Cons
I could honestly do at least 8 times the size of the pro list for this cons section, but I'll try to focus on the bigger things while still filtering in some little things.
-To start with the pros that had cons, the supervisors and management are chill, funny, nice but sadly that is what describes a friends NOT a management member. In fact, the actual managing part is what they don't seem to get. They do their work at the last minute, often being so busy with caught up they will be completely unable to give you even a bit of attention. Also when they aren't busy they are likely talking casually with other supervisors/management about life in general, technology (unrelated to FiOS) and relationships. This is usually okay when it's infrequent, but at the level it's done it is highly unprofessional and supervisors especially tend to forget about the people they are supposed to be supervising.
-The companies well thought through core values that I couldn't agree with more on are not enforced! They will mention them every so often but at the end of the day considering it is a 3rd party call center, all they care about is money and how much of it you helped them make, even if it means telling a customer that they're SOL just because the management wants you spending no more time on a call than THEY think you should. Sadly the client Verizon probably knows about this and refuse to do anything about it.
-The company will help you change your schedule to help fit your life, whether you are in college, working two jobs or just not looking for full time. The problem is that they also will do net staffing (where they randomly change schedules to help call queue during key points in the day) and the schedule you had to wait a month to get or so will be gone, and you'll have to restart the process. But does management care? Nah, not their problem right?
-Sadly as stated above with the pro of advancement- don't expect to get the job if you are pit against someone who is buddy buddy with the managers, because they will surely not pick you even if your stats are 4x better than the other person. And the pay increases with additional responsibility are barely .25 cent raises. Even supervisors don't make much more.
-The employees here are loud, and not while speaking to customer on their calls, but while their phones are muted and they talk about anything and everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) while I tried to do my work and focus. But focusing is hard when these people are allowed to carry on and blatantly ignoring the customer and in turn their jobs. Now quiet talk when it gets slow is okay- but I was promised a professional working environment and what I got was a bunch of loud mouth people talking about anything from sports to explicit and vulgar things. The sad thing is, not only so they do that and get away with it but they also curse out the customer and say hateful things you shouldn't say to anyone while their phones are muted. And once again, management knows this but isn't smart enough to realize that not only is that not a professional or healthy way to relieve stress, it is also disrespectful to the people who are essentially your paycheck... Regardless of whether or not they hear you.
-The training process is terrible at this point. Expect to be clueless when you start taking calls, and expect to get poor help from on the job trainers as they are juggling 20-30 people at once. The training classes are all documents in our knowledge bank that are poorly written and outdated. They do not provide any real 'hands on' experiences like the tools we used when I started. I at least had a fighting chance but these people have the highest turnover rate in over 5 years. Not a good outlook for the company.
-In regards to the turnover rate, this is caused by lack of knowledge from trainers who know less than most seasoned agents and as well as constantly changing policies and requirements of the job that I'll discuss more next.
-This job may be a third party center, but it makes enough to pay it's agents more than what it is doing. Enough people do a decent job and some even go above and beyond what it requires to help people. But all the company does is add more responsibility to our project with no incentives or increase in pay. In small doses over a period of a few years this might make sense... But telling TECHNICAL SUPPORT AGENTS who specialize in FiOS (which in case you didn't know uses fiber not copper for the lines outside) they need to handle COPPER tech support calls AND CUSTOMER SERVICE upselling... Not increasing the pay and on top of that expecting the expected CAHT (Call Average Handle Time) to be where they want it to be is ridiculous and is one of the reasons I'm fed up and starting my new job next week. When the copper call centers agents he we basically stole jobs from got payed somewhere between $15 and $18/hour and we get payed $10.50? Tell me you see the irony.
-Be prepared to be treated as a tool. Most of the time management will not tell you when you've done something good or even amazing, they will just tell you when you've done something wrong. So morale is usually low because of this. When you have someone compliment you on your job skills and continuity of your skills you it makes you feel better about yourself and your employer. Many of my friends left because the management made them feel like they weren't good at all. Which is sad and happens at most companies.
-I'll finally cut this off with my final con and my biggest concern... Stats. The stats they expect you to have with all of the things extra you have to do as I listed above is insane. And if they aren't at their high expectation level, you will receive warnings all the way up to termination for factors you honestly can't control. The biggest ones are FTR (First Time Resolution, where a customer calls back in sooner than a week after speaking with you), CAHT and ACS's (After Call Surveys). Now I'm well known in the center for my ACS's, I'm just good at building rapport and know my job well. But for FTR and CAHT... Those two are conflicting each other with the way they are pressuring people to get off the call after only 15 minutes and badgering you to hurry up and constantly asking 'What's going on with your call" and after explaining to them they walk away and come right back, they don't help they just walk away. Now think- how can a person make sure ALL of the customers issues are resolved so they WON'T call back in unless you take your time with the call? I'm not saying take 1 hour to fix it but increase the CAHT expectancy to at least 18 minutes with all of the extra support we have to do at this point. After finishing a tech support issue you may have to help the customer understand their bill and why it's high or add content for them, it takes more than the time we are given. And if you rush people, they aren't going to build rapport and the customer will not have a good time and will in turn give the agent bad surveys.