Applying for a part-time job in a call-centre

[sanabitur_anima]

Has anyone here ever worked in a call centre? Does anyone have any advice.

[Lady Fluff]

I lasted 9 months, by which time I was one of the longest serving members of the sales team. I think it depends on the nature of the job as to what tips you need, but I'll tell you about my experience.

I worked in an inbound sales call centre, selling loans, from 2004-05. My company, connected to one of the major high street banks with a horse logo, specialised in giving loans to 'high risk' people who may have been refused a loan elsewhere. Consequently, our loans often had high interest rates, up to 41% APR Whilst the job wasn't as tough as it could have been if it were outbound sales, as people were coming to us for money, we often dealt with stroppy people who weren't happy about the interest rate (so a calm head was needed to deal with them, especially on occasions when they got abusive), people who were upset about being declined for a loan (the toughest call I ever took was from someone who wanted to borrow a mere £1000 for his mother's funeral, and he was declined due to his credit rating...), and the worst part...ACCENTS! I don't have a great ear for accents, and it could get quite embarrassing asking people to repeat things repeatedly, and then to not understand them when they were spelling things out was tricky! Even trickier was people whose grasp of English was not good - my 'favourites' were when I asked people what their 'title' was (i.e. Mr, Mrs, Doctor, Lord, Rev etc.), and I couldn't identify their gender from their voice, and they didn't know what title meant so I had to explain it on gender-neutral terms - you don't like to ask if someone is male or female!

It wasn't all bad all the time, but it was certainly my least favourite of the three jobs I've had. My colleagues were great though, and we had a good time.

Another tricky part was the call volumes. Most of the time, we had long queues of callers, with up to 30 calls waiting at any one time, so as soon as you finished one call, the phone would be ringing again. It did make the environment very high pressured, and at first I couldn't deal with the stress, though I did quickly get the hang of it.

As I say, my experience is of one call centre, and depending on what your one does, it will be very different. Call centres are, however, notorious for a high term over fo staff - read into that what you will, but make sure you will be going into an environment you're happy in - after all, you spend more time in work that with your partner if you're in a full time job - you have to be happy in what you do.

[sanabitur_anima]

I didn't get the job, but thanks anyway.