Part of my life
Hello everyone, hope you are all doing great. First of, let me introduce myself, my name is Zirat Santamaria, and I have been living in this earth for 31 years of my life. I have experienced plenty, seen plenty, traveled plenty, and worked.........
So, before I start boring you with useless facts about myself, let me get right to the point as to why I am writing this blog.
A couple of years ago, say maybe 4 or 5, I was working in a company; which I would like to keep anonymous; but its main focus was on technological resources. Like many companies, one of its sectors was costumer service, and it devoted an entire floor to it, by introducing a "call center" format in the organization. For all of you that do not know what a CC is, let me give a brief explanation. It is a technological resource that allows a company to improve its operational functions in a customer friendly environment. Ok, maybe that was to technical for you, but lets work with an example, for instance, if you go to work, and you turn on your computer, and somehow the screen does not go on, you dial a certain number on your phone, which connects you directly to the call center, where a "representative", helps you turn on your computer.
Now, this can be an internal function of the company, but call centers, can be of many uses. In the company that I worked (and do not ask my why), there where many different sections of the call center devoted to different companies, there was one for Coca-Cola, one for American Airlines, Electrolux, Wonder (the bread), and others. But why, does a company have a call center that helps other companies? well, as you all know, one of the most important functions of a company, is to mantain and establish big relationships with their customers/clients. By adding a call center service and helping your clients/customers resover their needs, then you mantain them happy, which can help in further negotiations/sales/purchases. By now you should have an idea of what it does, but who or what is composed in a CC. Well obviously people/employees, who are called Costumer Service Executives, as well as a phone, a computer, and some sort of database, which allows users to connect to a server and give the user/client the information that they are requesting.
Anyways, enough of techincal talk, lets get right into why I am writing this article. I started working in this company, because it was my first job, and I needed the money. I knew about this company, as it has a big name in the market, and I heard you could easily move up the ladder, if you where pro-active and did all or more work than everyone else. I decided it was a good choice for a first job. The pay was ok, they offered around 800-1000 dollars a month, which could mantain me on my feet for a while.
My job consisted of costumers calling me to help them resolve their doubts in relations to our products, as well as if they needed technical service, we could help them as well.
Every week you would have a different schedule, one from 8-5, 9-6, or 10-7. You would check in every day and could not be late, or a certain amount would be deducted from your paycheck. But besides that, we had a lot of freedom to do whatever we wanted; we could handle the calls our way, we could ask our team leader anything, etc.
The first couple of months, where tough, as I had to adapt to different types of costumers (happy, angry, demanding, urgent needs, etc). But after a while, I got really good at it, and I was the top executive for about 7-8 months (instead of received a bonus, I was allowed to select a certain schedule, so I basically only went to work from 8-5). I had twice as many calls as the other executives, I had better quality in resolving issues, none of my issues had been escalated to my boss, and I even had a lot of costumers who "only" wanted to speak with me. I do not want to brag, but I was really good.
In the meantime, there was another executive, who we would like to name Alex (will also remain anonymous), who was working next to me. He came "highly" recommendated from another job, he was the one that had the most experience from all of us, and supposely knew how to handle calls. For the first 5-6 months he worked like a normal employee, but after a while, he started getting upset that I was getting better treatment than he was. Now obviously we had our team leader, which was the person that guided our team and resolved any issue that had been escalated. Well, let me tell you that Alex, was not happy, and because he was highly recommendated, his ego started to grow, and he started not picking up calls, screaming at costumers, and other things that I am not going to mention, but lets just say that non professional.
One day, our team leader, went over to Alex, and asked him if he could come talk to him, because a client had reported that he received poor service from him. Well that was it for Alex, as he erupted, screamed at everything, even our boss, and stormed out of the room. I recall him saying "you are our boss? well you do not deserve to be our boss, I am more qualified and have more experience than you or anyone in this building will ever be". For sure I thought he was going to get fired, but the manager of the call center wanted a meeting with him and asked him what had happened.
Well, it turned out, that he completely told a different story of what happened, and he got to keep his job and his panthom manager belief. (Im calling it like that, because he acted like a manager, but he was not really one). Basically he could now boss anyone around, do whatever he wanted, and even override our team leaders opinions.
I urged our team leader, to speak to the manager, and try to fix this, but he did not have the courage to do it. One day, I had enough, and decided to go talk myself. To my ammusement, my team leader, had spoke to Alex, and told him was I was planning. Obviously Alex spoke to the manager before I did. When I went in, well, you can just imagine, what response I got. I was so angry that I marched right out of the building. The next day I quit.
Now, I do not know if this happens in every Call Center, but I found it ridiculous, for someone to become a sort of manager, when he or she does not do his or her job. Plus, if you already have a boss, how can you override him? its ridiculous.
Lets just say, that this world is not fair, and if you want to succeed, you have to be greedy and fight for everything, even if it meants searching for power by forming alliances, like Alex and my Team Leader did.
So beware when working in an environment like this, hope you can adapt way better than I did, and as soon as you spot something, try to figure out how to resolve it.
Anyways, hope you liked my blog, I will get back to you, with more, in a couple of days.
So, before I start boring you with useless facts about myself, let me get right to the point as to why I am writing this blog.
A couple of years ago, say maybe 4 or 5, I was working in a company; which I would like to keep anonymous; but its main focus was on technological resources. Like many companies, one of its sectors was costumer service, and it devoted an entire floor to it, by introducing a "call center" format in the organization. For all of you that do not know what a CC is, let me give a brief explanation. It is a technological resource that allows a company to improve its operational functions in a customer friendly environment. Ok, maybe that was to technical for you, but lets work with an example, for instance, if you go to work, and you turn on your computer, and somehow the screen does not go on, you dial a certain number on your phone, which connects you directly to the call center, where a "representative", helps you turn on your computer.
Now, this can be an internal function of the company, but call centers, can be of many uses. In the company that I worked (and do not ask my why), there where many different sections of the call center devoted to different companies, there was one for Coca-Cola, one for American Airlines, Electrolux, Wonder (the bread), and others. But why, does a company have a call center that helps other companies? well, as you all know, one of the most important functions of a company, is to mantain and establish big relationships with their customers/clients. By adding a call center service and helping your clients/customers resover their needs, then you mantain them happy, which can help in further negotiations/sales/purchases. By now you should have an idea of what it does, but who or what is composed in a CC. Well obviously people/employees, who are called Costumer Service Executives, as well as a phone, a computer, and some sort of database, which allows users to connect to a server and give the user/client the information that they are requesting.
Anyways, enough of techincal talk, lets get right into why I am writing this article. I started working in this company, because it was my first job, and I needed the money. I knew about this company, as it has a big name in the market, and I heard you could easily move up the ladder, if you where pro-active and did all or more work than everyone else. I decided it was a good choice for a first job. The pay was ok, they offered around 800-1000 dollars a month, which could mantain me on my feet for a while.
My job consisted of costumers calling me to help them resolve their doubts in relations to our products, as well as if they needed technical service, we could help them as well.
Every week you would have a different schedule, one from 8-5, 9-6, or 10-7. You would check in every day and could not be late, or a certain amount would be deducted from your paycheck. But besides that, we had a lot of freedom to do whatever we wanted; we could handle the calls our way, we could ask our team leader anything, etc.
The first couple of months, where tough, as I had to adapt to different types of costumers (happy, angry, demanding, urgent needs, etc). But after a while, I got really good at it, and I was the top executive for about 7-8 months (instead of received a bonus, I was allowed to select a certain schedule, so I basically only went to work from 8-5). I had twice as many calls as the other executives, I had better quality in resolving issues, none of my issues had been escalated to my boss, and I even had a lot of costumers who "only" wanted to speak with me. I do not want to brag, but I was really good.
In the meantime, there was another executive, who we would like to name Alex (will also remain anonymous), who was working next to me. He came "highly" recommendated from another job, he was the one that had the most experience from all of us, and supposely knew how to handle calls. For the first 5-6 months he worked like a normal employee, but after a while, he started getting upset that I was getting better treatment than he was. Now obviously we had our team leader, which was the person that guided our team and resolved any issue that had been escalated. Well, let me tell you that Alex, was not happy, and because he was highly recommendated, his ego started to grow, and he started not picking up calls, screaming at costumers, and other things that I am not going to mention, but lets just say that non professional.
One day, our team leader, went over to Alex, and asked him if he could come talk to him, because a client had reported that he received poor service from him. Well that was it for Alex, as he erupted, screamed at everything, even our boss, and stormed out of the room. I recall him saying "you are our boss? well you do not deserve to be our boss, I am more qualified and have more experience than you or anyone in this building will ever be". For sure I thought he was going to get fired, but the manager of the call center wanted a meeting with him and asked him what had happened.
Well, it turned out, that he completely told a different story of what happened, and he got to keep his job and his panthom manager belief. (Im calling it like that, because he acted like a manager, but he was not really one). Basically he could now boss anyone around, do whatever he wanted, and even override our team leaders opinions.
I urged our team leader, to speak to the manager, and try to fix this, but he did not have the courage to do it. One day, I had enough, and decided to go talk myself. To my ammusement, my team leader, had spoke to Alex, and told him was I was planning. Obviously Alex spoke to the manager before I did. When I went in, well, you can just imagine, what response I got. I was so angry that I marched right out of the building. The next day I quit.
Now, I do not know if this happens in every Call Center, but I found it ridiculous, for someone to become a sort of manager, when he or she does not do his or her job. Plus, if you already have a boss, how can you override him? its ridiculous.
Lets just say, that this world is not fair, and if you want to succeed, you have to be greedy and fight for everything, even if it meants searching for power by forming alliances, like Alex and my Team Leader did.
So beware when working in an environment like this, hope you can adapt way better than I did, and as soon as you spot something, try to figure out how to resolve it.
Anyways, hope you liked my blog, I will get back to you, with more, in a couple of days.