New Call Center Mgr syndrome. Any CC employees here?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I briefly thought about putting this in the BBQ Pit, but it’s pretty lame and not worthy of being in the pit. Any call center employees here? Any insight on the reasoning behind out new manager? Some of his new ideas are bizarre. So, here goes….

We have had a new call center manager for the past year and he has come down with a case of “new call center manager syndrome”. Things were okay when he first arrived, but he quickly initiated new rules. For example, we can no longer use the internet for anything other than work related issues. This is common practice in most offices, but our previous manager allowed us to surf the net for personal reasons during breaks/lunch, so it’s kind of difficult to get used to. Now, we can’t even do that anymore.

Second, he said that we would no longer be able to split up our breaks. A lot of employees used to take a 30 minute lunch and two 15 minutes breaks. Now, we all have to take the entire hour at one time. One of the employees (a smoker) asked the reasoning for this and was told that “it makes good business sense”. I thought this was a lame excuse, but it didn’t really affect me since I always took a whole hour at once anyway.

Third, no more casual Fridays. One of the perks (for me) was that with our old manager, we were allowed to wear jeans and such on Fridays. No more. We (the guys) must wear shirts and ties, Mon-Fri. This is a change because we didn’t have to wear ties before. I’ve never understood why call center workers should have to “dress-up” for work, since no one can actually see us. I know the whole thing about how it supposedly creates a professional work environment and all.

We are now required to attend a monthly meeting which starts at 7am (one hour before the phone lines open). We get paid for it, but it’s a bit inconvenient for some people with child care issues, etc. I’m all for communication, but at 7am? I went to the first meeting with an open mind, but left feeling like my hour had been wasted. It seemed that our new manager read a book, which was written by a call center manager and he got all sorts of new ideas. He wants to turn our call center into a “world class call center”.

We were also told that our yearly bonus is highly dependant on our abandonment rate. At the same time, we were told that from now on, we must include certain verbiage in all of our phone conversations. For example, we must verify with the caller that all of their contact information is correct, we must use their name at some point during the conversation, and, at the end of the call, we must ask the caller if there is anything else we can help them with. Lately, my calls have been lasting several minutes longer than they previously did. I wonder how we’re supposed to improve our abandonment rate while increasing our call time? I just have a problem with the new verbiage. First of all, more than half the time, the person calling is not the patient, so I have no idea what their name is. Second, most of our patients are from other countries and I have NO idea how to pronounce their names.

The thing that really irked everyone is that now, anytime we call out sick, we’re required to bring a doctors note when we return to work or we won’t get paid. I wonder if this is even legal? I have emailed our union representative, but have not heard back yet. I am not one to call in sick a lot, but when I do, I don’t normally go to the doctor. But, I guarantee that from now on I will ask my doctor to put me out of work for several days (luckily I have a doctor that is very understanding).

Also, there will now be a monthly lunch meeting for four lucky employees (each month) with the new manager. The new manager says that he wants to get to know each and every employee personally. Maybe I have a bad attitude, but is this really necessary? I can appreciate his efforts, I guess…but it just seems like he’s wanting to do everything at once.

2

My advice is simple: I wouldn’t recommend anyone plan to work in a call center for long. Four years of work in a large call center, three of those in management, and the only good thing I can say about it is that my experience got me the job that I have now.

The types of things that you mention heralded the swing of our call center into a worse and worse work environment. The things that you’ve mentioned show little respect for the employees and are, in my opinion, a warning sign.

Places where managers start to make major changes because they read a book sound exactly like where I worked for. Get set for a place that “communicates” in more meetings but the value of the communication is less and less. I mean, what does a “world-class call center” even mean?

Who wants to go hours and hours without a break? He could just look into call center schedule management software like Blue Pumpkin which will distribute the breaks throughout the day to handle the forecasted call volume.

I have a hard time understanding why you need a doctor’s note whenever you are out sick. I could have a bad cold or terrible cramps, and I’m not going to go to the doctor. It’s shortsighted.

Basically, I see it that your manager has identified problems. Some of those (like, presumably, attendance and professionalism) are common in call centers. However, his solutions make little sense. If he changes them based on the feedback he gets and the statistics, you might be all right. If he doesn’t follow through, or if he ignores the consequences and more bizarre plans come down, get out.

In my opinion, there are two types of call centers: ones that operate like offices and have office-type problems, and sweatshop-like, soul-crushing hellholes. The latter are primarily identifiable by management’s treatment of employees. If you’re treated like errant children, it’s a bad sign.

3

Brother, I feel your pain. I work in a call center that has seen drastic management changes over the last year. Our current management are former employees of a rival call center that is in the same industry.

Thankfully I’m spared the worst of it having carved out a place in the Finance Department. Now and then I volunteer to take calls when our lines get busy and I can’t believe how much the scripts have changed. It is bad writing. There are run on sentences, bad grammar, and confusing syntax everywhere. Luckily since my job performance isn’t based on how well I follow scripts I tend to either briefly summarize or skip altogether. I just tell people what they need to hear and get the fuck on with it.

Where I work there is no such thing as “Abandonment Rate” we don’t drop calls. But seeing as that’s the goal it goes back to what you were saying earlier about the extra wording. It makes the goddamn calls take longer.

The software that has recently been developed in-house is absolutely atrocious, and that has affected the finance department. Motherfuckers. I hate my job.

4

Most of this sounds pretty typical of call center work, which I did for 3 years, one as a manager.

I noticed that you mentioned you are in a union. The break time thing and the sick note thing may be addressed in a union contract somewhere. The break issue might also be addressed by state wage and hour law. However, without a union contract that says otherwise, companies have latitude to require documentation for sick leave. At least in a nonunion environment, paid sick leave is not required, therefore it can be paid on the employer’s terms.

On using the caller’s names, I’m not following you. It seems like it should be quite important to know who you are talking to in reference to a patient. I guess it depends on exactly what you’re doing, but my impression is that you should be documenting what you say to whom, and making sure there is a legit reason to give out any medical information.

On the verbiage and abandonment rate thing, my guess is your manager will get bitten by this worse than you. If your bonus depends on the rate, his almost certainly does, too. So if the verbiage needs to be there (for legal reasons or because it increases revenue or whatever) he needs to make the case for increased staff to keep the abandon rate acceptable. Maybe with experience the staff can use the new script without taking longer, but maybe not.

[Digression for somewhat humorous call center story. Once after getting back from training on our new, extremely detailed identity verification process, my very first call after logging onto my phone was a caller with an extreme stutter. I felt so bad, it seemed like 5 minutes before I could even begin to assist him. Most. painful. call. ever.]

You should find a few call center books about how casual Fridays improve morale and leave them lying around. When he reinvents that wheel he will be so proud!

5

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with addressing people by their names…frankly I think it is a good idea. We normally ask patients for their medical record number, then ask them to verify some information. Most of the time, the person calling to schedule the appointment is not the patient, but calling on their behalf (it is more often than not a discharge planner or family member). My beef (albeit minor) is that most of our patients are immigrants and have very difficult to pronounce last names. It can be a bit awkward.

6

2-year agent, 3-year workforce manager and 2-year current analyst-type in call centers chiming in…

New Manager Syndrome is, unfortunately, rampant in the call center environment. Fortunately, it tends to be self-correcting, in that (a) the patient (the manager) tends to get canned, or (b) the sufferers (the workers) tend to find better jobs elsewhere and escape long-term exposure.

In my experience, your choices are to either find something else (highly regarded), or kill him with kindness by doing exactly what he wants, how he wants it, when he wants it, and documenting every step of the way. When it hits the fan you’ll be covered and he’ll be gone. (That’s not to say the next manager won’t have the same problem…)

On to specifics…

Internet: there are many varied and good reasons for not allowing private use of the internet by employees, especially those with access to personal identity information (PII in the lingo, though I’m probably mangling the acronym) or credit card info. You may not have the CC info, but you certainly have the other, if you’re dealing with medical records of any sort. That said, he’s going about it the wrong way. Instead of telling you you’re not allowed, your IT department should be restricting access to just what’s allowed, and – if they want to be nice – providing a few computers in the break room that DO connect to the internet but are not on the internal network (or rather, kept quarantined from it). Last, the reasons for this need to be explained clearly. Most people are okay with regulations if they understand why.

No break-splitting: this is both stupid and smart at the same time. Stupid, because he’s coming across as a tyrant (from your telling, anyway); smart, because, for good business reasons, people shouldn’t be taking breaks willy-nilly but instead when they’re scheduled to do so. fluiddruid mentions WFM – workforce management – software like Blue Pumpkin which schedules the breaks around the predicted call volumes. These are good, but the problem – and I speak from years of experience here – is that people just don’t adhere to breaks, and expecting them to is a recipe for disaster. How many people do you know who can schedule their bladder? Or, more often: what do you do when your break time arrives and the caller just Will Not Shut Up? The best solution, if you can afford it, is to expand coverage and actively monitor break durations, rather than draconian to-the-minute adherence policies and no-break-splitting rules. Good luck getting a manager type to listen to that, especially when the high-price Blue Pumpkin (or TCS, or… you get the idea) consultant is telling him it’s all because his people aren’t taking their breaks when they’re scheduled to, and can produce reports to prove it. And believe me, they can produce those reports.

Casual Fridays: okay, he’s just insane, here. I understand, and agree, with promoting a professional environment, but c’mon, even huge Mega Corporations do the casual Friday thing.

Doctor’s Note: ugh. You have no idea how much I hated having to enforce this rule. That said, it has good reasons behind it. As with much in the call center world, good intentions, but bad execution. The intent is to keep butts in seats. If you have to bring in a doctor’s note to excuse your day off, you’re much less likely (it’s thought) to simply call in sick when you just want to go blow a day at the park or whatever. Problem is, the average call center employee (myself included here) is not going to go to the doctor for a cold or a mild flu bug that’s perfectly well treatable by bed rest and a hot bowl of soup. It’s not cost effective, and that’s assuming you can get an appointment anyway. So the numbers don’t really improve much (the people who were going to blow a day anyway, um, still do it), the workers feel shafted because they’re damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don’t, and management is puzzled and angry because it’s not working?!? Why isn’t it working?!?.

Morning meetings: Um. Sounds like he’s picked up a copy of some motivational speaker’s bathroom reading material and is parroting it without understanding the content. Dunno what to suggest here, unless you’re in a position to point out how this is actually undermining productivity, with numbers to back that up. Doesn’t sound like you are, though.

Mandated verbiage: this, my friend, is the lawyers talking. And it’s a royal pain from management’s perspective, too – you may get tired of saying it, but it’s a given that they’re tired of having to enforce constantly-changing and usually-contradictory information. Problem is, it’s drafted by the lawyers and usually you’re either bound by contract or by regulations to include some form of these warnings, etc, in what you say. It’s butt-covering, generally, and it’s a good idea, but the problem arises when the lawyers deliver a new batch of requirements, the trainers/writers/whatever group your company uses script it, and nobody bothers to field-test it to see how it affects your required metrics. You may have a chance of fighting this one, but it’ll take work. First off, forget trying to drop the verbiage. Once it’s there, it’s going to stick. What you need to do is gather data on how much time it’s added to your normal, everyday tasks, then point out – using that data – how it prevents you from achieving the goals you were given, because those goals do not allow for the time required by the new script. Your manager may not listen, but someone will, especially if you can point out how it affects THEIR bonus (they don’t care about yours, I’m sorry to say).

All that said, you have one recourse that most call center employees don’t: a union. Chances are your union rep is aware of the problem, and if not, make sure he/she is. Nag them about it. They’re there to help you, not management (or they’re supposed to be, anyway).

But I’m with fluid on this one. I recommend getting out and finding something better. Either farther up the food chain (document his faults and take over when the revolution comes?) or in another company.

7

Ties!, in a call center, WTF? I’d just be happy with someone who spoke English without a Qwik-E Mart accent.

8

I don’t know anything about call centers, but I thought the only people that wore ties anymore were lawyers and bankers. That seems like a strange policy for an office with no face to face customer interaction.

9

Do you have a senior-level mentor in the company? You might try asking them how to deal with it. Word will soon get around.

10

I used to work in Nintendo’s call center just a little over a year ago, and while I grew tired of the job, I must say it wasn’t a bad place to work, especially given the situation you described.

Breaks: We were allowed to take either a 1/2 or full hour lunch (scheduled ahead of time, of course) and two 15 minutes breaks per 8 hour shift. Everything was scheduled, but I blew off the break times constantly and took them at my leisure, and my manager’s never bothered me about it. I did try to adhere to my lunch time though, but that too was loose, though you may get a reminder call from your manager if you’re running too late (hour or so).

Dress: Absolutely casual, all the time. It was awesome; jeans, hats, sandals, whatever. Didn’t matter.

Meetings: At worst, we had one meeting a month (and most team leads didn’t even have them that often). But when we did, it was during usual work hours and thus served as a break more than anything, which was fine by me.

Phone Manners: Surprisingly loose. Well, rather, the training itself was comprehensive (3 weeks for my group), but we had no “scripts” per se, and the only real requirement was that we verify all the information we had taken from the consumer (CC number, address, etc). We didn’t have to use the customer’s name at least once or any such BS.

So yeah, wasn’t a bad gig for what it was, but although I was one of their top employees, I simply burned out on that job and now work much higher up in the game industry.

11

He’s batshit insane. This is San Francisco, part of the home of casual dress, the silicon valley.

12

Call Centers are my gig. I’ve worked as a CC manager at a large, high-volume retail call center (1-800-CONTACTS), as a QA Supervisor at a large, high-volume insurance claims center (Asurion), and currently as the manager of the small call center at a private medical practice (thank you, dear lord).

Your boss sounds like an annoying pinhead, and he’s actually in the majority IME. Call Centers tend to attract pointy-haired bosses like no other workplace I can think of.

13

It takes no skills or intelligence. Even more than most workplaces, the managers do nothing. At all. They sit there day after day and hope to avoid a disaster while doing no work.

14

Exactly. And because it’s a job that a monkey could be trained to do, it’s hard to stand out for positive reasons. Which is why you end up with CC managers trying outlandish, annoying and ultimately pointless “changes” in order to try and make a splash.

I never did any of that, of course. :smiley:

15

Haha…I can build world class call centers with my eyes closed. He’s a dope. I don’t even have the energy to get into specifics, but I will dabble with two:

Pissing off employees: One of the hardest metrics to wrestle and improve is ‘attrition’ or ‘turnover’. This single issue should hang him. Coming in early, f-in with breaks/lunches, making people wear ties, needing doctor notes…well, these will make the attrition rates go up. He’s screwed. It’ll take 18-24 months to see the screwing work itself out, but it’s a guarantee.

Abandons: he’s a fucknut. He, along with the workforce management team that cuts schedules, can control the abandonment rate. When properly staffed, your center’s abandon rate should be low (and still out of your control). Bad news: high attrition rates means staffing won’t match incoming volume all the time, and your ASA will go up, and the abandons will pile up fast. Trainees won’t be as productive as experienced people who rolled, and he probably won’t be astute enough to get ahead of the curve on this, will believe he has enough FTE, and things will get worse.

Please, let me stop now!

16

Yes, please do, before either one of us starts using words like “Erlang unit.” Nobody needs to see that. :stuck_out_tongue: :wink:

17

Depending on your circumstances this may violate labor laws:

(Emphasis mine)

Definitely talk to your union rep.

18

Can someone explain what an abandonment rate is? I thought I could glean it from reading the thread but I’m still lost.

19

I believe it records people who call in to the call center but hang up before they get through to an actual person. It could be people who dialed the wrong 800 number (“XYZ Co? I thought I was calling my bank…”) or people who give up after being on hold for an half hour…

20

What kind of company has a call center in San Francisco? Talk about high-cost labor. Why not move it to Tulsa, or Birmingham, or Mumbai? Just curious, as I sit here in our call center in the middle of Tennessee.