I worked in two. One was a mom and pop company with a database of customers. It was ok, mainly just follow ups. Then afterwards headed to the yeller pages. It was ok, just not the job I expected out of college compared to working in a shop, both chrysler and machine, computer lab of a rehab center and a rehab engineer assistant all with a basic highschool education.
The automated call center is. The rules are written, however the rest are subjective. At that, you can only fail 1 call a month or you get a verbal warning. Do it again, get a written warning. I failed a call for telling a caller when the info was located on a membership card. Another for saying hot line than customer service number, another for letting the customer with incomplete info call back with the correct info than to continue asking the questions til they hung up, a forth one for not prompting the customer that I had additional questions as he or she hung up when I told them more info was needed, fifth call fail for hanging up too fast, suppose to wait 2 seconds before disconnecting call, another for not repeating the info back to make sure it was correct. I could go on and on. I never once swore, was rude, disfamed the company or customer. Then I got the numerous emails from the management. You know, the 4 people who stand around talking about eating cheese, tasting wine, sports cars and vacations as we have 60 calls in the cue and they wont take calls or call code blue for us to get help from the other departments. See if we take on average more than 10 seconds for the month to answer a call, you lower your performance score and loose any profit sharing. Although we got emails about how great we are, cake, balloons and a graph of how our call volume is falling off. Daily the call volume peaks at certain hours and they send out emails asking for folks to help out and use less of their braeks. Makes sese to you?
Yeah, you get emails tell you how much the company is making 77% over expectations, while boss tells you by email to read this script in the email as it cost too much to edit the software to add it in the system. The emails are just like the troll ones that are posted here. I got one for talking to other assocaites while off the clock. See, I arrive early and leave late. I am suppose to sit in the lobby when my shift isnt on. I am not allowed to sociliate extra hours from other people since they offer shift swapping. I got a few emails about smoking at the ash tray outside than the butt containers. Seems you can only smoke by the butt container and not in the parking lot, street or driveway rather on or off the clock.
Yeah, the strive for more perfection just disenfranchrise the employees. No wonder their turn over is 22%. Maybe its cheaper to pushem til burn out for higher productivy than to provide a better environment? Its not like you get the benefits instantly, you got to work there a few months before they kick in. For 700 employees around the clock they had a large HR staff and weekly job fairs. Constant emails and notes on your desk with candy to get you to referr an employee to get the referral bonus.
I walked away with that everyone should work there to get an idea how bad a job could be. Frankly I do refer folks to there. I tell em you got 5 months at that job if you dont swear and give it a good hard try. First two months you are on probation so you can screw up. Third month you screw up at the end you get a verbal warning by email, screw up fourth month get a written warning, fifth month you screw up yo uare TERMINATED.