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SuperMikey

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SuperMikey

SuperMikey

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Afternoon chaps

 

I've managed to wrangle myself a customer service job in a call centre for a well-known high street bank. Anyone done this kind of work before? I've done some call centre work and have several years' experience in customer service, but wondering if anyone has any tips or advice for that kind of environment. I'll be working to KPIs with a certain amount of linked selling.

 

Cheers bluds

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buctootim

buctootim

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Afternoon chaps

 

I've managed to wrangle myself a customer service job in a call centre for a well-known high street bank. Anyone done this kind of work before? I've done some call centre work and have several years' experience in customer service, but wondering if anyone has any tips or advice for that kind of environment. I'll be working to KPIs with a certain amount of linked selling.

 

Cheers bluds

 

Always be on the lookout for the hot new product that will make your career. Endowment mortgages, PPI, pension release schemes, that kind of thing.

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Tokyo-Saint

Tokyo-Saint

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Keep your head down, turn up and on time and within 6 months to a year you will be a team leader or something.

 

Don't do it for longer than that though or you will go insane. Did it when I first graduated, terrible job but people were a good laugh and the at atmosphere was pretty funny. We'd list words on post it notes and try and fit them into the calls. If you said the word, you took the post it down. Most at the end of the shift won the money in the kitty. Turkish will love this game but it was a laugh and helped the shift pass.

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SuperMikey

SuperMikey

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Keep your head down, turn up and on time and within 6 months to a year you will be a team leader or something.

 

Don't do it for longer than that though or you will go insane. Did it when I first graduated, terrible job but people were a good laugh and the at atmosphere was pretty funny. We'd list words on post it notes and try and fit them into the calls. If you said the word, you took the post it down. Most at the end of the shift won the money in the kitty. Turkish will love this game but it was a laugh and helped the shift pass.

 

Well, my current job has been as fun as going to a close family member's funeral over the past 6 months, so hopefully this should be better. Seem like a good group of people, mostly in their 20s as well so might have a laugh while doing it. Ultimately I want to save up enough money to spend 3-4 months working abroad in late 2014/early 2015, but if I can eke out a decent living from this job then I will be happy.

 

The actual job is horrible but the people and the atmosphere is generally a good laugh. If you stick it out and take it seriously then there's normally plenty of opportunities for progression. Is it RBS/Natwest or HSBC?

 

It's with one of those 3, yeah.

 

Always be on the lookout for the hot new product that will make your career. Endowment mortgages, PPI, pension release schemes, that kind of thing.

 

Primarily it's a customer service gig, handling inbound calls from customers and the selling is almost secondary to that. I'll have to research the sector before I start because i'm not an expert on personal finance, but I will make sure to keep an eye out for something I can make my millions with!

 

Lots of sex.

 

Get that already :smug:

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Minty

Minty

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Primarily it's a customer service gig, handling inbound calls from customers and the selling is almost secondary to that. I'll have to research the sector before I start because i'm not an expert on personal finance, but I will make sure to keep an eye out for something I can make my millions with!

 

May seem obvious, but just focus on getting the customer service right. Learn how to handle difficult customers - recognise when you're getting wound up by one - know your own limits and where you need to call your supervisor - treat others how you expect to be treated - ALWAYS resist the urge to say those little things that are on the tip of your tongue when you've got a pain in the arse customer who needs bringing down a peg.

 

In this day and age when people are getting more and more peed off with foreign call centres and staff who only follow a script and can't deal with the idiosyncrasies of their personal situation, if you just listen to them, deal with what they want efficiently, and don't try the hard sell, they'll learn to trust you and may then ask you about products you can sell. This is easier if you have regular contact with the same people so may not be as appropriate in your role, but the basis of it is still sound.

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SuperMikey

SuperMikey

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May seem obvious, but just focus on getting the customer service right. Learn how to handle difficult customers - recognise when you're getting wound up by one - know your own limits and where you need to call your supervisor - treat others how you expect to be treated - ALWAYS resist the urge to say those little things that are on the tip of your tongue when you've got a pain in the arse customer who needs bringing down a peg.

 

In this day and age when people are getting more and more peed off with foreign call centres and staff who only follow a script and can't deal with the idiosyncrasies of their personal situation, if you just listen to them, deal with what they want efficiently, and don't try the hard sell, they'll learn to trust you and may then ask you about products you can sell. This is easier if you have regular contact with the same people so may not be as appropriate in your role, but the basis of it is still sound.

 

Cheers Minty, i'll bear that in mind. I always try to be professional and bite my tongue - i've had to deal with a lot of difficult customers in my current job so believe me when I say i'm used to tolerating moaners! In my mind the job is first and foremost a customer service position and that's what i'll be looking to excel in. You've got to use a certain amount of initiative in this kind of sales environment, and i'm not one to push people anyway regardless of my own position. I'm looking forward to testing myself with a different area of work, as i've mostly been in retail/hospitality until this point.

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Special K

Special K

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Mikey, I get the impression that the "Sales" section is teeming with people on the blower, but the "Complaints" or "Enquiries" section of the same call centre is like the Mary f**king Celeste, except for some stoner in the corner who is the actual face of the "we care about your call" guff they fart out down the phone line when one is trying to contact them. I'd be obliged if you could verify this impression i have. ;)

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Bearsy

Bearsy

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yeah i have done this job. First thing they teach you is Indian accent. You may want to practice that at home to get ahead of the game, or perhaps visit ur local curry house and strike up conversation. You will soon get hang of it!

 

The other fun thing to do is see how far you can push it when asking the personal security questions. Ease into it with mothers maiden name, postcode etc. then be looking through their account and be asking questions like "When you went to Londis last Tuesday & bought milk+newspaper, what chocolate bar did you get?".

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Weston Super Saint

Weston Super Saint

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It will be horrendous.

The calls will be repetitive, the targets that they told you about at the interview will be stretched beyond belief, seriously diminishing your potential to earn much over minimum wage.

Your colleagues will be stupid and unengaging - why else are they in a call centre FFS!

Your boss will be a jumped up little ***** who will have six months service under his/her belt and will think they are the master of all sales people, ever.

The fat bird sitting opposite you will fancy you and will turn into a crazed stalker.

Staff parties will be the most dull affairs you have ever attended.

Your customers will rant and rave at you as if you have personally wronged them in some way.

Have I mentioned that it will be horrendous?

 

The only advice I can offer, apart from slitting your wrists and ending it all before you start, is that you have TWO ears and ONE mouth. As with all sales people, once you learn how to use them in the same proportion, you may well achieve something :D

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SuperMikey

SuperMikey

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I am willing to bet that super michael fits the stoner specification of the job description well.

 

stoner-laughing-marijuana-shutterstock.jpg

 

True story - Jonnyboy bought a Bestival ticket off me a few years ago and he looks not dissimilar to that guy (from my hazy memory).

Edited by SuperMikey
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Turkish

Turkish

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Afternoon chaps

 

I've managed to wrangle myself a customer service job in a call centre for a well-known high street bank. Anyone done this kind of work before? I've done some call centre work and have several years' experience in customer service, but wondering if anyone has any tips or advice for that kind of environment. I'll be working to KPIs with a certain amount of linked selling.

 

Cheers bluds

 

I bet you're glad you quit university.

 

'Hello Nat West, Mikey speaking how can I help you?'

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Sheaf Saint

Sheaf Saint

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It will be horrendous.

The calls will be repetitive, the targets that they told you about at the interview will be stretched beyond belief, seriously diminishing your potential to earn much over minimum wage.

Your colleagues will be stupid and unengaging - why else are they in a call centre FFS!

Your boss will be a jumped up little ***** who will have six months service under his/her belt and will think they are the master of all sales people, ever.

The fat bird sitting opposite you will fancy you and will turn into a crazed stalker.

Staff parties will be the most dull affairs you have ever attended.

Your customers will rant and rave at you as if you have personally wronged them in some way.

Have I mentioned that it will be horrendous?

 

I have to concur with this assessment. I have done some call-centre work myself a couple of times when circumstances dictated I had to take whatever work was on offer at the time. It starts off OK but eventually, like anybody else who has ever worked in a call centre, you will reach the stage where every morning your alarm will go off and your first thought will be "Oh f**king hell... do I have to go back to that f**king place again!?"

 

Not trying to put you off like ;)

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SuperMikey

SuperMikey

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Don't do it! I have been in my job a year, and I hate it. I never thought this job could be stressful..

 

I hate my job as it is, and it's damn stressful too. Thing is, I will be earning twice as much money in this new job and i'm more suited to this kind of work.

 

But hey, if I hate it after 6 months then I can always get back on the market..

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Rasiak-9-

Rasiak-9-

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I wrote a blog entry a while back on working in a call-centre.

 

May as well re-post it here. The crowning Irony being that after a few months in business journalism I'm doing much the same thing with the only mitigating factor being that my pays gone up to £10.37 p/h + its super local which makes it just about bearable.

 

For any of my fellow recent graduates who haven't quite given up the ghost of achieving their dreams of some kind of career in a competitive yet not-entirely-unrealistic field such as entertainment, sports, acting, music or in my case, journalism, this post is particularly aimed at you.

 

Doubtless having been unemployed for a while and limping by on a combination of Jobseekers Allowance and any spare cash you might have had from a previous student/summer job things eventually look like they're about to come to a head and you're going to have to suck it up and take a big bite of the **** sandwich that is the modest selection of stop-gap jobs available. Nevertheless, you hope that the bread might be thick enough to make the whole thing bearable.

 

Having grown tired of shaving my testicles with a cheese grater and wishing to experience agony with a greater intensity and consistency than such a comparatively tame pastime had offered, it was with reluctant hope that I successfully applied to work as a telephone fundraiser (salesman) for a professional charity fundraising organisation in London.

 

Reluctant hope is a bit of an oxymoron, so I'll aim to illustrate what I mean. Its a little like going to support your local non-league football team playing against Barcelona and knowing that whilst victory is technically within the possibilities of the physical universe, any conscious attempt to somehow conjure some genuine optimism is met by the far more realistic part of your brain with a quick swat to the seat of the pants, instructed to sit on the step, sulk and brace itself for the inevitable thrashing.

 

The thrashing takes the form of just about the most boring, repetitive and soul-crushing job you are likely to face. In my case, this involved making scripted phone calls on behalf of various charities to prospective 'supporters' (often unemployed or pensioners) and making patronising, pressurising requests for donations from such people who clearly couldn't afford any such thing. Any trace of humanity on my or my peers' part (in the form of courteously hanging up the phone without asking repeatedly and conning/pressuring another vulnerable member of society) is quickly dealt with through "coaching", 'coaching' being a euphemism for a stream of conflicting and contradictory advice given by the variety of middle-management drones covering over the main fact that you haven't been hitting whatever target you're supposed to.

 

It is remarkable how a job can tick so many boxes out of low pay, awkward hours, intense work, pressurised environment, deceptive company culture, immoral or unethical activity, yet call-centre work somehow manages a clean sweep.

 

My advice to my fellow underemployed graduate strugglers? Don't turn your nose up at for example, labouring jobs because it might seem below you at some level (many are rather better paid than you might think and offered a more relaxed working environment...although this I will admit I can only relay to you second-hand from friends of mine) and likewise, don't somehow think that the cosy office and relaxed dress code of a call-centre makes for an easy earner.

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holepuncture

holepuncture

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Afternoon chaps

 

I've managed to wrangle myself a customer service job in a call centre

 

I bet you're glad you quit university.

 

'Hello Nat West, Mikey speaking how can I help you?'

 

You ignored some sound advice on this forum when considering bailing on further education, your fall from grace has been a spectacular.

 

Well done.

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Window Cleaner

Window Cleaner

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You ignored some sound advice on this forum when considering bailing on further education, your fall from grace has been a spectacular.

 

Well done.

 

 

Higher education isn't suited to everyone, however hard successive goverments try to make you believe it is. Glad I came out of the system in the lates 70s where a 7 stretch at a decent Uni gave you a respectable career path for as long as you wanted it.It was free and they gave you pocket money to boot.

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Patrick Bateman

Patrick Bateman

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I bet you're glad you quit university.

 

'Hello Nat West, Mikey speaking how can I help you?'

 

No, he'll be Dave, John or Emma.

 

Call Centre Michael; one tip for you ... don't answer and then disconnect the phone straight away occasionally on people to get your average call time stats down. That has to be the most irritating habit they have.

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Patrick Bateman

Patrick Bateman

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Higher education isn't suited to everyone, however hard successive goverments try to make you believe it is. Glad I came out of the system in the lates 70s where a 7 stretch at a decent Uni gave you a respectable career path for as long as you wanted it.It was free and they gave you pocket money to boot.

 

I kept saying that when Brown & Blair were pushing for at least 50% of everyone to go to "University". Why? What is the point when it just means you have more people out of work with degrees and those jobs that require degrees, now look at hiring those with a masters or higher in order to differentiate.

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Window Cleaner

Window Cleaner

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I kept saying that when Brown & Blair were pushing for at least 50% of everyone to go to "University". Why? What is the point when it just means you have more people out of work with degrees and those jobs that require degrees, now look at hiring those with a masters or higher in order to differentiate.

 

Exactly, it was just 2%(roughly the Mensa level percentage oddly enough) of any age group when I went up to Imperial, mind you there were plenty of jobs that took up most of the lesser gifted element in those days. Why a decent set of A levels, ie you passed 3 or 4 opened doors that are now seemingly only available to PhDs. Mind you A levels weren't easy in those days. Today's call centre work (from what I understand of it anway) would probably be filled by 16 year old school leavers which was about the normal age back then.

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SuperMikey

SuperMikey

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You ignored some sound advice on this forum when considering bailing on further education, your fall from grace has been a spectacular.

 

Well done.

 

I don't particularly think scraping low thirds in an Anthropology degree could be described as grace. I'm much happier even working at One Stop than I was studying at Uni.

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Window Cleaner

Window Cleaner

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I don't particularly think scraping low thirds in an Anthropology degree could be described as grace. I'm much happier even working at One Stop than I was studying at Uni.

 

but I was right in thinking that at the time you were considering leaving Uni it was to go into local radio.

http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?33823-Dropping-Out/page2&highlight=anthropology#.UjLuRtKpWSo

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