I hate my Job :/
- Thread starter Piggymon
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Soldato
memphisto said:
We know what the clever thing to do in that situation is to employ more staff, why companies do not admit this is beyond me. The constant cutting of targets is not sustainable in the long run as this will lead to more stress and missed targets; which will only force attrition and termination rates up anyway.
It does really sound like you company really does not care about the customers at all Piggy, or their staff for that matter. I'm not an NTL customer, but I am aware that some people regard their customer services as poor. If the company truly want to improve call times etc. this can only start with offering a superior CS experience. Better service will mean fewer complaints, which will mean less unnecessary calls and will bring overall call lengths down accordingly.
My company has made a concerted effort to employ more people at the front line (200% or more over the 2 years at my site) and this has made a difference, but more people are still required, and are being hired. There still are serious issues which need to be addressed at my company, a lot of which has risen from policy change and bad press.
Let’s hope you get a new job where you are rewarded for what you do, not for what you don't do. Good luck.
Caporegime
Davey_Pitch said:
Yes, it is. People only think it isn't.
Caporegime
Otacon said:
I'm 28.
Soldato
When you've already got financial commitments it's not always an easy task to just jump from one job to another, especially with lower pay.
Caporegime
Hang on. I didn't say finding a new job was easy; I said that if you hate your job you should find a new one. That will take time, effort and a certain amount of dedication on your part but, IMO, it's always possible* and always worth it. Look, I know loads of people who've hated their jobs (myself included), but they don't do anything about it for ages until, finally, they pull their finger out of their backsides and start actually looking. You know what, they've always found something within a month or two and, in nearly every case, they've found a job they enjoy more and, often, got more money out of the deal in the process. The thing keeping you at your current job is not money, it's not time, it's not lack of alternatives, it's inertia - and only you can change that.
* - excepting periods of recession.
* - excepting periods of recession.
Caporegime
Haly said:
Hmmm well then move and find a new job, its really up to the person involved to make their life easy or easier. It just takes a bit of courage and get up and go attitude. Yes the job might suck and i have been there but i had the attitude that if i didnt do something about it then i wouldnt get anywhere. Now ive got a great job that pays me good money, although im getting bored of it at the mo but in the meantime im making as much money as i can whilst i look at doing something on my own and added to that i live in London which is triple the living costs compared to Swansea i would imagine.
I guess some people have that extra bit in them to do something about it whereas some dont and honestly there isnt anything wrong with that. Its just a case of what makes you happy really. But like i said it takes the courage and the right attitude to do that, up and moving etc and moving is one of the most stressful times in anyones life.
Piggy thats a shame really but with upper management they dont tend to look at the simple things, they just want results and they want them at any cost really. Thats one of the reasons i quit a very good retail career, i was regional manager and getting great results but the amount of stress i used to carry home wasnt worth it tbh.
Associate
*hugs Piggy*
Soldato
Piggy, you know I'm stuck in Tech Help too, and I could have written your post. 
I know exactly how you feel. I have worked in several call-centres and they are all the same... it's all about stat's.
My AHT is usually below average, however, my ACW (After Call Work) time is always up and that's what they lecture me on. What they don't take into account is that my ave. call volume per rota is actually 50% above everyone elses, so I take a 3 calls minimum to everyone else's 2.
But they don't care - work sucks
I know exactly how you feel. I have worked in several call-centres and they are all the same... it's all about stat's. My AHT is usually below average, however, my ACW (After Call Work) time is always up and that's what they lecture me on. What they don't take into account is that my ave. call volume per rota is actually 50% above everyone elses, so I take a 3 calls minimum to everyone else's 2.
But they don't care - work sucks
Associate
Piggymon said:
It's not just your finances, what price your health and/or sanity? If you carry on then one or both are likely to suffer badly. As many above me have said, i think it's time to leave. I've been in your situation, i ended up taking a £10k pay cut to move to a job that i actually enjoy, even when it gets stressful. It's the best move i've ever made for a lot of reasons, and i can't think of any that would change the decision if I had to make it again.
Thanks again everyone *hugs OcUK*
I've just had a look in the local Job's paper and there really is nothing in there ...
I could afford to drop to about £12K but anything lower than that and I won't cover my outgoings :/ .. I had financial problems last year and there's no way in hell I am getting myself in that mess again .. I'm stressed enough as it is
I will take ANY job , I don't care what it's doing as it is only really a short term job until I move.. It's just finding finding something :/
Am going to be popping down the Job Centre later
I've just had a look in the local Job's paper and there really is nothing in there ...
I could afford to drop to about £12K but anything lower than that and I won't cover my outgoings :/ .. I had financial problems last year and there's no way in hell I am getting myself in that mess again .. I'm stressed enough as it is
I will take ANY job , I don't care what it's doing as it is only really a short term job until I move.. It's just finding finding something :/
Am going to be popping down the Job Centre later
Mr Jack said:
really? well shucks i'm a fool, i'll go nail a resignation letter to my bosses forehead and i can be home in time to watch childrens TV..
oh wait, what about my mortgage payment, insurance payments, utility bills and food bills next month? bah, nevermind, i'm sure that if i quit today i can walk into another job that pays as much as this one straight away..
you're wrong you know.. people do think it's that easy, it's their bank managers and mortgage lenders that tend to think differently.
Piggy, you have my sympathy
i did firstline call support for a year when i came out of uni, it's an awful job and one that you really should look to move up out ofi was lucky in that i worked for a helpline that was internal to one company, we tended to have about 75 - 125 calls each per day but the emphasis was on solving the users problem rather than taking the next call in 11 minutes.. which meant that the atmosphere was a little better and people who were good at the work got the raises and promotions
i got lucky in the end, i progressed fairly quickly to second-line support and then into web design and server management, which got me my present job
I supose I was looking when I wason the company help desk, wasn't realy a dedicated help desk though but was the only one service around 500 people.
There was no set response time or anything but when someonephoned with a problem I would take my time to talk them through things and as went on i'd explain to them what I was doing and why I was doing it eventualy they started to pick stuff up and managed to sort some of the simpler problems out themselves which overall reduced the number of calls.
shame all companies carn't work like that
There was no set response time or anything but when someonephoned with a problem I would take my time to talk them through things and as went on i'd explain to them what I was doing and why I was doing it eventualy they started to pick stuff up and managed to sort some of the simpler problems out themselves which overall reduced the number of calls.
shame all companies carn't work like that
Man of Honour
Never posted about this before, but your thread has prompted me to do so Sinead.
At work (Travel Agency call centre) we are of course paid comission (as are ALL Travel Agents) and measured on our performance.
According to my contract, I must achieve an average call conversion (Number of calls / Number of bookings x 100) of 6%. This means that for basically every 16 or so calls I take, one must be a booking. Sounds easy doesn't it? It's not. Not when at least 15% of your calls are wrong number, trying to get through to the wrong department, Customer Service related, calls for other staff and so on. These calls are "unservicable" and therefore beyond your control, but they still get taken into account when calculating your conversion.
Last summer, when call volumes were insanely high but booking volumes low (high prices and low availability, people stayed at home) I had a poor period where my average over a 4-week period was below 6%. I don't remember the weekly figures, but my month average was 5.3%. This was viewed as a "cause for concern" - the result of which I was placed on an Action Plan. The action plan was to run over a 3 month period. During this 3 month period, my monthly average conversion had to be over 6%. Business was relatively good over this time and I aced the first two months, with figures in the 10-15% band. The last month was inconsistent - one week I only worked 2 days due to holiday arrangements and took just 15 calls due to a low call volume business-wide. As I did not convert any of these, my weekly was 0%. This meant that even though the other 3 for the 4-week period were over 6% my monthly was about 5.5%. Below the magical 6% meaning that I had not achieved 3 months clear and would be called to a disciplinary hearing.
I spoke clearly and concisely throughout the disciplinary, made my defense in a polite but firm manner and was given a Verbal Warning. I was told (off the record) by the secretary who took the minutes of the meeting that I had handled myself well and that the usual outcome was a written warning.
The result of a disciplinary? Yep, you guessed it - Action Plan of 3 months above 6% starting from January. Ever get the feeling you're under constant scrutiny?!
The first month went well, a monthly of over 18% which considered excellent by anyone's standards. February is traditionally a lean month and this is when the tension rose. I knew I'd cut it fine. The whole floor was struggling to hit targets at all, people's telephone priorities began to be changed on an HOURLY basis (meaning you may recieve 20 calls one hour, then none for the next three hours, then another 30 over the next two hours - this is apparently meant to stimulate productivity but IMO works VERY poorly and demotivates staff) The members of staff on an enhanced payscheme (about 25% of total staff) all failed to hit their projected targets, signifying that something_was_wrong rather than just a **** of lazy staff not servicing calls properly but this was dismissed by management. Conversions were monitored on a daily basis, this later progressed to HOURLY (!) with constantly varying call volume, and constant call monitoring by management....on loudspeaker....so the whole office can hear. Demoralising and undermining in the extreme. 5-10 staff called into the managers office on a daily basis for analysis of the previous days performance (or lack of)
Me? I tried to keep my head above water as best I could. Despite daily roastings and severe talkings to for "inconsistency" (apparently 2%, 20%, 6%, 23% is worse than a flat 6,6,6,6) I did it and hit 6.06% for the month. Big sigh of relief, one month left.
I was therefore very surprised when I was lambasted for "only just achieving company standard". I did point out that "only just" was not part of the equation, and that achiving standard is achieving standard regardless and NOT underperforming and therefore NOT a cause for concern.
So onto the final month of AP.
In an attempt to boost my conversion for the next month, my call volume was to be lowered (allows you to spend longer concentrating on each call) and it worked - a weekly of 28% for the first week of the last month. I was called into the office to be told that "Although your performance was improved last week, we feel this has been artificially raised and therefore masked by a low call volume"
:|
This would be the low call volume that management gave me in an attempt to raise my conversion.
Where exactly am I supposed to win here?
Regardless, I kept at it and spent the whole month quite clear of 6%. My Team leader signed the AP off and my manager, well, she never made a SINGLE comment about it since, not even a "well done for completing the AP succesfully"
Now I'm off AP, even though business is still relatively bad, I'm no longer Public Enemy Number One, and work has returned to some form of normality (atmosphere still as frosty as ever - we are now seat-rotated daily to prevent us from talking to each other and building up friendships as it apparently breeds contempt - overheard managers chatting
)
Moral of the story? They seem to put you on AP to make you jump ship. They lean on you as heavily as possible knowing that the vast majority of staff will just leave. I refused to do so and proived them wrong and feel quite smug about it.
Sorry Sinead for hijacking the thread and boring you all with that crap, but it felt good to put it all in text!
At work (Travel Agency call centre) we are of course paid comission (as are ALL Travel Agents) and measured on our performance.
According to my contract, I must achieve an average call conversion (Number of calls / Number of bookings x 100) of 6%. This means that for basically every 16 or so calls I take, one must be a booking. Sounds easy doesn't it? It's not. Not when at least 15% of your calls are wrong number, trying to get through to the wrong department, Customer Service related, calls for other staff and so on. These calls are "unservicable" and therefore beyond your control, but they still get taken into account when calculating your conversion.
Last summer, when call volumes were insanely high but booking volumes low (high prices and low availability, people stayed at home) I had a poor period where my average over a 4-week period was below 6%. I don't remember the weekly figures, but my month average was 5.3%. This was viewed as a "cause for concern" - the result of which I was placed on an Action Plan. The action plan was to run over a 3 month period. During this 3 month period, my monthly average conversion had to be over 6%. Business was relatively good over this time and I aced the first two months, with figures in the 10-15% band. The last month was inconsistent - one week I only worked 2 days due to holiday arrangements and took just 15 calls due to a low call volume business-wide. As I did not convert any of these, my weekly was 0%. This meant that even though the other 3 for the 4-week period were over 6% my monthly was about 5.5%. Below the magical 6% meaning that I had not achieved 3 months clear and would be called to a disciplinary hearing.
I spoke clearly and concisely throughout the disciplinary, made my defense in a polite but firm manner and was given a Verbal Warning. I was told (off the record) by the secretary who took the minutes of the meeting that I had handled myself well and that the usual outcome was a written warning.
The result of a disciplinary? Yep, you guessed it - Action Plan of 3 months above 6% starting from January. Ever get the feeling you're under constant scrutiny?!
The first month went well, a monthly of over 18% which considered excellent by anyone's standards. February is traditionally a lean month and this is when the tension rose. I knew I'd cut it fine. The whole floor was struggling to hit targets at all, people's telephone priorities began to be changed on an HOURLY basis (meaning you may recieve 20 calls one hour, then none for the next three hours, then another 30 over the next two hours - this is apparently meant to stimulate productivity but IMO works VERY poorly and demotivates staff) The members of staff on an enhanced payscheme (about 25% of total staff) all failed to hit their projected targets, signifying that something_was_wrong rather than just a **** of lazy staff not servicing calls properly but this was dismissed by management. Conversions were monitored on a daily basis, this later progressed to HOURLY (!) with constantly varying call volume, and constant call monitoring by management....on loudspeaker....so the whole office can hear. Demoralising and undermining in the extreme. 5-10 staff called into the managers office on a daily basis for analysis of the previous days performance (or lack of)
Me? I tried to keep my head above water as best I could. Despite daily roastings and severe talkings to for "inconsistency" (apparently 2%, 20%, 6%, 23% is worse than a flat 6,6,6,6) I did it and hit 6.06% for the month. Big sigh of relief, one month left.
I was therefore very surprised when I was lambasted for "only just achieving company standard". I did point out that "only just" was not part of the equation, and that achiving standard is achieving standard regardless and NOT underperforming and therefore NOT a cause for concern.
So onto the final month of AP.
In an attempt to boost my conversion for the next month, my call volume was to be lowered (allows you to spend longer concentrating on each call) and it worked - a weekly of 28% for the first week of the last month. I was called into the office to be told that "Although your performance was improved last week, we feel this has been artificially raised and therefore masked by a low call volume"
:|
This would be the low call volume that management gave me in an attempt to raise my conversion.
Where exactly am I supposed to win here?
Regardless, I kept at it and spent the whole month quite clear of 6%. My Team leader signed the AP off and my manager, well, she never made a SINGLE comment about it since, not even a "well done for completing the AP succesfully"
Now I'm off AP, even though business is still relatively bad, I'm no longer Public Enemy Number One, and work has returned to some form of normality (atmosphere still as frosty as ever - we are now seat-rotated daily to prevent us from talking to each other and building up friendships as it apparently breeds contempt - overheard managers chatting
)Moral of the story? They seem to put you on AP to make you jump ship. They lean on you as heavily as possible knowing that the vast majority of staff will just leave. I refused to do so and proived them wrong and feel quite smug about it.
Sorry Sinead for hijacking the thread and boring you all with that crap, but it felt good to put it all in text!
Soldato
Well that sort of treatment sucks. Ok I could see a AHT being used in sales roles, because to be quite frankly you are going to have people put the phone down on you in seconds most of the time and that would be ballanced out by the few that actually want the product.
But where the customer is phoning you. It is your duty and the duty of the company to provide them with support to fix the problem.
If I was you I would get a stop watch and time the calls. at 9min 30 I would say something like.
I'm sorry but this problem will exceed NTLs 10 min 44 sec per call policy and I will have to hang up. Sorry for the inconvinence but my hands are tied. If your problem is not resolved please phone again. *click*
Alternattively you can add to your opening blurb with the following.
All Calls are recorde and monitored. As NTLs policy states that all calls must be less than 10 min 44 sec plese be aware that this support call may be termiated abruptly.
I mean it is all you can do really to keep your job whilst looking for a better one.
But where the customer is phoning you. It is your duty and the duty of the company to provide them with support to fix the problem.
If I was you I would get a stop watch and time the calls. at 9min 30 I would say something like.
I'm sorry but this problem will exceed NTLs 10 min 44 sec per call policy and I will have to hang up. Sorry for the inconvinence but my hands are tied. If your problem is not resolved please phone again. *click*
Alternattively you can add to your opening blurb with the following.
All Calls are recorde and monitored. As NTLs policy states that all calls must be less than 10 min 44 sec plese be aware that this support call may be termiated abruptly.
I mean it is all you can do really to keep your job whilst looking for a better one.
Piggy
Just read the thread and I understand your frustrations.
As it has been already said it seems like Manpower etc. are just looking at the numbers, blah, blah, blah and customer satisfaction isn't very high on their priority. Probably these targets are set by someone who doesn't even know what you do and what NTL's customers expect. If NTL / Manpower or whoever is happy to run like this then you are stuck and all you can do is try and hang in there until another opportunity arises if possible. Remember it is better to be looking for another job while you still have one than to have no job at all.
As for just doing the minimum required and get your call times down, well this is one option but while some people work like this anyway I suspect that you are the kind of person who gets a problem and wants to sort it and if it takes 12 minutes instead of 10 then so be it. So "working to rule" might be very difficult for you. I've tried sitting back over the years and found myself failing quite quickly. I've also thrown my headset around, not my best moment
.
I've worked in technical support teams for the last 15+ years and now for my sins I have responsibility for a contact centre and a tech support team in Surrey plus I'm responsible for the processes, day to day contact etc. used by the UK team within our Global Support Centre.
Most days it is a case of OMG, WTF and where is my gun! Our Global Support Centre is run by a 3rd party and everything is about call minutes etc. because the more minutes the more costs. While there is a need to monitor the amount of time taken both my boss and I are of the belief that if the call takes a bit longer and the customer is sorted then great. Despite the financial pressure we have, we will pay for good customer service, simple as that. A bit of business trivia is that the analyst company Gartner reported that good customer service/satisfaction is worth more than any sales or marketing campaigns.
Anyway if you want a job in Turkey
I need someone from the UK to work out there with the team if your interested?? Probably don't think it has the appeal of Braintree though .
Whatever happens try and think calm thoughts and get through this. You know it won't be forever because you have other plans.
All the best.
Sparky
Just read the thread and I understand your frustrations.
As it has been already said it seems like Manpower etc. are just looking at the numbers, blah, blah, blah and customer satisfaction isn't very high on their priority. Probably these targets are set by someone who doesn't even know what you do and what NTL's customers expect. If NTL / Manpower or whoever is happy to run like this then you are stuck and all you can do is try and hang in there until another opportunity arises if possible. Remember it is better to be looking for another job while you still have one than to have no job at all.
As for just doing the minimum required and get your call times down, well this is one option but while some people work like this anyway I suspect that you are the kind of person who gets a problem and wants to sort it and if it takes 12 minutes instead of 10 then so be it. So "working to rule" might be very difficult for you. I've tried sitting back over the years and found myself failing quite quickly. I've also thrown my headset around, not my best moment
.I've worked in technical support teams for the last 15+ years and now for my sins I have responsibility for a contact centre and a tech support team in Surrey plus I'm responsible for the processes, day to day contact etc. used by the UK team within our Global Support Centre.
Most days it is a case of OMG, WTF and where is my gun! Our Global Support Centre is run by a 3rd party and everything is about call minutes etc. because the more minutes the more costs. While there is a need to monitor the amount of time taken both my boss and I are of the belief that if the call takes a bit longer and the customer is sorted then great. Despite the financial pressure we have, we will pay for good customer service, simple as that. A bit of business trivia is that the analyst company Gartner reported that good customer service/satisfaction is worth more than any sales or marketing campaigns.
Anyway if you want a job in Turkey
I need someone from the UK to work out there with the team if your interested?? Probably don't think it has the appeal of Braintree though .Whatever happens try and think calm thoughts and get through this. You know it won't be forever because you have other plans.
All the best.
Sparky
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