* Odd hours. Good schedules are supposed to be given based on seniority but I got declined for my schedule change multiple times over the course of two years while people with less seniority were granted theirs.
* Promotions in my department were virtually non-existent so you knew that unless you transferred to another department you were always going to be doing the same entry level customer service job that you were hired at. When promotions did come up on rare occasions everyone became very cut-throat to try and get them. I felt that promotions were given to those with the most seniority rather than to the person who was most well qualified to do the job.
* No decision making authority. Almost every situation has a script and if you deviate from the script your call will be failed when they pull it. There is no decision making authority on your part as a CSR or any room for critical thinking. You just read the script. It's not so bad the first year or so that you do it but there's definitely some burnout that sets in year #2 when customers are yelling at you and they're upset and there's nothing you can do for them so you just read the script. Which leads me to my next point..
* You become jaded. When I first started, I really cared about each customer and wanted to help them. It would really upset me when I couldn't help them and I took it personally if they didn't like my service. One of my first days on the phone an agent called me a stupid b***h and I cried because I took it personally. After a while, you just can't care about every caller. It's too emotionally taxing to care about every caller with a sob story or every angry customer. People will tell you about how they can't pay their insurance because their wife is in the hospital or they're living on social security or they didn't REALLY deserve that speeding ticket on their record-- and you just can't care about it all. There's nothing you can do to control the price of their insurance. No button you can click to make their rate go down. Your job is to get customers on and off the phone. I didn't like the person that I became who had to pretend to empathize with customers just enough to keep my call ratings high when my supervisors pulled them. I grew a thick skin-- too thick.
