The great shake up (call-center stuff)

[Angry_Hippie]

The last couple weeks have been interesting to say the least.

We had been having this issue at work lately where it seemed like the forecasts were way off. In the morning and the daytime we would have the command center begging for people to ask to go home (we had more people available to answer calls than we needed). Once night shift hit we would end up with calls back to back to back and long hold times and high abandon rates.

Out of the blue this week it rumors started flying that 15 people were fired and that a new training class was scheduled to replace them. The rumors had the taint that our company had gotten rid of 15 people with seniority (and higher pay, fixed schedules, and benefits) in order to replace them with cheaper new blood (lowest pay rate, flexible schedules of anywhere from 0-40 hours a week, and no benefits).

This turned out not to be true. It turns out the scandalous 15 had a hand in their fate and weren't really fired just suspended. They had figured out that if you placed the phone handset (we use extension headsets) back on the cradle and took it off the computer would put the phone in a manual dial mode giving you 3 minutes of dial tone and then putting you at the bottom of the cue (you'd be the last person in line to get a call). So basically these people looked to the command center like they were open and available to take calls when really they were putting themselves in a position to avoid calls.

I've been in call centers for years and I'm the kind of person supervisors will shoot straight with (and I understand whatever they tell me). I think management needs to put out a memo of what really happened to clear the air. I'm tired of those that are left saying how heartless our company is for getting rid of good people to replace them with new blood. Lots of those still on the floor are super worried for themselves due to this falsehood. They are now doing things like not putting customers on hold even when it is useful out of irrational fear. Some of the people that were caught were good people that I respected but the majority were busy-body, know it all loud mouths, who took every opportunity they could to badmouth our company and our customers.

I say good riddance, I can't believe they dicked out their fellow co-workers and our customers (our lifeblood) like that. I so don't mind taking back to back calls if that's what the call volume throws at us. But to take on an unequal amount of work so you can talk about stupid shit amongst yourselves and get paid for it is bullshit. I welcome the opportunity to get a steady shift and benefits (replace someone who can't sit out the suspension, I also enjoy the quieter floor (less agent loud chit chat and company/guest bad mouthing).

I'm not buying the conspiracy theories iof the ill informed "heartless company" camp. We train every year to get a new glut of agents for the CES convention as well as to beat turnover (ony two out of the 35 agents hired at this time last year are left).


What do you fellow phone jockeys think?

[Teskeria]

they deserved it, I agree. and that needs to get around.

Last call center I worked for had the phone set up stupidly. The more calls you took, the more you got. So the faster people were getting all the calls, and others were sitting there with nothing to do. We tried to get them to reverse it (every other call center I worked at had it set so that the calls went to the people who hadn't had one in a while) to even things out. They just didn't comprehend.

[Hanzoku]

If they haven't corrected the workaround these people were using yet, they might not want to give out any specifics until they can come up with a solution, to prevent other people from keying in on the idea.

[Angry_Hippie]

It's so weird. It is common knowledge on the floor the reason that the group was suspended but people still want to believe the mean old company thing to an extent. People think there is a connection between the hiring and the suspensions even though we have always hired ever Winter (I'm shocked we are this year cause last year it blew up in our face, as soon as I was trained last year me and my classmates weren't scheduled for 4 months (the economy), and obviously we lost a few in the process without ever getting a day on the floor out of them). The suspensions are long enough that a lot of the group probably won't be coming back. If they were really going to pick 15 people just to switch out with knew there would have been a consistent trend such as super high seniority (higher pay), poor performers, or problem children. But this ran the gamut everything from supervisor's pets, super high performers, a lead who could fill any position as needed, and other fairly new kids (a year) like me (I'm now the only one left from my training class), to people who spent most of their work time talking about how horrible our company and customers are (they are not that bad at all, not perfect, but it's a good job and most customers are good if you treat them right).

[freeatlast]

At the Call Center from Hell, manipulating the phone system was a one-way trip to the unemployment line. No excuses were accepted and you were terminated immediately if caught. For us, if you hit your "in call" button twice it would place you at the bottom of the queue. It was made very clear that they could track this and that it was not acceptable.