Call Center Life

Wow! It's been a while since I last posted a blog here. Anyway, I'll be posting here my life in the cal center industry. I just want to share this for those who wants to enter this industry. So for those who are interested, then read along.

I've been in this industry for only 3 months and my experience so far is quite good. Perhaps you are wondering why did I use the word "quite" here. Well yes, working in a call center makes you rich. The pay is high (imagine getting a salary of 8k half a month), then "quite" is not a word that suits to it. What I say is we have different perspectives.

We'll start off in the environment. I would like to set your expectations first that the environment in the call center industry differs. It depends on what company that you are in. Anyway, the environment is chilly. High air-conditioning everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE. Whether you're in a Comfort Room, pantry, LOUNGE (which is my favorite place), and the game room. You will feel like you are in the US of A! TOTAL COLD ENVIRONMENT. No wonder many people in this industry doesn't need whitening creams and pills because they get white naturally!

How about the workplace? In our company, the workplace is fine. We have an LCD computer screen (which is great!), clean place, a lot of white boards, and noisy. The keyword here is NOISY. Need to ask a question why? Come on! Go to Wikipedia.org! (just kidding!) ^_^

Colleagues? It actually depends on which team would one be. Some people in certain teams are kind of snobbish people. Some are friendly while some people doesn't give a damn around them.

And finally, the schedule. In this industry, it is so lucky for a team who gets a 2 consecutive days of rest. The remaining will have the split off. Split off is simply having your day-off in different days, like for our team, our day-off is Sunday and Wednesday. And it's difficult to have split off because the rest day is so "bitin", it won't even feel that we did have a day off.

Also, in other accounts, they have a regular day shift. Not all call centers has the graveyard shift only. It actually depends on the account that one is in. If the account that you are in is 24/7, then most probably that in some point in time, he/she will get a schedule in the morning.

That's it for the environment. Let us now go to the advantages and disadvantages of working in the call center industry.

This is kind of tough but anyway, here are the advantages/disadvantages:

1. Most of the schedule is in the graveyard shift.
As what I have stated above, it differs on the account that you are in. But MOST of the
accounts are in the graveyard shift because it is morning in the USA. At first it is fun. It's
like a normal day here. However, the disadvantage of this is that this shift makes your
body weak. Imagine that you are taking your lunch at 3 in the morning. This simply means
that your body clock is not in the right time. Your morning is night and your night is
morning.

2. HIGH PAY.
The call center industry has become well-known because it is a high-paying job. 15k per
month is the basic salary for most of the call centers here in our country. (and that is even without the night differential!). If you are in an account which is an inbound-sales, man, you'll be a millionaire in no time (that is if you know how to save money). This is also the
reason why people are dying to get into this industry.


3. INCENTIVES.
Most of the call centers here in our country have a lot of good incentives. Like for
example, health insurance, life insurance and bonus pays.

4. ENGLISH LANGUAGE TRAINING.
Basically, in all call centers, one must be good in the English language before he can be
admitted or employed. However, there are language training in call centers before one
can be set free on the floor to take calls. And also, what training would be greater than
speaking to a native speaker themselves? This is one advantage of the call center industry
when it comes to English Language Training. Even if one has an accent, it can be neutra- lized just by talking to these Americans.

5. CAREER OPPORTUNITIES.
In the call center industry, there are a lot of career opportunities. One of which is that
even if he is not a college graduate, he can earn a lot of money and get a chance to be
promoted into different positions (and that is performance-based). Many people in this
industry who has their own success story. If one performes great, he can get a change to
be promoted as a Supervisor. And if he still does great, he can then be promoted to
Shift Manager and so on an so forth until he reaches the position of being a Site Director!

Well, I think that would be all for now. I can't enumerate all of it because I have only been here for about three months only. If you want to find out more, then you can apply in a call center. For those of you who are interested to be a part of the call center industry, make sure that your body can handle graveyard shift schedule. If not, then being in a call center is not for you.