Working in a call center?

firthy15

firthy15

firthy15

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22 Dec 2004
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Paderborn DE / TeessideUK
Well after just leaving my Bar job and previous bar jobs which add up to over a year working in them i have decided to look for something new.

I am a student so was looking for part time job and found that a call center in town is looking for people. Was just wondering if anyone has experience in working in call centers, what they are like etc.

According to their website they seem to handle everything, travel, mobile phone companies etc etc.

xx
Mnemica
 
Works not bad, but it really comes down to the people that you work with. Find a good bunch and you are usually alright, find a bad bunch and you will not last long.
 
Bar said:
Works not bad, but it really comes down to the people that you work with. Find a good bunch and you are usually alright, find a bad bunch and you will not last long.
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Exactly, I work in a call centre and was lucky enough to be trained at the same time as a lot of great people, so I made some good friends straight away. We just try to have a laugh while we're working and it can be a lot of fun.

The hours are quite flexible and the pay is very good for my age, it's a nice part time job for a student.
 
easy money, comfy job, but will bore you to tears / depression / suicide ( 6months / 1year / longer than 1 year)
 
Depends on what kind of call centre, a lot of them are target based, I work in a Police Recovery Control room atm, and shortly moving to the Ambulance Service taking 999 calls... so a big shift, because where I am atm, its very casual, we are allowed to surf the internet whilst off call, and when I did nights/lates I had my laptop in with me to play games.
 
It also depends what you're doing, cold calling would be a lot less enjoyable than pretty much everything else.

Although technically not cold calling I did a few months of calling existing customers for a telecoms company to see if they want to switch from dialup to BB, even though they were existing customer of the company you still got a fair few people telling you where to go. You also get a lot of people who are upset to be disturbed which is fair enough really as I don't like similar calls too.

You soon find out how stupid people can be too after you get people asking "how did you get my number?" and you think "well you know the phone line, exchange and cables that you use to make phone calls, well we own all of them and you pay us to use it so you'd expect us to know things like that" and want to slam your head on the computer but have to come back with a polite response.

I was glad to finish that job as having 400 calls per day given to you by a dialer gets really tiring and dull really soon.
 
I did it for Harrods. It was terrible - definitely the worst job I ever had.

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
 
As has been said before some of these jobs are target driven - you may find the majority of "managers" (team leaders) working in a call centre to be jumped up little Hitlers on a powertrip.

If your taking transfered calls from a foreign outsourced departments you'll probably find them to be completely beyond useless and extremely unhelpful.

In my experience callcentre work is the most soul destroying experience anyone can do - though for yourself it maybe different as your a student and you'll have additional aims in life other than trying to get a career in the sweatshop of the 21st century !
 
I quite enjoyed the call centre work I did (tech support for btopenworld just before adsl became popular). Okay, you get a fair amount of grief but not as much as I was expecting and one or two nice customers actually do make up for it. Having a good team does make a difference as well. Also, if you're English (or sound it) you'll often find people are more grateful to talk to you.
 
Call centres = hell. Avoid them like the plague.

I lworked for Telewest Broadband in sales support, taking calls from our sales reps and creating/changing customer accounts. I didn't have to speak with the public (except on very rare occasions), but the job was mind-numbingly dull, and the pay was abysmal.

I lasted for 9 months before chucking it for a real job.
 
TheCrow said:
easy money, comfy job, but will bore you to tears / depression / suicide ( 6months / 1year / longer than 1 year)
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Liked this answer.... IT support centre where I work is much the same. If anyone lasts more then a year usually means that person has no desire to progress and just wants a steady income...

Most get very good at flash games.. lol Depends on the call centre I guess, i've heard some of them are 'very' busy with lousy hours and working conditions whereas some is just money for nothing...
 
I did cold-calling when I was 16. It's the worst job I've ever had, hands down. I'd sooner go back to doing the ridiculous paper-round I had when I was 14, then ever work in a call-centre again.

It was boring, tedious, stressful and I swear the manager was probably a paedophile. In fact, for a couple of years after working there I was very nervous about phoning anyone up as I was so used to people shouting at me.

Amusingly though, a few years back I switched on the TV to find Watchdog doing an under-cover of the very place I worked. Oh, how I laughed. Good riddance!
 
firthy15 said:
Well after just leaving my Bar job and previous bar jobs which add up to over a year working in them i have decided to look for something new.

I am a student so was looking for part time job and found that a call center in town is looking for people. Was just wondering if anyone has experience in working in call centers, what they are like etc.

According to their website they seem to handle everything, travel, mobile phone companies etc etc.

xx
Mnemica
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Sounds like you mean garlands... i know a few people that have left because they treat you like poo.

I think i saw an ad for barclaycard (through adecco iirc). I worked for them for a little while, they treat you quite well but its very boring.... Give adecco a ring

My GF also worked for BC as a student on a evening, she said she spent most of her time watching sky sports.
 
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Working for an incoming call centre is infinitely better than an outbound one...
 
Depends on the company and the call centre really, some companies are much better to work for than others. I'd also agree with Bes above, inbound is much better than outbound.
 
Dolph said:
Depends on the company and the call centre really, some companies are much better to work for than others. I'd also agree with Bes above, inbound is much better than outbound.
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Indeed, no 2 call centres seem to be the same.

I really enjoy my call centre job, but there are some that I wouldn't want to spend more than half an hour in.
 
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