Working in a call centre, what it's really like

Bt make e own rules up fact on stasstasts sickness ect

I hate cold calls with a Scottish/Irish accent.

I think there should be a Union set up for Call Center Staff! It's bad enough that we get paid the minimum wage to take all sorts of abuse and racist comments (Being from Scotland we get the usual "Tut! You're a Jock then.... <Sigh>...", but we dont even get paid for our 15-minute breaks, which 10 of these minutes each time is spent getting in and out of the building. And only 6 minutes per 8 hour shift for a comfort break..... We just get used an abused by our employer, as long as they earn the big contracts, they just dont seem to care about us. :(

Working at a call center sucks. All of the things he says are true, you have to be an idiot to be a team lead. Not to mention you might constantly get sick due to the high amount of stress and people coming in to work sick because they can't afford a day off.

After watching the 'Call Centre' TV documentary on BBC, I'm tempted to think that call centres are one of the most dynamic places to work where young people meet each other. Since things can become different under the camera, is there anyone who can tell me what life is really like in there?

Call centres evolved as a system whereby firms could abrogate their direct responsibilities to consumers. Call centre operatives are taught to pull the wool over the customers' eyes. Let the firms confront the wrath of the consumer face-to-face.

I used to work for a call center for a well known company call ####serve, they are currently being investigated by the FSA and were recently fine £750,000 pounds for silent calls. To be honest I enjoyed the first year there, I was earning around £1300 after tax and sometimes I picked up £1700 after tax. So, that is decent money for a job which essentially requires you to read from a script and objection handle (all call centre staff know that phase), but towards the end of my time there I was bored and lost all focus. I stayed for about 2½ years and got fired for hanging onto calls and cutting people off, but by that stage I couldn't give a hoot anymore, because my brain needed more stimulation than just reading from a script.

As for the managers there they were ok, we all had a job to, so either do it or go and believe me a lot of people go. Breaks were monitored, toilet breaks, wrap up time put it this way everything was monitored. It's not until I left, I realized how unnatural that environment was, and I don't think I could ever or want to work in that type environment again.

This is a symptom of people being treated like robots, along with the target culture that's developed in the workplace. Normally, one could argue that it's counter-productive (and in an on-going situation it would be) but staff are easily replaceable as mere commodities. People are not valued any more in many large organisations. Little wonder so many people end up on state support due to ill-health.

I work for a large breakdown organisation, famous for the yellow patrol vans. I work in the call centre, inbound, and listen to people whinge and moan about the price of their breakdown cover renewal. To be fair, the 'standard prices' are shocking, and if I were their customer, I'd phone to get a discount.
It's easy to say, 'don't let the customers get to you,' but 10, 8, 7 or even just 5 hours of listening to people be rude, talk over you when you're trying to get them what they want, managers shouting about needing sales, (so you can't hear the customer!) toilet breaks being monitored, stopping to take a drink being moaned about, even requesting a customer to stop being rude to you 'isn't allowed', it all takes its toll on your mental health, and at 28 years old, I'm a nervous,depressed wreck. I don't know myself any more. My personality has totally changed. The company lie to their customers, lie to their staff, lie lie lie lie lie!!!!! It's disgusting. Management?? I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than progress in a call centre. I'm taking my chances and jumping ship. I have another part time job n I'll make do with that for the time being. It ain't worth my sanity. Full stop end of story. I need to be happy again.

Definition of a "proper job" please?? holier than thou attitudes are people with small minds. I am ashamed for you. Firstly, no matter what your job from a roadsweeper to a doctor. Its is important. Could a hospital erradicate germs if it was not cleaned or if the roads were not kept clean then small minded arrogant people would not be able to arrive at their exceptionally important job where they do nothing but scratching their spotty bottoms. A job does not make you the person you are it simply pays the bills. I cant believe people actually think they are better than people who work for a living rather than taking government hand outs.

If i were your customer and i came to your workplace giving abuse, threats and rudeness would you think it was acceptable. Many occupations will not tolerate it and neither should call centre workers. Half the things said are due to no face to face contact. Call centre work is hard, 7-8 hours of constant call after call with sales targets to achieve and abuse are very hard to balance. Often having extensive product knowledge, listening and problem solving skills. Being a call centre worker you are first point of contact and most comments are aimed at the company, not the individual. Things go wrong in every walk of life its how we deal with them that makes us who we are. Ive worked in retail, hairdressing, office admin and by far a call centre is the hardest.

Ok - As part of my job I set up processes and technology to support call centres. as a student I also worked in call centres for service companies so appreciate the points made below. I just wanted to add a few some of my own.

- One of the best metrics for a company is First Time Resolution. What this means is the ability to solve a customer issue first time. If this doesn't happen the customer will either call again, complain, or potentially leave. It most certainly wont help the customer have a good impression. First time resolutions in UK call centres sit at the low 60% mark, but as that cover different sectors and issue areas that will vary so your experiences may be different. At the heart of it - if you satisfy the customer you are doing a good job. Any of people at my level, who sit several layers above the team leaders or call centre centre managers should be able to tell you the same.

- It is important that call centres cope with volume which is why the whip feels like its being cracked so hard. So work smart and be efficient. It is NOT a disaster to take longer on a given call, but be punchy, develop some good patter and make tghe customer feel like you've done this a million times. If there are improvements that could be made on the technology or process or anything else tell your team leader. Its their job to raise this into the business as not matter how hard we try we cant think of every little button or feature, understand the customer in the same way. Think of this - if the snack machine is on the wrong floor we are actually making that round trip 3 minutes longer than it needs to be - In a call centre of 100 people if everyone visits it once a day on average that's 300 minutes of call time lost. I would much rather see those sort of improvements that slavedrivers making your life miserable, and then you being miserable to customers.

- What I see below points to a culture of fudging the figures. This tends to happen when you have targets a performance based rewards. Look at banks, schools, etc.. The problem with this is it gives a misrepresentation of performance of a vital part of the company which means that correct strategic decisions cannot be made in the future. Then resolving calls or writing notes be sure to use the correct method as the reports that are generated off the back of these are vital to future improvements.

- Be happy at work!!! As a customer I would much rather talk to a motivated individual that someone who was totally fed up. A good team leader / manager should recognise this. Take a toilet break. Take a cigarette break. Take a decent lunch. Take pride in good customer service. Although it may not feel like it the skills you develop and the discipline will pay back in whichever career you find yourself in.

- Don't kid yourselves about career path. Call centres aren't planned as talent recruitment centres for the rest of the company. Make money and enjoy it. If its a shoddy outfit vote with your feet.

- On shore call centres, regardless of which shore we are talking about, always perform better than offshore. This is not an attack at Indian call centres - but UK is better for UK, German is better for Germany, Indian for India - The stats prove a better customer experience, which makes sense right? No language/ culture barrier means on the whole there are better relationships. Plus the "Savings" argument doesn't really stack up. I always despair when some exec tries to improve his bonus by off-shoring to save money only to have to spend more on the setup and maintenance, flights and hotels, training, service management, reduced customer satisfaction and finally inevitable re-patronisation of the call centre.

- Customers are expensive, to gain one takes investment and to lose one is wasteful. This cannot always be helped as people are unpredictable but help make the customer experience good and capture it. Asked customers to feedback. Get them involved. If we can spot a well performing area we will investigate it and try and duplicate it. This will give you pride and make your life at work easier.

Call centers equal modern day factory jobs. No one really likes to work in one, but if he or she can get inside one, especially in one of the ones that pay reasonably well (ie Amex), then the allure of it becomes difficult to let go over time, and then you eventually become a "lifer" unless you know how to move ahead. But the latter is really difficult, and some hefty dues (ie. time and tenure) must be paid to that particular company. What is also irksome is the not so good prospect that moving from one call center job to the next is really like shoveling the same crap from a different pile, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, depending on where you go. That's what some people feel like this, especially when they move from low-paying, largely minority worked call centers like Iqor, to say higher paying call centres like AMEX. Unless call center work is your forte, then it is best to move out of the industry all together if you're already in it, or else avoid it altogether. No point in complaining about it because all management will do is tell you, there is the door, get out if you want out, or else play by our rules, and maybe you will advance. Call centres are all in all pretty crappy jobs---period. Best advice is to just find what you love doing the most, and do it. Call centre work for some is good for them, but truly no one wants to listen to other people's crap on a constant basis,daily, weekly and yearly. True, that can be said of any line of work, but let's see management switch back to call centre work, I.m sure they would NOT EVER want to go back to doing what they may have done before (ie call center work).

Nothing is ever good enough for your team leader. Last week I hit 7 out of my 8 targets and I felt pretty good but my team leader said it wasn't good enough. My eighth target doesn't even matter but as usual my efforts were not good enough. They really clamp down on absence too, I've had 2.5 days off sick in just 12 month which is nothing compared to some other folk and I'm bordering on disciplinary if I'm off again. I'm fed up of been monitored on how many seconds it takes me to wrap-up a call, how many seconds I have my customer on hold for etc. Yes I'm job hunting but again just call center jobs galore. Oh well, at least it pays my rent and feeds me.

Call centre workers should collectively sue their employers for the stress caused. Its slave labour akin to Dickensian practice: picking oakum in the workhouse. Breaking rocks on Dartmoor.

I have worked in a variety of call centres and agree with most of what has been said previous.
The problem is is that you cannot help a great deal of the customers as you are just an answering maching advising them of the progress of their claim etc. You cannot actually process anything. When customers phone up they wont action (money/a proper answer) and you cannot advise them when something will be done. Call centres are a hotbead of stress and I have worked with a number of people who have actually gone onto anti depressants as a result .
Of course there are lots of managers and supervisors as well (who sometimes are quite reluctant to go on the phone). You will find lots of these people ,particularly in the public centre .