Two months at a Call Center..
By vipulchawla
@vipulchawla (2220)
India
December 10, 2009 11:47pm CST
Hi friends. I just want to share my experience at a call center. I often used to wonder that what job does a call center executive does. I used to think that it would be a very simple job. Just receive calls and answer them.. Pretty easy.. Well. It only sounds easy. With the same thinking, I went to gave an interview taking it as a part time job to get soem extra pocket money. Luckily, I got selected as well. It was a domestic call center, 6 days working in a week. Initially, it was cool, where I had only trainign sessions where we were getting classes on the product. But later when it came to live experience, that is handling calls and talking to customers, beleive me it was not that easy. It is not easy to listen to every type of customer. They shout at us and out managers or leads try to convince us saying that they are only shouting at the company and not at you. Though it was only a 8.5 hour job, we had targets such as to recive over 100 calls in a day and that you should have 7.5 hours of call time. 7.5 hours with thos headsets on our ears.. thatw as too hectic. To make it worse, you get calls from agitated customers.
I could survive for 2 months and then I left the job because I was going home for a long holiday. I did try joining anoter company and got selected too, but then i didnt join because my brother's marriage was scheduled.
In all, it was a good learning for me that no job in this world is ever easy. I made new friends and had a very good experience.
Do you have any such experience? How many fo you work in a call center or had an experience of working in a call center?
1 person likes this
12 responses
@koalapenguin (2707)
• Philippines
12 Dec 09
Hello vipul.
I really appreciated this discussion since a lot of people look down on this job. I have acquaintances who never came back to being a call center agent. I asked her why, she just said she can't take the pressure from customers. I never did thought that it was this hard. I almost applied to a certain company here in our country and he kind of recommended me to their project-based job. I was thinking if i would still go to that company but a friend of mine told me not to because it's hard. He was right, i am a college graduate with a license but employment for people like us in your country is scarce. I never thought this is hard but i am here right now, i am not sure what to do with my life. I guess i will start a discussion on this one. 
I can't help but be too emotional with this issue. I just feel like a failure. Anyway, i hope you could look for another job that has less pressure but with very good compensation. The days that i was looking for a job, i also realized the same thing that no job is easy. Everything is challenging and requires competitive applicants even call centers. Phew. What a life. God bless to us though. Take care!
I can't help but be too emotional with this issue. I just feel like a failure. Anyway, i hope you could look for another job that has less pressure but with very good compensation. The days that i was looking for a job, i also realized the same thing that no job is easy. Everything is challenging and requires competitive applicants even call centers. Phew. What a life. God bless to us though. Take care!1 person likes this
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
13 Dec 09
See, it depends on person to person. As i have already mentioned in one of the comments to one of the users here, most of the times, you get a promotion within 8-9 months and then you dont have to take calls anymore. So, if you are ready to ebar that much pain then you can surely try and go ahead and join this job. You should not let down yourself on this and youc an surely try. May be you can do much better than us.
And yes, about me.. I am no more into a bpo job.it was during my college days that i took it as a part time job. Now i am a software engineer and work for an IT company.
1 person likes this
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
15 Dec 09
Two of my cousins are working in a call center in a UK process. One of them got promoted to a Team Lead position in 8 months time. Team Lead's job is to just manage the things on the floor. He wont be attending any calls. But if anyone faces any probles, he would be the one to look into them. So there will be no more calls. Well, I never looked to make my career into a BPO. I just wanted to have some extra pocket money.
1 person likes this
@koalapenguin (2707)
• Philippines
14 Dec 09
Oh i see. It's good that you had that experience as your part time job. I never heard of getting promoted in bpo. What will the next position be then? Well congratulations for graduating college and earning a degree. 
Look where you are right now. Good luck to you and God bless!
Look where you are right now. Good luck to you and God bless!1 person likes this
@keep_onwatch (2680)
• India
12 Dec 09
Hi der, Howz you doin? Well as you know I did work and I guess you also know that the shift problems would really get on my nerves. Well, I sure did face irate customers, but I also could learn new things about different places and people, may be can view their world from here. Yup, no job is easy.
1 person likes this
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
13 Dec 09
hi. Atleast you reply me here. Its always good to hear from you. And yeah i am certainly aware of your situation. Call center jobs really get on the nerves at times. But i hope u r finding your new job good an interesting
@smartbrain69 (2790)
• Canada
11 Dec 09
Yeah dear i can understand you are saying correct. I used to work a call centre and believe me it was real bad time for me. Customer is King ,,, client can tell everything and manager says it is OK. some clients are real good and but others are real angry and they don't want to listen at all. and some believe India is poor country and when they listen indian acent they shout and don't want to listen at all and they use such bad language when we can't share even with our partners ..., forget telling to supervisor. They don't pay so much amount of money that is true. It is just survival type of job.
Anyway dear enjoy your holidays ...
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
12 Dec 09
well. In my case i didnt face that accent problem. I worked in a domestic call center. My timings were okay. It was either from morning 9 til evening 5 or afternoon 2 till 10 at night. it only happened twice or thrice that i worked from 6 am in the morning till 3 pm. But what you mentioned is absoultely correct. Just to survive with that job, you have to listen to the customer abuses
@ronnyb (6113)
• Jamaica
11 Dec 09
Wow from now on I will have a new found respect for call centre operatives .I mean it may sound easy but its not easy to sit in one place for so long just to be told what to do and like you said its worse when you have problematic customers.Anyway the money seems good and it may be worth the effort
1 person likes this
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
12 Dec 09
Depends on the type of call center you are in. If its a product based call center then they would pay you high. But if its a service based bpo, they may not pay you high. But i guess there are many more ways you cane arn that much without having to do that much of effort. It really becomes too much hectic when you have to sit for hours and listen to customers, no matter whatsoever may happen
@sublime03 (2339)
• Philippines
12 Dec 09
I worked for a call center and I have to say it is really tiring taking calls everyday that ranges from 80 to 100 calls. Plus the night shift drags you down as well as sleeping in the unusual hours of the day. It is so hard to keep up with the call center industry and thus I have shifted into the morning hours but I still could not take calls so I quit.
But I have to say working in a call center is pretty hard as well. It isn't easy to take calls because we all work hard learning the product or services.
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
13 Dec 09
Yeah. It was not easy for me either taking calls for continuous 7.5 hours and targeting over 100 calls a day. that was too much... And changing shifts changes your routine too. You cannot plan anything. Your whole schedule becomes dependent on your call center job
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
12 Dec 09
Oh well. I just wanted to experience it somehow. I didnt want to make my career in a bpo job. I was just looking to have an extra pocket money. That 2 months of experience in a call center would anyways not help me in my career as a software engineer. Yes, I am working as a software engineer now and has already gained more than 2 years of experience in the same
@riyasam (16556)
• India
11 Dec 09
i do not have any personal experience but i have heard from the experience of friends that a call centre job is not easy,they joined for making some money but soon they developed diseases like blood pressure that most of their earnings would spent in doctors fees.
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
11 Dec 09
ha ha.. Nice to hear from you after a long time. That was a funny answer. They developed diseases.. ha ha.. nice experience for them too..
@spicysweetie21 (2573)
• United States
11 Dec 09
I worked in a couple of call centers, one was a good experience, and one just really wasn't. The first one was for a place called Environment California, it was a "environmental advocacy group" where I would call people that had previously donated to other causes and ask them if they wanted to donate to this new cause. It was a lot of fun because the environment and animals are something that I am passionate about, I did get a lot of rude people too though. The second job was cold calling homeowners to try and set up appointments for sidewall sales.....I got cussed out many a time on there, and it was very stressful because the managers put so much pressure on us, we were not supposed to hang up no matter what is being said to us, I got called the C word and I was supposed to continue my pitch. Not fun at all, I was actually glad that I didn't make the cut because I knew that job would give me an ulcer.
1 person likes this
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
11 Dec 09
That is the wors thing. You are not allowed to hang up the phone until the customer disconnects the call and you have to keep listening to that agitated customer. Even I heard many abuses during some of my calls. Thats why I said, no job is easy.
@jahernandezrivas (11288)
• United States
12 Dec 09
I have worked in a call center so long. I am so ready for a change I could just die! I am sick of all this quota sh--t! I wish they would shut them all down! They did shut the one down where I worked for 4 plus years thank god! I don't see how these people let you go after a day and a half because I didnt set 5 stupid appointments in an hour trying to get someone to get life insurance through a company? Evey one I sat was an indivdual hello! If they own a company and what I was told on each call was we have that through our company hello? NO SH--T! aND NY FRIEND JUST CALLED ME AND SAID HE JUST LET EVEYONE GO BECAUSE HE WAS NOT MAKING ENOUGH MONEY!
i think that is so funny!don't get me wrong I did like my last job but it was sells not this stupid stupid appointment setting crap!
i think that is so funny!don't get me wrong I did like my last job but it was sells not this stupid stupid appointment setting crap!1 person likes this
@vandana7 (100297)
• India
11 Dec 09
Hi vipulchawla, I worked for a knowledge based BPO. We had to abstract. We were given group targets, and again within the group, we used to have individual targets. The targets were not fixed as per complexity of the content. Instead, it was presumed that apart from going to the loos, and some time for lunch and tea, we would be sticking to our chairs with fevicol, and not looking either side. Initially, I thought conditions would change. But they only got worse. I quit. I am quite happy earning from home. And luckily, I got a subject that I used to love when I was young - biotech. So I am into content writing for that line. :) I come here for timepass. I like socializing. And mylot is one of the best places ever. :)
1 person likes this
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
11 Dec 09
yeah...mylot is a very good platform for socializing and making new friends. Its good to know that you are working in your area of interests now. There are friends of mine still working in mylot and they are happy that there are no targets set for them. I tried getting into technical bpo but then dropped the idea.
Anyway, it was nice hearing about you.
Keep mylotting!
@greatsasuke (472)
• United States
11 Dec 09
My friend from India works at a call center and he absolutely hates it. The same problems you are facing he has faced, as well. I told him to get another job, but he can't seem to find one that pays as good as the call center job. I would hate to have to talk to people for that long. In fact there is no way I could. I would quit after the first week. My suggestion to you is to see if you can find something else. The only problem is that you must be so tired after coming home from this job, that you just want to relax and sleep.
My friend was also working the night shift, because of the time difference between India and the western world. He said it really messed up his sleeping habits.
1 person likes this
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
12 Dec 09
Oh well. i am no more working in a call center. It was a part time job for me during my college days that too in the final semester. I am now working as a Software engineer at one of the most reputed companies of India. It has been over 2 years for me and i am earning more than what a call center guy can earn
@jithuskalari (153)
• India
11 Dec 09
I'm just looking for the same job in Bangalore. But the main thing of call centre job is it offered a pretty much salary.... that matters....
1 person likes this
@vipulchawla (2220)
• India
11 Dec 09
Hmm.. that can be a plus point about a job in a call center. You get a good starting salary but only if you are in uk or us processes. but then the hike is not that much in such kind of jobs
