So by the end, I was a (middle) manager of the staff on the phones. I had the power to “fire” customers. I would not have hesitated to close the account of a customer, making them get a new Internet Provider/email address for any of this. Our people were worthy of respect and our customers knew it. Or they weren’t our customers any longer.
@Nath@StudChud Nath, it’s great you had a good job experience.
But not all call centre jobs are like that.
Many call centres are micro-micromanaged.
Adherence to work hours. Conformance to schedule. Call handling time. Calls per worked hour.
There’s often caller feedback forms, and those irrational or malicious customers basically decide if you keep your job.
The calls are recorded, and your team leader or dedicated contact centre staff listen in randomly.
In many commercial organisations, there’s a mandate to upsell or cross-sell, even if it’s an angry customer who wants to close their accounts.
In those cases, you also get judged on the average value of products you sell, and the percentage of calls you upsell on.
You have already angry people who have just been on hold for up to an hour, and have been transferred across different departments and teams.
And there are some men who are either creepy or misogynistic when dealing with women over the phone. And yes, clearly it’s a small minority of men. But that small minority exists, and they’re shitty.
So by the end, I was a (middle) manager of the staff on the phones. I had the power to “fire” customers. I would not have hesitated to close the account of a customer, making them get a new Internet Provider/email address for any of this. Our people were worthy of respect and our customers knew it. Or they weren’t our customers any longer.
@Nath @StudChud Nath, it’s great you had a good job experience.
But not all call centre jobs are like that.
Many call centres are micro-micromanaged.
Adherence to work hours. Conformance to schedule. Call handling time. Calls per worked hour.
There’s often caller feedback forms, and those irrational or malicious customers basically decide if you keep your job.
The calls are recorded, and your team leader or dedicated contact centre staff listen in randomly.
In many commercial organisations, there’s a mandate to upsell or cross-sell, even if it’s an angry customer who wants to close their accounts.
In those cases, you also get judged on the average value of products you sell, and the percentage of calls you upsell on.
You have already angry people who have just been on hold for up to an hour, and have been transferred across different departments and teams.
And there are some men who are either creepy or misogynistic when dealing with women over the phone. And yes, clearly it’s a small minority of men. But that small minority exists, and they’re shitty.
Thank you, you get it!