It has begun

When I started working for this call center oh so long ago, it was a cool place to work. Sure, the customers were pains, but they always were and always will be.

Then, last year, things started changing for the worse.

The customer is being removed from customer service.

Now, when I joined, I joined for technical support. I can help you with your phone service or your internet service, and in most cases, help you get it working again.

I am no salesperson. I hate selling....to me, it's like asking people to give me money, and I hate it.

You can imagine when we were asked to start selling that not only did it come as a shock to me, but I staunchly refused it for the longest time.

The sneaky management started out slowly. They offered it as an optional thing, you know, kind of test the waters to see how well it would work.

I warned people about giving in and doing it, saying that if they did, it would be something we would absolutely have to do, but as usual, they didn't listen.

So it begins with a handful of people starting to sell the products. The company sees increased profits from those sales and gets greedy...they want more.

Then they start to hound all the employees, saying that even though it didn't count against us as far as stats go, that we should try to make a sale on every call. I had a bad feeling about it, as I had seen this before.

Then they made it count against us. Just to put it in perspective, if you called in and had problems getting online, or your phone wasn't working, 20% of my call score would go towards asking you to buy something.....20%.

So if you called in and I didn't ask you to buy something for whatever reason, I automatically lose 20% of my score on my call monitor. I find this to be unacceptable.

I should be scored on what I'm there to do, which is technical support.

Now surely you may think that there must be situations that you could run into and not have to sell. I have asked questions and have been given the same answer every time.

"What if the customer is calling to lower their bill?"

"Make the sale."

"What if their service isn't working when I'm ready to end the call?"

"Make the sale"

"What if the person is not authorized to make changes on the account?"

"Make the sale"


Every question was met with the same answer.....make the sale.

So it begins with this, the greed of upper management, that makes me start this blog again.

Believe me, there will be much more, and in time, I think you will hate the company as much as I know I do.

And I know what some of you may say....get another job. Well, it isn't as easy as you may think it should be, with being in a recession and all. So I'm stuck in the position that I can't really quit because I would be in a dangerous position of being one of the first ones cut if the new place starts laying off, and I don't want that.

I'll be blogging more on this and other subjects. Believe me, last week was hell, and I plan on letting you all know about it.

Keep a watchful eye here, as I will return.

Changing this blog.

I am changing the blog because I am no longer upset with the customers anymore. I am much more upset with management now than anything.

Nothing like being on a burning ship when it's going down, right?


Starting now, the management are assholes!