There are all sorts of call center jobs. Companies often outsource their billing inquiries and technical support to contract call center staff. Others establish their own call centers to fulfill these customer service needs. Call center staff commonly deal with customer inquiries, fix problems with accounts, take orders or actively make sales. If you are interested in sales and market research then you’ll need to be willing to work in night call center jobs since that is when you can more easily contact customers and they can more easily contact you.
There are also many 24 hour call center jobs which will require you to work a rotating roster. This requires a great deal of flexibility in your work availability and can place stress on personal relationships. Some call centers have very high turn over rates because of the various stress factors inherent in the job. Before deciding on a particular position, take time to read the job description and try to talk to people who work in similar positions. You need to retain as much control over your life as possible in order to maintain good physical and mental health.
Call center work requires you to be on the phone and looking at a computer screen consistently and every moment of your work time is monitored. This environment causes some highly focused individuals to soar and achieve great results and can be an open door to other higher paying opportunities. For others, performance can be affected by the close monitoring and the lack of ability to get up and move around. It’s important to be honest with yourself about you’re suitability for this sort of work. If you’re new to call centers and do not have personal experience of that environment, you may benefit from taking short term contract work through an employment agency. This will give you experience and also give you a good idea of your own suitability for this employment.
411 call center jobs are information based positions which involve giving customer’s information they would otherwise have to get from the yellow pages. They are really directory assistant type positions which do not require a high level of skill or product knowledge and therefore are great entry level customer service positions. By their very nature, these positions do not tend to attract angry customers. Calls are generally turned over very quickly. If you want a call center job that is light on stress, then keep an eye out for these jobs.
ATT call center jobs are available in sales, customer service, and technical support and they have in recent years brought a number of jobs back into the United States after outsourcing them to other countries. AT&T offers good health insurance plans and career possibilities and they have an excellent reputation. Dell call center jobs, on the other hand, have suffered from poor press with a class action suit being brought against the company for underpaying American call center staff. The company also has to deal with some very bad feelings related to their putting so many formerly American jobs offshore. Their technical support appears to have been compromised and their sales are falling.
No matter what sort of job you are going for, it is important to do your due diligence with regards to the organization you will be applying to. You need to know their track record with regard to customer service and the turn over rate of their call center staff. No job is worth the cost of poor health or personal distress, so make sure you know what you are dealing with. A good idea if you are looking for call center work is to phone the company’s service number and see how long it takes for an operator to answer. Does the customer have to listen to recorded voices and press various buttons before they can be put through to someone who can help them? If a company makes it too time consuming (and costly on some cell phone plans) the customer is going to be feeling stressed and irritated by the time the customer service representative answers. Remember, that could be you. Look for a company which has excellent customer service systems in place because that makes it easier to do your job.
You can find call center jobs listed on online job sites, in newspaper job ads, on the company websites and through employment agencies. Make sure you have the requisite skills for the job and target your resume and letter of application for a specific position. This means that each letter of application should be completely unique and your resume should be adjusted for the specific selection criteria of a position. Make sure your resume and application letter are neat, well written, and free of spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. If you obtain an interview, dress neatly and professionally, look directly at the interviewer and speak clearly. Remember, how you speak is essential for this type of job.
If you take the time to prepare for, find and apply for the right customer service job for you, you will be in an excellent position to earn a good income and develop skills and experience that can move you forward in a customer service career. For success in this role, you just need to be the round peg for the round hole.
