I worked in an awful call centre between 2011 and 2017. The culture was awful and boy do I have some stories to share (which are probably incredibly outing). Examples I have witnessed over the years:
A lot of my colleagues were hidden homeless due to our low wages
W were not protected from abusive customers. We constantly were dealing with angry, sweary, nasty, abusive customers. I have been threatened with death, assault and rape more times than I can count. I’ve also had whistles blown down the phone, customers coughing down the phone and just generally been exposed to audiological shock on a daily basis. I am now moderately deaf in one ear.
Toilet breaks were timed to the second.
Disciplinary if you spent more than 15 minutes in ‘comfort break’ per day (this includes the time it takes to get too and from the toilet and is regardless of any medical conditions).
Disciplinary meetings any time you were off sick. People sacked for being sick.
My HR department trying to refuse to pay for time off for ante natal appointments
Call centre manager phoning me while at an antenatal appointment , screaming down the phone because I wasn’t back when expected (I had been diagnosed with a serious complication).
A colleague being refused the same hours in return from maternity leave as she was a mother now and wouldn’t cope 🙄 (she was doing night shift, her partner was working day shift).
Huge drug and smoking culture. Everyone off their face constantly. People doing coke in the lifts, managers trading codeine and colleagues falling asleep at their desks while high. Oh yeah, at one time we were running the governments ‘talk to Frank’ phone line. There was a good reason our staff were so knowledgeable about drugs.
Breaching of political rules. At one point we were manning the electoral commission helpline, just before the election. The same staff were used for a supposedly politically neutral polling campaign which turned out to be funded by the TORY PARTY.
Staff being replaced by agency staff so could be laid off at short notice. Those staff being replaced by ‘apprentices’ who could legally be paid less.
Staff working for multiple companies at the same time (while contracted to one company at a time).
We did e-reception and sales for multiple nursing home groups. Did you know that if you call a four seasons, barchester or carehomes.co.uk home you are not speaking to a person at the home? When you call to find out about a care home space/book a visit, our job was to get as much info as possible out of you as possible regarding your relatives needs and wishes so the care home manager could use this info to ‘sell’ you a space harder?
I can’t end this post without mentioning readers digest. Readers digest are such a corrupt, morally bankrupt company that even the shit show contact centre I worked for refused their business after our initial contract was up. The way they exploit the elderly and actively encourage harsh selling practices to those they KNOW do not have capacity is disgusting. Also, when someone calls to ask for account closure because their relative is dead, the system has a little gravestone emoji that you click on to mark that the customer is dead 🤢There is a reason they make even the lowliest of staff sign an NDA (I don’t care about breaking my NDA, sue me 😂).
Luckily, the call centre I worked for no longer operates in this country, the implementation of gdpr finished them off (since their whole business, despite the pretence of customer service, was to take and sell customer information).
On the whole, call centres are awful. They are awful for the staff, awful for the companies they serve and awful for the customer. Very exploitative, lawless places. They need regulating and they need unions!