ALT-1 Nonprofit Service Sector
Think back to 10 years ago. Do you remember having to dial in to a call center? Probably not, but now it seems anytime you have a question about a product or service or god forbid you have a problem you have to call a 1-800 number. It seemed to just sneak up on us and now there's thousands of these call centers in existence and all of them mean thousands of jobs whose turnover is usually sky high.
I don't know anyone that actually enjoys calling one of these centers and in fact it's amazing the reactions that a phone call to one will ignite in the most tame of individuals. I try to call them as infrequently as possible and I actually work in one. I'll bear you the grim details of which one, although it has certainly given me a lot of insight into human nature.
The biggest challenge by far in working at a call center is dealing with the emotions that get thrown at you by complete strangers. They will call you names, yell at you and curse you until they are blue in the face yet they don't know you from Adam and vice versa. Why has this become acceptable? There's something very wrong with that and it truly makes me worry about where we are headed.
I can always understand being upset if a mistake has been made or if there's a serious problem that needs fixing but does that justify getting personal with the representative on the other end of the line? My answer to that is always a steadfast no. So as I've worked in the call center that I call my day job I have found myself trying to wrap my head around why so many callers answer yes, to the question and get personal. I tend to think that if they were dealing with the issue in person that they would be far less likely to demonstrate the explosiveness that they choose to exhibit over the phone. It's distasteful and it's disturbing but unfortunately many people have developed the opinion that they have to become loud and obnoxious in order to get their way.
Maybe it's also defensiveness. Maybe now callers feel that those of us that work at these centers are tired of the crap so they're already on edge when they call in and their fuse is miles shorter than it would normally be. Perhaps the callers expectations are too high. Sometimes it's as if they expect a friend or counselor who is willing to hold their hand and tell them every-thing's going to be all right. There are certainly service industries out there that can and do provide that type of treatment but call centers were never designed to be that. They were designed to give information, answer questions and fix problems. If you want the full human element you need to get your issue taken care of in person. If you have those expectations calling into a caller center you have the wrong mindset.
To me the only answer is this...we have to start limiting the call centers that are out there and quit this trend of continuing to get bigger and bigger. We're at maximum capacity and if there's not a reversal of this, things will explode, figuratively speaking. The escalation of the hostility during calls to call centers is proof and changes have to be made.
You ask about pros of working in a call center. There are no pros in my book, except for the generic pros that you have when you are gainfully employed: income and hopefully insurance.
