In the U.K., if the majority of your work is with a VDU, I believe you get a mandatory 5 minute break every hour.
The call center I worked at was monitored in the same way. Every call was recorded and saved as a .wav file on a master computer, and during “coaching sessions” the coaches had us listen to our own calls and tell them how we could have improved them.
Our operating systems were MS-DOS (high class place, this was :p), so there was absolutely no searching the internet or doing anything computer-related that wasn’t in the call-recording program. Skilled employees were allowed to read magazines or other material while doing calls, but that was it.
The employees were absolutely wonderful people, however. My coaches were very encouraging, and allowed me to take an entire shift off when I was having emotional difficulties. I can’t imagine any other place I will work at will ever be as lenient.
12 Seconds is not an unreasonable “down time” between calls.
At Optus ours was about 8 seconds on a busy queue. We did sometimes have wait time, when no customers were in the queue, but that was rare.
When I was working in OptusNet, I was taking exactly the same calls those Netspace reps would have been taking. Our “Not Ready” time was expected to average around 20 seconds per call. That didn’t mean we could only use NR for 20 seconds at a time. It meant over the course of a day, where you’re taking on average between 40-60 calls a day, you had to average 20 seconds per call. Many calls could be complete whilst still on the phone. Which gives flexibility for a harder call, where you may need two or five minutes in NR.
There were regularly people in the centre who were getting NR times of 0 seconds per call.
Also I find it hard to believe, without reading a statement from Netspace, that they’ve told their reps they can only go to the toilet four times a day. IME it’s more likely that people have been taking toilet breaks that are too liberal (as in heading off to the loo, spending ten to fifteen minutes logged out during times that they are rostered on) so the PTB have asked that people TRY to limit toilet visits to scheduled break times.
Call centre operations are worked out to provide an optimum time spent on hold. If you have too many reps, there’s dead time on the queue and you’re paying people to do nothing. If there’s not enough reps, customers have to wait in the queue and abandon calls.
It’s a horrible juggling act. You have to schedule for predicted call volumes. For Internet tech/customer support, you have to also schedule for unscheduled outages, and problems caused by other provider networks that you rely on. You schedule the amount of people that predictions say will be needed to maintain an optimum hold time of, say, 5 minutes. But then, some people are sick that day. That’s okay, you’ve over-rostered slightly. But of the people who aren’t sick, maybe a dozen are spending an average of five minutes Per Call in NR. Then another dozen are spending fifteen minutes in the toilet during a time when they’re scheduled to be on the phone. Maybe another dozen have overrun their breaks because they weren’t watching what the time is. Telstra’s copper network has developed a fault, which means half the customers in Melbourne can’t get onto the internet and started calling in at once.
All of a sudden, you’ve got a queue of twenty minutes, forty minutes, an hour.
Customers love to complain about the size of queues when they’re calling in for support/service. And if the queues are high, the complaints may be valid.
But then the wailing and gnashing of teeth that goes on when it comes out the measures centres have to put in place to rein in those hold times. It can’t be had both ways. Either you have an efficient call centre where the regimenting is slightly harsh or you have a fluffy fuzzy bunny centre where the reps all come first but the phone queue goes out the window and customers start leaving in droves.
Just as an aside - I no longer work in a call centre. I’ve left the industry for a number of reasons, call times being one of them. I think call centres are a meat market, but by the same token I understand why they operate like they do. Some people thrive in that environment. Some people don’t, and should look for work elsewhere.
Yeah, agree too. I had my first job during university in a call centre, which was minimum knowledge and just acting as a receptionist. There was 12 of us around a table, each with a 'phone, acting on behalf of a breakdown company, only temporary. After a day or two I started counting the calls, in between playing hangman with my colleagues. We were taking around 600 calls per day each. We had three options for our callers; option 1 was around 90%, option 2 was 8% and option 3 was 2% (I never got an option 3).
I got bored of hangman, and started to have ‘fun’ with the callers;
Welcome to (company) how can I help?
OK I’ll put you through to the breakdown department (option1)
OK I’ll put you through to the burst tire department (option 1)
OK I’ll put you through to the accident department (option 1)
OK I’ll put you through to the broken wing mirror department (option 1)
OK I’ll put you through to the grazed wing department (option 1)
OK I’ll put you through to the no petrol department (option 1)
OK I’ll put you through to the ‘unknown’ department (option 1)
OK I’ll put you through to the 'there’s a plinky noise department (option 1)
ad infinitum
Your breakdown guy is 2 hours late? I’ll put you through, sir (option 2)
We also had some good hangman games, for we all knew the game.
Oh definitely. My firm looked to partner with a vendor that develops special software for indexing and searching audio files faster than real-time. Most of their clients are call centers and government agencies. If they wanted to, they could do various reports on how frequently you said the word “um” throughout the day.
In reality, a more productive use is searching for certain keywords customers use indicating disatisfaction in service.
I just started my shiny new job in a call center this week. I am still in training, and today was my first day of job shadowing.
The job seems incredibly cushy. We get to take 15 minutes of break time before the hour-long lunch break, and 15 minutes of break time afterward–and we can arrange that break time in whatever increments we’d like-- 5 here and 10 later, whatever.
We get quality control reports every three months. There is a mode where you can click for ‘‘after call work’’ to finish up your notes and gather your thoughts for the next call. It seems like a fast-paced, exciting job.
And regarding sick days-- 17 paid days off a year. That includes sick days and days you want to go on vacation. In fact, we’re REQUIRED to take 5 consecutive days off at some point during the year, and holidays don’t count.
Seriously, if most call center jobs are like the one I just snagged, I don’t see how people can complain. I’ve worked 18 hour shifts in restaurants with a single break, 14 for none at all. At my new job, you get to actually sit down, and you never get messy. It’s beautiful.
PS: No reason anybody needs to be on the internet at work anyways. I never understood people who complained about that. It’s not some kind of labor right, and in my opinion it’s damn rude to surf the web on company time.
PSS: My job as a customer service rep is pretty dynamic. It’s debt counseling and you get a range of situations with problems to solve.
I am an Optus customer and I have had to wait over an hour on 2 occasions when phoning in. There is a very simple way to reduce wait times- employ more staff.
You had to quote my entire post just to say that?
Also, with Optus they did employ more staff. Repeat my previous assertation - if they employ too many staff, when the issue that’s causing the wait times is over, they then have a lot of dead air and people they’re paying for doing nothing for most of the day. There were a lot of issues besides staffing levels that caused a huge call volume crisis at Optus for several months. I don’t know if they resolved it after I left and quite frankly, I don’t give a damn because I no longer work there.
But this isn’t about Optus and the wait times, I don’t know why you felt it germaine to piss in my ear when I’ve clearly stated I no longer work for the company, and by extension no longer give a shit.
This thread was you having RO about the lead times between calls in a call centre. My post was explaining why the lead times seem short, with the fact that I worked for Optus noted in there for context so it didn’t look like I was pulling stuff out of my arse.
Simple fact if you don’t like the wait times on the phone at your CHOSEN phone/internet company - go to another provider. Hit the whirlpool forums, ask if there’s anyone who can tell you what provider has a good phone wait/help time ratio. I’m sure someone will be along soon to tell you where to go.
gee --all this talk about telephone call centers is interesting—but how is this terrible, unsufferable, “12 second” requirement so much worse than millions of other jobs?
Hasn’t anybody here ever gone shopping at a supermarket? Do you give the clerk at the cash register 12 seconds of rest between the time she finishes with the customer in front of you. ?
And has anybody here ever worked a factory assembly line? The workers sure don’t have the option of turning the converyor belt off for 12 seconds between each widget they assemble…
I’ve worked (=suffered) under those conditions, and after university I swore that I would never do it again. But , unfortunately, it is a very common situation that millions of people have to put up with.