I worked for an ISP help desk for years. I loved it.
I think my experience was a bit different to most phone work though. All the calls were initiated by customers. Even when I was calling outbound, it was as a follow up to someone who wanted to speak to me. Also, we were helping people, so they’d be happy and grateful at the end of the call.
Finally, it was the 90’s - the Internet users were far more technical than the average person today. I could walk most callers through their computer/modem settings pretty easily.
There might still be phone work out there that doesn’t crush your soul. I don’t think it’s the work itself that’s awful, rather the setting they do that work in and your coworkers/employer that are the problem.
I’ve had customers scream at me, threaten to unalive themselves or me, threaten to shoot me, masturbate on calls, speak to me like I was a phone sex worker, call me every name under the sun, tell me I’m a bad person and I should unalive myself, and threaten their own children.
Had some spout qanon stuff, and scream about 5g causing cancer while using their mobile to conduct the call. Scream that lefties are ruining the country.
Had people tell me that land tax is stupid and not know what it goes towards (roads, infrastructure, schools, were my answer), that it was just funding trans people to abuse children 🙄. Scream about having to sell their investment properties (not my fault). Some spoke down to me, or call me racist names because they though I was an immigrant (I’m not, not that it makes it okay).
Threaten to find me and rape me, wanted me to tell them my last name, tell them my home address, call me queer slurs. Ask me out, ask me to talk dirty to them, and demand I do something against company policy.
All this because I was just doing my job, or I was “taking too long”, or I told them they had to pay xyz bill, or tell them it would take X time for payment to be received/refund to land. Never told anyone my political leanings, never provoked them. I think you lucked out, because these days people have gotten worse and worse.
So by the end, I was a (middle) manager of the staff on the phones. I had the power to “fire” customers. I would not have hesitated to close the account of a customer, making them get a new Internet Provider/email address for any of this. Our people were worthy of respect and our customers knew it. Or they weren’t our customers any longer.
@Nath@StudChud Nath, it’s great you had a good job experience.
But not all call centre jobs are like that.
Many call centres are micro-micromanaged.
Adherence to work hours. Conformance to schedule. Call handling time. Calls per worked hour.
There’s often caller feedback forms, and those irrational or malicious customers basically decide if you keep your job.
The calls are recorded, and your team leader or dedicated contact centre staff listen in randomly.
In many commercial organisations, there’s a mandate to upsell or cross-sell, even if it’s an angry customer who wants to close their accounts.
In those cases, you also get judged on the average value of products you sell, and the percentage of calls you upsell on.
You have already angry people who have just been on hold for up to an hour, and have been transferred across different departments and teams.
And there are some men who are either creepy or misogynistic when dealing with women over the phone. And yes, clearly it’s a small minority of men. But that small minority exists, and they’re shitty.
I worked for an ISP help desk for years. I loved it.
I think my experience was a bit different to most phone work though. All the calls were initiated by customers. Even when I was calling outbound, it was as a follow up to someone who wanted to speak to me. Also, we were helping people, so they’d be happy and grateful at the end of the call.
Finally, it was the 90’s - the Internet users were far more technical than the average person today. I could walk most callers through their computer/modem settings pretty easily.
There might still be phone work out there that doesn’t crush your soul. I don’t think it’s the work itself that’s awful, rather the setting they do that work in and your coworkers/employer that are the problem.
I did four years ISP tech support and I think I’d eat out of bins before going back.
Same 100%
I wish it was just coworkers/management
I’ve had customers scream at me, threaten to unalive themselves or me, threaten to shoot me, masturbate on calls, speak to me like I was a phone sex worker, call me every name under the sun, tell me I’m a bad person and I should unalive myself, and threaten their own children.
Had some spout qanon stuff, and scream about 5g causing cancer while using their mobile to conduct the call. Scream that lefties are ruining the country.
Had people tell me that land tax is stupid and not know what it goes towards (roads, infrastructure, schools, were my answer), that it was just funding trans people to abuse children 🙄. Scream about having to sell their investment properties (not my fault). Some spoke down to me, or call me racist names because they though I was an immigrant (I’m not, not that it makes it okay).
Threaten to find me and rape me, wanted me to tell them my last name, tell them my home address, call me queer slurs. Ask me out, ask me to talk dirty to them, and demand I do something against company policy.
All this because I was just doing my job, or I was “taking too long”, or I told them they had to pay xyz bill, or tell them it would take X time for payment to be received/refund to land. Never told anyone my political leanings, never provoked them. I think you lucked out, because these days people have gotten worse and worse.
I found people were more aggressive to me as a CSR than as a bouncer.
So by the end, I was a (middle) manager of the staff on the phones. I had the power to “fire” customers. I would not have hesitated to close the account of a customer, making them get a new Internet Provider/email address for any of this. Our people were worthy of respect and our customers knew it. Or they weren’t our customers any longer.
@Nath @StudChud Nath, it’s great you had a good job experience.
But not all call centre jobs are like that.
Many call centres are micro-micromanaged.
Adherence to work hours. Conformance to schedule. Call handling time. Calls per worked hour.
There’s often caller feedback forms, and those irrational or malicious customers basically decide if you keep your job.
The calls are recorded, and your team leader or dedicated contact centre staff listen in randomly.
In many commercial organisations, there’s a mandate to upsell or cross-sell, even if it’s an angry customer who wants to close their accounts.
In those cases, you also get judged on the average value of products you sell, and the percentage of calls you upsell on.
You have already angry people who have just been on hold for up to an hour, and have been transferred across different departments and teams.
And there are some men who are either creepy or misogynistic when dealing with women over the phone. And yes, clearly it’s a small minority of men. But that small minority exists, and they’re shitty.
Thank you, you get it!