Working in a Call Center: What You Need to Know

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Working in a call center is a TOUGH job. It can get quite lucrative, if the right compensation structure is there. It can also teach you skills like selling, negotiation, and overall people skills when you work in a call center. Overall, working in a call center is valuable experience.

It was in my college days that I worked in a call center. I was responsible for calling alumni and asking if they would like to donate to my alma mater. It was the toughest sell ever because I had to convince them to give away their hard earned money. For nothing in return.

It was one of the highest paying jobs I saw as a student, and I eventually worked up the ranks to become Supervisor, earning a good raise in the process. Because it was a student job, I was highly and severely underpaid than someone who worked there as a full-time person.

Working in a call center meant that I started off making $9.50/hr plus some incentives that would bring my pay to $10.50/hr. Companies sure love to take advantage of cheap college student labor! When I moved to supervisor, the pay improved to $12.50/hr with incentive to go up to $14.50/hr.

Working in a call center was one of the toughest jobs I’ve ever done. But I have to tell you, it was rewarding because I learned how to sell, negotiate, and provide good customer service. Would I do it again? I’m not sure. But I am grateful for having done it.

So with that said, let’s go over in detail what working in one means!

What is a Call Center?

A call center is a room with a group of people who fields incoming and out-coming calls. The representatives within a call center answer the phones to complete a purpose. Whether it is to sell a product or solicit donations for a company.

Or it could be to field customer complaints and provide excellent customer service. They take calls and keep a record of the open cases and transactions that were going on. For my particular case, I had to keep records of our alumni and keep a database of their information such as mailing address and such.

I answered calls using a computer software that automatically called the phone numbers provided by the alumni to the University. These days, working in a call center is much more automated than before and representatives rarely manually dial the phone to customers.

Call centers can be managed by the company directly or they may be outsourced to a third-party company who manages the call center process. In my case, a third party company handled all of the employee relations, software, and the like.

Below are more distinctions on what working in a call center is like, depending on what type of a call center it is.

1) Work From Home Call Centers

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, work from home call centers became more popular than ever before. These call centers are where people take calls in a set hour of the day in any remote location across the globe.

As long as the call gets answered/dialed, then work from home call centers are viable.

The biggest benefit to employees working in such a setting is that they save on commuting costs and can work from the comfort of their home. The biggest benefit to employers is that they save on overhead costs of paying rent, utilities, and the like. A win-win working relationship.

In general, the company sends you the equipment that’s necessary to perform the duties of the job. The tools include a headset, microphone, and most likely a computer. They also send you training materials to effectively master the skill of persuasion.

This is an ideal work situation, especially for seasoned employees who’ve worked in a call center before.

2) Inbound Call Centers

Inbound call centers is when the customer calls in to specifically make a request, talk to the business, and get customer service. You are the one receiving the inbound call. These are more popular amongst companies who hire employees to provide customer service.

Generally, the customer is dissatisfied with the product they purchased from the company or they have a question about the product. It could be about a warranty and the like. The calls may be from customers who are frustrated and angry that they haven’t found a solution to their problem.

The benefit to working in a call center such as this is that you’re not proactively calling customers. You are waiting until customers come to you. There’s a certain level of control and power that you have in the conversation when this happens.

It’s not an easy job but a job that teaches you effective customer service and persuasion skills.

3) Outbound Call Centers

Working in a call center could mean working in an outbound call center.
My situation was similar to this one.

Outbound call centers are when you proactively make the call to the customer or a prospect to solicit something out of them. It could be to get them to vote, sell a product, or gather donations. Believe it or not, but working in an outbound call center may have more angry customers than inbound ones.

Because you are the one disrupting their perfectly good lives and wanting to add change to their lives. It’s already hard enough to get someone to change their behavior when it benefits them. It’s infinitely harder to change someone’s behavior which happen to benefit you at the same time.

It can also be an even more pleasant experience than working in an inbound call center because it could be calling customers to check in on them. To ask them what they liked about their purchase and whether there’s anything you can do to help them out.

It’s a coin flip, depending on what the responsibilities of the job actually is. The calls are usually performed using an automated software that calls one prospect after another for a set given number of time. This is the call center that I personally worked in.

It gave me anxiety at times because I never knew who might pick up and what mood they would be in. But still rewarding, nonetheless.

What’s it Like Working in a Call Center

So then how exactly is it, working in a call center? Here is what I observed, from working in a call center for 1.5 years. You are highly invested in money and career because your future depends on it.

1) It’s Loud and Crowded

Working in a call center means that it's loud.
It feels like someone is holding a megaphone to your face.

Depending on the type of call center you work in, they are usually loud and crowded with people yelling and talking over each other all the time. If it’s an outbound call center, it’s even worse because you’re hearing your phone dial at the same time others are talking.

Everyone does not get their own individual cubicles. All ~25 of us per shift worked in the same room right next to each other. No privacy with our conversations. Working in a call center is not the easiest job if you do not enjoy working in that environment.

It could be a different experience for you, so asking to see how the workspace is like during the interviews is crucial. Even though I learned a lot from working in that job, I can’t say that it didn’t give me a little bit of PTSD because of how loud the work environment was.

This is something to consider if you are thinking of taking the call center job.

2) Performance Expectations Are High

Because working in a call center is almost a sales type role, the expectations are high. We were given performance metrics to hit and were benchmarked quite often. More often than I would’ve liked. The most important metrics were how many people we were actually talking to.

What our credit card donation percentages were (the benchmark rate was ~42%). What was our participation percentage of potential donors (the benchmark rate was ~10%). Your bosses expect you to perform and provide value when you’re working in a call center.

It wasn’t just the supervisors who balked at us to meet our goals. It was the supervisors’ supervisor who balked at us to meet our goals. We were constantly reminded of that throughout our employment there. It wasn’t the easiest job in the world because you were expected to perform.

Or you were out. Yes, they gave us some time to adjust and get our performance levels up. However, the threat of being let go was always there often.

3) Your Supervisors are Listening

Working in a call center means your supervisors are listening.
Other people are hearing what you say.

When we were working there, the supervisors would do random listen ins and check ins to make sure we were doing our jobs the right way. You just never knew when someone was listening in. The first time I was let known that the supervisors were listening in, I was surprised.

I had no idea they were and if we ever said the wrong thing, we were given a “coaching”. If the coaching wasn’t sufficient, they would write us up. Working in a call center doesn’t just mean you’re talking to a prospect or a customer. It means the company is listening in on the calls as well.

It’s not as bad as it sounds because you get used to it and if you were a high performer, they usually leave you alone. It’s to protect the company so that you are actually doing your job and aren’t saying anything rude, profane, or out of touch to the customer.

After a while, you get used to it and you realize that it’s not really a big deal.

4) Working in a Call Center Can Induce Stress

We were working in a tight and secluded space. There wasn’t a lot of leg room so it really didn’t feel like there was any leeway when working the job. Working in a call center can be stress inducing, depending on the work environment and what your personal preferences are.

I personally do not like working in an environment like that but I learned to make do for a year and a half. Plus, I was having fun learning how to sell and talk to prospective donors so I didn’t really notice how much I disliked the work environment. Until the second year came along, anyway.

Although they gave us a 10-minute break after the 2-hour mark in a 4-hour shift, it still didn’t make it any better. That still didn’t mean that we weren’t expected to perform. There was a lot of stress working in a loud place and being expected to be a high performer.

The flip side is that if you are a high performer, they gave you opportunities. I became a supervisor quickly and I was managing people who were 2 – 3 years older than me… Just as a Sophomore in college. It was great.

5) You Will Learn a Lot Working in a Call Center

There were many students who highly disliked working in a call center. And I could fully understand it because the work environment is not the best environment to work in for everyone. It was high stress, loud, with not a lot of space and leeway. Plus it was a sales-oriented role.

People usually do not like working in sales because they dislike rejection. However, they were missing the bigger picture. They were missing just how much they were learning from the job. I didn’t just learn good customer service skills. I learned how to talk to prospective donors and sell.

Sales is the most useful skill in the entire world. If you can sell, you will never be unemployed. Companies will always need salespeople to sell their products and services. Those skills, I still take with me to this day because it really matters.

Working in a call center will teach you a lot of valuable skills. It was highly worth it for me.

6) Turnover is High

It’s a stressful job. Anytime you interact with strangers, there will be pushback. You don’t know them and they don’t know you. The flip side is, in this job, the customers have the power over you. So you talk to strangers who don’t like, respect, or trust you. Yet.

I’ve had alumni cuss at me and call me names throughout my time there. I didn’t really care but there were many others who did. Therefore, the turnover rate was quite high. The same person you were talking to one day may not be there the next day.

Working in a call center doesn’t mean that you’ll meet any lasting friends there. I haven’t kept up with any of the people that I met in the call center, years later. It’s not the easiest job in the world when you are dealing with people who are constantly mad at you and berate you.

You have no choice but to handle the situation gracefully because, whether you like it or not, they have the power over you.

Working in a Call Center Isn’t for Everyone

Working in a call center definitely isn’t for everyone. There were many people who called it quits after just a day or a week. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s all bad. There are upsides to working in a call center. I learned how to sell and persuade people to give their hard earned money to my university.

Even know how to ask for more money.

And literally get nothing in return for it. That was a valuable skill and invaluable experience that I still remember to this day. There’s no other way that I can put myself in that situation ever again. I don’t have another opportunity to put myself in that situation.

Not through any of the jobs that I have. If I ever want to start a business down the road, I’ll always remember the situations that helped me persuade a prospective donor to donate. Convincing and persuasion skills are very valuable in this world.

Even though working in a call center isn’t for everyone and I’m not sure if it can be a viable long term career option. However, knocking it out before trying it out I think is a mistake. Giving it a fair bit of effort can have career options and opportunities for you to mark your way in the world.

Sales dictate businesses. And if you ever have a business of your own, you can leverage those skills to your advantage and sell like no other. No organization is going to respect a CEO who doesn’t even know how to cold call and sell on their own. Cold calling has made many people rich.

And it will continue to make those people rich.

What’s it Like Working in a Call Center Shortlist:

  • It’s loud and crowded
  • Performance expectations are high
  • Your supervisors are listening
  • Working in a call center can induce stress
  • You will learn a lot working in a call center
  • Turnover is high

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