Tuesday, 10 November 2009

• From Inside A Call Center...

  
  

  I used to work at Teleperformance, a call center, which when I was there had over 700 people on 1st 2nd and 3rd shift, 3rd shift was for internet and video calls. We took inbound calls for our principle client Cox Communications, in billing we worked the Las Vegas and Southern California markets. In video and internet they did a mass range of markets, but the main one was So Cal. I read an interesting article that they have lost their client and are planning to shut down.
  
  They already downsized to about 300 people. I know this because they moved internet to the Plus One call center and my old So Cal/Billing manager is working there now. They still just have the video and billing department. I know probably the main reason they are possible shutting down, and its because of lack of organization and improper hiring procedures, and other various things.
  
  I worked there for a year and half, I got too sick to work there in October 2008, and I know it was because of the stress. Here are my reasons why I know they lost Cox as their main provider, because that's who we dealt with: 
  
  1. Lack of organization/leadership. As a agent, we had 3 weeks of hardcore training and then we were released to take calls, during your one week of on-phone training with help, you never could find a supervisor to help you. Once you were an agent getting an escalation agent (a.k.a agent with supervisor privileges) to take your call and take responsibility was next to impossible. When we had meetings there was never organization, it was a free 30 minute break away from the customers. Customers would always complain to me when I was escalations about the lack of being able to get to someone knowledgeable.
  
  2. No assigned lunches or breaks. My shift was 11-7, straight time, no scheduled breaks. If we wanted a lunch it got sent to operations to be approved. If they were in a bad mood you could be guaranteed it wouldn't be approved, or if they just felt like being mean, or if the project manger for billing said "no sending lunches there's over 200 calls waiting." Yeah there was no way you were going to get one. Trust me, by 5pm as an agent you were getting mean and grumpy because you haven't eaten all day unless your friend snuck you a burger from Wendy's while they put a customer on hold for 10 minutes raced to Wendy's and back--true story.
  
  3. Hiring/Firing process. To get hired you had to pass a simple test, then pass training. To get fired do something stupid and I mean stupid. I almost got fired more times than I can count because they could make up a reason use a bad call and fire you. The other problem with the hiring process is they hired really stupid people with no customer service skills. I had agents sending me calls because they told the customer to shut up, and yes they wanted to complain to me, because of a rude agent.
  
  4. Shoddy equipment. I got hired on in 2007, we were working on outdated computers, working on Windows 98. Half the time the keyboard stuck, somebody stole your phone cord so you couldn't plug your headset in, the computer screen was going black, or the fan in the computer was so loud you couldn't hear the customer.
  
  5. No security. Here's a shocker and it happens more times than you probably realize. We carried notebooks in ad out of work containing addresses, phone numbers, and account numbers sometimes even PIN numbers and last 4 of social security numbers for people. There was no shredder for personal information. I carried mine in a bookbag because sometimes people gave you too much info before you could access the account. And yes you had to write it all down so you didn't get docked on call evaluation because you got docked by how many times you asked a question.
  
  6. No assigned seating. Normally at work they assign you a cubicle- it's your space, your home away from home or whatever but we had no seating arrangement. I had to come in to work 30 minutes early on my 11am shift so I could get my desk I always sat in and it continues into my next point
  
  7. No guaranteed hours. If they ran out of seating they would send you home, which made Cox extremely mad. More times than I can count Corporate was calling operations asking why only 15 or 16 agents were available to take calls, and the reason was, they just sent 60 people home so they could have room for the next shift. Or the opposite problem would happen we would have a slow day and we would get sent home whenever they felt like it. Even supervisors were not exempt they got sent home early too.
  
  8. No bonus programs. I worked in billing, part of our job was to 'save" people, including adding campaigns/promotional deals etc, and I saved on an average day before I got promoted 15 people. If they would have implemented a bonus program, like they did for sales agents that weren't third party maybe we would have more incentive to do stuff. Same with video and internet they did a lot of things, I cross trained as a video agent if they would have had bonuses for work orders canceled then maybe we would have done more. I mean if you don't give an incentive it's harder to do stuff.
  
  9. No employee satisfaction. There was no satisfaction there. You worked 8 hours, you got screamed at, cussed out and you got to go home and scream at your family Never once did we have an employee dinner thanking us for the hard work, or anything around the holidays to help out. It was a thankless job that paid my bills
  
  Those are my reasons, and I understand why they would be going out. When the turnover rate was as high as it was when I was there, and the working environment was crummy do you expect a company to stay in business? I am sad though for some of the employees, because I still have friends there, and most are trying to raise a family on a call center salary. 
  
  
  

  link to the article
  

  http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2614371/
  

  
  Do you think the company should go out or should they change the way things are run?
  
  How much have you heard about the inner workings of a call center?
  
  
  

  • 11:56 AM
  • 366 Views
  • 14 eProps
  • 8 Comments