTroll Posts: 361
Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:32 pm
I'm constantly seeing reps not even offer to transfer to stay in PAR. Us reps in my call center were actually told by management to use 'mute' instead of 'hold' so our PAR would look better, but this caused even more problems (custs thinking we hung up on them and disconnecting etc..)
c.s.ROBOT Posts: 13
Phone Model: V551
Service Provider: Cingular
Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:17 pm
TheTroll wrote:
Yeah, that pretty much sums up the average call center environment. But I'm definately gonna hafta dispute that point where you say it is the most stressful job ever. Try being a heart surgeon, or a marine, or a dentist, or a cop etc....
I disagree. Those people make a difference in society, which should out weigh the stress. Not to mention that half of those occupations make at least triple what we make. We are constantly treated with disrespect and spoken to as it we are worthless. Even middle management treats us as expendable pawns. I wish I could post the link, but I read in some major report done by like 20/20 or Dateline, but Customer Service was voted in the top 5 worst jobs to have in America as far as compensation and work related stress.
TheTroll Posts: 361
Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:21 pm
c.s.ROBOT wrote:
TheTroll wrote:
Yeah, that pretty much sums up the average call center environment. But I'm definately gonna hafta dispute that point where you say it is the most stressful job ever. Try being a heart surgeon, or a marine, or a dentist, or a cop etc....
I disagree. Those people make a difference in society, which should out weigh the stress. Not to mention that half of those occupations make at least triple what we make. We are constantly treated with disrespect and spoken to as it we are worthless. Even middle management treats us as expendable pawns. I wish I could post the link, but I read in some major report done by like 20/20 or Dateline, but Customer Service was voted in the top 5 worst jobs to have in America as far as compensation and work related stress.
I guess we're gonna hafta agree to disagree
jdavis Posts: 3
Phone Model: Motorola V551
Service Provider: Cingular
Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:28 pm
c.s.Robot,
I tend to agree with you. I'm a tech rep and it is a very stressful with little to no acknowledgement. It's a tax software company and we are often under deadlines due to our customers being tax preparers and CPAs. We also have to know tax law and when we're stumped, it's very difficult to troubleshoot.
But, yes, customer facing workers deal with lots of stress, and phone reps even more so I think.
TheTroll Posts: 361
Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:39 pm
I guess it really depends on how you approach your job. I just dont take anything personally, and take consolation from the fact that most of the people who are calling and complaining and whineing are dim-witted trailer trash (well thats the majority of the 'stressful' customers in my center anyways)
I usually try to look at things from their point of view and I find it really helps things a lot
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