Constantly changing procedures, last to market technology, poor customer focus, micro management, consolidation pitfalls.
This is a company going through many changes. Anyone who works in Technical Support (as well as other departments) knows this all too well. The keyword here is Consolidation. By the time this is posted, many employees have already lost their jobs because Cox is consolidating many areas of its operations. I was one of the lucky ones who's system remained a tech support system, but many here in other departments lost their jobs when we consolidated with another system. While this makes perfect business sense, and and can't fault the strategy, keep this in mind if you are applying for a position with Cox.
If you apply for a Technical Support Representative, you must know what you're getting into. This is now a SALES position. They may not tell you how important that is, but believe me, it is. Let's put it this way- I now have a SALES MANAGER. (If you are in tech support and don't have one now, you will.) Your technical expertise is not valued nearly as much as your ability to sell. And it shows. I tracked my calls one day, and found out what I suspected- 40% of the calls I took were to either correct a problem the first rep didn't solve or correct a problem that was created by the company itself. And this was not an abnormal day. When I first started working at Cox, I was hired because I was fresh out of technical school, had customer service experience, and badly needed a decent job with benefits. If you have any technical aspirations, the only way to advance in that area is to go to a larger system and wait, or be willing to move. Your technical expertise is not valued in this department. Also know that tech support is a hard job to begin with- you deal with a lot of angry customers who are technically illiterate, or just plain rude. And also that Cox has some very suspect ways of dealing with that. Some of their procedures for dealing with customers is inexcusable, and become worse and worse as time goes on. I say this because if you're a front line "customer facing" employee (tech support, sales, retention), this will effect you a lot. There is a sense of "well that's the way we do it, and if they don't like it, too bad for them." We had a certain technical issue for 6 months, until they finally acknowledged that there was a problem. It is more than frustrating when you have to deal with that and also know there is no good answer. Also know that this and other departments are very rigidly stats oriented, and those stats change constantly and they have not figured out how to track those stats accurately. This is a common complaint among co-workers in several customer facing departments.
There are some good things about Cox. They are community oriented, the benefits are good, and I most of the people I work with are pleasant and professional. And it is a truly diverse workplace. It's not just lip service. At my location, they handle personal, non-work related issues well.
My biggest problem is that the position is no longer acceptable to me. It is time to move on. I wrote this review because if you're considering this company, and particularly a tech support position, you need to know what you're in for.
So here is what is required for want to apply for a Technical Support Representative position- if you have customer service experience, can handle a very high volume of calls ( their goal is to never have a moment when your NOT talking to a customer-BTW you will more than likely work 4 -10 hour days-nice to have 3 days off, but that is a VERY long day constantly taking calls), if irate customers don't faze you, you have a LITTLE technical know how, and most importantly, know how to,or are willing to SELL, SELL, SELL, then a COX Technical Support Representative will work out fine for you.
