What can I expect at my new job? (Bank call-center CSR)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Sooo…tomorrow marks the beginning of my latest step toward world domination. I started out waiting tables, of course, but taking over the planet $3 at a time isn’t as effective as one might think. Realizing that, I decided to join the Air Force. Most of you already know how that went.

After a month of searching (in which the $900 I’d accumulated during my USAF tenure dwindled away with great haste), I finally gave in and posted my somewhat-less-than-impressive resume on Monster.com. I billed myself as “Experienced Customer Service Professional” – buzzwords where buzzwords are due, y’know. Within two days (!), I received an offer for a “contract opportunity” (read: temp job) at Wachovia’s regional call center here in Roanoke. Six months of 40+ hr weeks @ 10.75/hr = “Why, sure!”, and lo, the date of my rites of initiation draws nigh.

Now that you have the backstory, which you needed, because I said you did, and you shouldn’t argue with me, even when I make A) questionable amounts of sense and B) liberal use of arcane and confusing formatting and run-on sentences*…what sort of joys can I expect in my new capacity?

Understand that I’m quite inured to people yelling at me through little or no fault of my own. Three years of waiting tables/managing restaurants followed by Basic Military Training will do that to a person quite reliably. That aspect of the job will come very naturally. What I’m wondering now – and what I’m nearly certain my three weeks of corporate in-house training will not tell me – is exactly what manner of marvelous questions I’ll be dealing with on a day-to-day basis.

My gut feeling, based on zero experience in the field but a great deal of experience with the public in general, is that the hardest part of the job is going to be figuring out what the person on the phone actually did that created the reason for the question in the first place. If my various experiences as “unofficial office tech support” have taught me anything at all, it’s that people will deny until the end of time that they took the one and only action that could possibly have caused the problem at hand, thereby willfully withholding from me the ability to do anything about it (“Now, which one of these emails did you open, and when did you open it?”) while simultaneously insisting that I fix it at once. Once I figure out the problem, applying my knowledge of Bank-Fu to defeat the conundrum should be a relatively simple matter…but my hard-earned cynicism forsees many conversations in the future of the following nature:

Caller: “I should have $200. Where’s my $200?”
Roland: “All right, sir, I’m looking at your account right now, and I don’t see a transaction for that amount. When did you deposit the money?”
Caller: “Deposit? What deposit? Where’s my *%@!ing $200?!”
Roland: “Sir, are you saying that you’re missing the money from a prior deposit, or that it was erroneously debited from your account?”
Caller: “MY ACCOUNT SHOULD HAVE 200 DOLLARS IN IT!”
…and so on, and so forth.

So, banking CSRs former and present, lend me your expertise, and tell me your tales. What am I in for? How much does it have to suck that they’re willing to pay a 21-year-old waiter with half an Associate’s $10.75/hr, with benefits, to do it? (There’s that pessimism again.) Speak up, and pull no punches!

*This would likely be less of a problem if I tried sleeping on a daily basis. That, however, seems quite improbable at this time, so I ask that you bear with me, and give me the requested dirt forthwith. Whee!

2

I’m going to make a guess by the pay that your working for Chase/BankOne

i did a short tenure as a bank CSR, its not bad as long as you don’t mind the intelectually dificent calling you insisting you do something to fix the fact that they ran up 5000 dollars on their credit card and don’t have the money to pay the bill.

You will hear sob stories, half of them will be true, half of the other ones you won’t be able to tell.

You will be yelled at frequently because obviously any error on their bill is YOUR fault.

You will have completely calm rational sounding people insist you have the power to do something you haven’t even heard of. You will politely and calmly do around in circles for fifteen to twenty minute, absolutely killing your handle time which will probably be expect to be aroun 160 second per call, destroying your averages for an entire month insuring you don’t get bonuses. Then they will ask to talk to your supervisoer and procede to belittle you, your skills, your familly, and you faith (also completely rationally and calmly) at which point they will wish to lodge a formal complaint which your supervisor will be required to log and place in your file. ( true story)

However most of your calls will be routine and even pleasant.

I’m not trying to discourage you, just relating a few things that happaned to me or friends of mine. You have to be able to laugh after the bad calls.

At my center we treated Supervisor calls as things to be proud of, the loser at the end of the week bought ice cream for the team. We would trade horrid calls like old war veterans trading trench stories.

If your company doesn’t have a real dress code (an example would be them saying, as long as it’s not offensive or showing anything too personal) then you will meet some of the strangest greatest people in the world, as well as some of the creapiest assholes and 'verts.

I stayed at my position (which was in collections but two of my room mates were over as CSR’s) for abouty six weeks before i realized the money wasn’t worth it. But then again i was calling them at eight in the morning on sundays, so i got more angry people than you’ll get.

In other words you will either love it or hate it. Either way you will come to believe what all phone CSR’s believe after a week on the floor. all phones should come with two more buttons, “sterilize” and “electricute”

Phoenix

3

Why did you bounce my check? I’ve got money! {In your savings account} I want you to pay the check and refund that bounced-check fee.

I ordered new checks last month. {last month could be yesterday} They’re not here yet. I think I should get them for free because it’s taken so long.

Why didn’t anyone tell me I can only write three checks a month off my money market account? I don’t think I should have to pay this fee! {Tell it to government - it’s their rule}
Log into the ACD each morning, knowing that people aren’t calling you to say how happy they are with the bank. Expect to be verbally assaulted with each call, and be pleased when they don’t.

4

I work in a call center, as a supervisor, though not in banking; however, we are a merchant that uses credit card transactions, and billing calls can be an absolute nightmare. Sure, a lot are routine, but when customers get charged overdraft fees, things get ugly awfully fast.

Typical escalated billing call:
Customer: I sent in my statement like you guys asked, but you didn’t refund my overdraft charges!
Me: Yes, I see it was declined because you placed the order.
Customer: You charged me. It’s your fault!
Me: I’m sorry, we charged you at your request. We cannot be responsible for the fees.
Customer: Who else can I talk to?
Me: (typically taking a call escalated twice before) I’m sorry, but nobody is going to refund your fees. The decision has been escalated as far as it can go. It will not be refunded.
Customer: I need that money! What can I do to get this refunded?
Me: I’m sorry, it will not be refunded.
Customer: But I’m a single mom! I need that money! Who can I talk to that will refund my money?
Me: I’m sorry, the fees will not be refunded.
(Repeat for ten minutes)
Customer: FINE! I’m never ordering from you again! clunk

Yeah, like refunding hundreds of dollars in fees on your twenty dollar order is a good business practice because you’re too stupid to figure out how much money is in your account.

5

Former bank call center CSR here. I worked for a Canadian bank, and I have to say, of all my many call center jobs, this was one of the most pleasant.

First, CSR can entail a lot of things. At least 75% of my calls were simple questions and transactional banking. Many people just wanted to pay some bills or transfer funds from one account to another. We had a lot of elderly people calling because they were scared to use the automated system. We had a lot of balance inquiries. People called about foreign exchange rates, where to locate the nearest branch, asking for advice on which service package is best and asking to be mailed a replacement bank card. Simple, routine questions and requests.

We also had calls from people interested in applying for credit, but many banks now have a dedicated department that handles that.

We had more confused than irate customers. Many people would not understand a certain fee or they couldn’t remember making a specific transaction. Usually, a brief glance at account history would clear everything up.

As to irate customers, there weren’t that many. Most were annoyed because they had to wait to speak to a representative. Some were annoyed because we wouldn’t give them information that was confidential (ie., they wanted information on their spouse’s transactions). Some just wanted to complain that the bank made too much money.

This no where near ranks as my worst call center job. Most people weren’t foaming at the mouth, threatening to sue, to hunt me down, swearing at me*. Not a bad job, overall.

*that would have been working in billing at another company.

6

I currently work as a representative for a large, multi-state financial institution, though I work on the insurance/annuities side, not the banking side, and our job is considered slightly more prestigious than the banking CSRs (in that we get paid more than they do, and have to have a Series 6 license).

Really, to be honest, all these horror stories? I never see them. I’m usually able to talk down just about anyone who calls upset. I’ve never had an incident where someone’s complained about me to a supervisor (though I had one where they claimed I said something I didn’t, thank Og for the recorded line). I’ve even gotten a fair number of compliments. The job isn’t horrible. I can, however, tell you why they’re willing to pay that much.

They need intelligent, patient people. Most people aren’t willing to listen, and aren’t good with people. If you’re able to do both, while keeping track of all the facts that you need to know in order to perform the job well, you’re a rarity. I’m actually pretty damn good at it, despite the fact that, when dealing with individuals on an extended basis, I am really impatient.

The ability to not say, “the reason that _______ is because you’re a moron” with your words, your tone, or your actions is a marketable skill. I don’t mind my job, most of the time (though, let me tell you, there are days…I’ve only been threatened once, though, and that was very oblique, and I could’ve misinterpreted it).