Call Center work

Dan-Dan

Spacepig wrote: »

After being on a construction site inhaling 40 year old dust and being told to just "get on with it", an office wouldn't be so bad.

I have worked the sites in my teens , multi dropped (mega mega stressfull) degreaser! , office work , last few years worked my way to management in the freight industry , without a shadow of a doubt the worst , most demeaning , least satisfying work , i EVER did was working in call centres

Sould destroying

Spacepig

Dan-Dan wrote: »

I have worked the sites in my teens , multi dropped (mega mega stressfull) degreaser! , office work , last few years worked my way to management in the freight industry , without a shadow of a doubt the worst , most demeaning , least satisfying work , i EVER did was working in call centres

Sould destroying

Even in the winter?

New job search extremely stressful, I've applied for other positions from Sales on stores to car parts advisor so fingers crossed.

Dan-Dan

good luck !

rachhh

I work in a call centre and I love it! I must have one of the good ones. I take all sorts of calls and have learned a variety of new skills.
Targets aren't too tough to meet as long as you're reasonably intelligent, training at my place is over 8 or so weeks, but you're normally allowed on the phone after the first day on the lowest call difficulty level.
Most people have no experience when they start, but it's not really an issue as long as you can type, think on the spot and spell quite well.

InsideInsurance

james761 wrote: »

I just got rejected from an RBS call centre job last week. Apparently I did not provide enough "reason" to work in a call centre - I said I wanted to help others, I'm excellent with IT and I have strong knowledge of finance.

What nonsense. I've used a similar answer when applying for graduate jobs, and currently I have a job offer from a world top 10 accountancy firm starting in september.

And you are surprised that a call centre and a graduate scheme have different requirements? Really?

Hiring people and training them costs money and if they walk out the door that costs you more money in lost sales or overtime of other and hiring new people etc, a former clients Global HR Director did a white paper for their PhD which put the cost at approximately 140% of the persons fully loaded salary. Dont hire people for a perm role when you know they aint going to stick around.

With your answers; wanting to help people would be good.

Being good at IT is bad, they will have a bespoke system, its easy to use and they will train you. They dont want you doing anything other than using their system as its supposed to be used. Being good at IT wont help with that and may mean you try and do things you shouldnt etc

Being good at Finance is also probably bad though would partially depend on what role in the call centre you were going for. Assuming its an entry level job then, you arent doing finance, you are selling their product or servicing their products. Assuming you arent in an advisory role, which are rare in banking, then you put the info into the computer and it gives you the answer. They dont want someone who is possibly going to be tempted at calculate things themselves or go off script because they think they know the answer.

They'd more likely of wanted more about talking to people, working in part of a team etc

System

Each employer I have worked in one of their call centres , they have their own 'in=house' system which is different to each employer. I spent 1-4 weeks training before I spoke to customers.

From my experience, some employers spend too little time training and send their employees on the deep end without training on a lot of things. Hence why some call centres you may have phoned in the past, the advisor keeps on going on hold to speak to someone/look at the system etc.

I have worked for some fab call centres and some dreadful ones. One example of a dreadful one was we were only allowed water and mints whilst working. A colleague got a verbal warning for drinking sugar free flavoured water!

james761

InsideInsurance wrote: »

And you are surprised that a call centre and a graduate scheme have different requirements? Really?

Hiring people and training them costs money and if they walk out the door that costs you more money in lost sales or overtime of other and hiring new people etc, a former clients Global HR Director did a white paper for their PhD which put the cost at approximately 140% of the persons fully loaded salary. Dont hire people for a perm role when you know they aint going to stick around.

With your answers; wanting to help people would be good.

Being good at IT is bad, they will have a bespoke system, its easy to use and they will train you. They dont want you doing anything other than using their system as its supposed to be used. Being good at IT wont help with that and may mean you try and do things you shouldnt etc

Being good at Finance is also probably bad though would partially depend on what role in the call centre you were going for. Assuming its an entry level job then, you arent doing finance, you are selling their product or servicing their products. Assuming you arent in an advisory role, which are rare in banking, then you put the info into the computer and it gives you the answer. They dont want someone who is possibly going to be tempted at calculate things themselves or go off script because they think they know the answer.

They'd more likely of wanted more about talking to people, working in part of a team etc

Appreciate your comments.

Having knowledge of finance means I have a wider understanding of the effects of people's financial decisions - even if we are talking basic retail banking, credit cards, online banking etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with providing free advice and staying within the script.

If call centres hired educated graduates, it is my conviction service would improve. Too bad, though. I was just looking for a pleb job to fill in, but I would still give 100% effort.

HR need to wake up. This isn't China where you work with one company all your life, stagnating yourself into a depressing quest for survival.

Oh well, I'll stay on JSA for another 5 months.

bluffer

ScarletMarble wrote: »

I have worked for some fab call centres and some dreadful ones. One example of a dreadful one was we were only allowed water and mints whilst working. A colleague got a verbal warning for drinking sugar free flavoured water!

have you ever tried removing spilt coffee/tea/coke from a keyboard or other bit of kit? with water at least there is a chance it can be quickly used again rather than having it deep cleaned to remove all the sticky mess or thrown out.

and look at it from the side of the customer, do you really want the person you are speaking to smacking away on chewing gum or crisps while they are talking to you? no course you dont.

rules are there for reasons you might not know about but do make sense.

bluffer

Free_Spirit_31 wrote: »

I used to work in a call centre and hated it.

It is heavily targeted, every aspect of it, call quality, call length, not allowed to use fillers such as 'err' 'erm' etc as it makes you sound like you do not know what you are talking about and you are supposed to be the one in control of the call.

There may be scripts to follow and after a while, you can sound very robotic.

I was in a call centre job where the manager would play the call back to either yourself and mark it to see if you have done exactly what has been asked of you for a bonus or to the whole team and the team would scrutinize the call and nit-pick what they would and would not have done differently.

You have to log your toilet breaks on the dialler system, if you have too many or you are on a toilet break too long, you are in the office practically!

In alot of call centre jobs, you have to sell things, don't sell enough you are in the office again.

The data protection act, if applicable, has to be followed to the tee!

.

gosh, imagine that. an employer wanting you to do what they pay you to do rather than faff around in the toilets playing with your mobile phone or sending text messages. an employer that gives you feedback so you can improve your performance and one that wants you to follow the law. how dare they!

InsideInsurance

james761 wrote: »

Having knowledge of finance means I have a wider understanding of the effects of people's financial decisions - even if we are talking basic retail banking, credit cards, online banking etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with providing free advice and staying within the script.

There is something massively wrong with providing any advice when the bank is not authorised to do so.

Many products and services are supplied on a purely non-advisory basis, you can only tell the customer the facts of the product and its up to the customer to decide if it is suitable for their needs or not. To do advice lead sales you have a mountain of additional paperwork to do to capture what you asked the customer, what their answers were and why you recommended what you did.

If in an interview you start saying you'd be giving free advice when the bank isnt licensed/ setup to do advised sales then its an immediate red flag plus illustrates your knowledge has holes in it so not only may you be illegally offering advice but giving bad advice too

james761 wrote: »

If call centres hired educated graduates, it is my conviction service would improve. Too bad, though. I was just looking for a pleb job to fill in, but I would still give 100% effort.

HR need to wake up. This isn't China where you work with one company all your life, stagnating yourself into a depressing quest for survival.

If they were to hire graduates they may improve but they'd need to at least triple their salaries which would evidently reflect in the price of the products they sell.

HR have woken up which is why they have introduced "recruit for attitude" to stop managers hiring large numbers of graduates or those that want dynamic careers etc who all leave in under 12 months.

If your average call centre agent earns £15,000 their fully loaded salary would be around £20,000 and so the cost of one leaving to the business is approximately £28,000

No one who runs a call centre wants to hire everyone at 16 and keep them until they are 65 as that is also bad for the business but you realistically wanting the vast majority to be giving a fair few years service, particularly when you are dealing with more complex topics than just appointment setting.