Anyone in the customer service field(call centers)? If so, is yours a rough job.?

Question

I currently work as one in the financial field. Some of the people I talk to I really have to question their intellect and whether they should be in control of something like money.

Answer 1

Don't even get me started, brother!

Answer 2

I spent 2.5 years on an inbound call line for a financial service company. I handled about 50 call/day on average with increases to about 100 calls/day after quarter-end statements were mailed. I spoke with financial advisors, retirement plan sponsors and individual retirement plan participants. My motivation for accepting this job was that they paid for and sponsored NASD Series 6 and 63 licenses.

There were some pros to having the job, but way to many cons. That's why I got out as soon as I was able to. You're right when you say that your average investor is, to put it nicely, anything but investment-savvy. On the whole they make more bad decisions than good ones, they refuse to educate themselves about how to responsibly monitor their investments and they tend to blame anyone but themselves for the mistakes they regularly make.

Because of this refusal to take responsibility for their investments and their future Congress takes many "hand-holding" steps to both dumb-down the decisions individual investors need to make, as well as shoulder even more responsibility on the investment professional.

Back to the call center, I am grateful on a daily basis for leaving that frenzy environment, but there were some positive things I got out of it. First and foremost are the communication skills. When you speak almost non-stop for 8+ hours a day your ability to verbally communicate becomes very sharp. This benefits you in all areas of life.

The second positive benefit is the increased ability to think under pressure. When you are constantly being bombarded with questions your brain gets very efficient in how it deals with issues.

The third thing I took away from the job was the Dilbert factor. I had never worked for a Big Company before, so it was interesting to observe some of the politics, decision-making, etc. of a Big Company. I work for a small company now and am usually grateful for this fact.

The only other benefit I can think of is that when you work in high-pressure situations (like in a kitchen, in the military, etc), you develop a real sense of comaraderie and rapport with your teammates. I miss that sometimes, but it's not worth going back to the environment that fostered it.

The list of cons is much longer than the list of pros, but I won't go into too much detail. The main complaint I has was that as a phone rep I was getting it on both sides. Some out of touch idiot in a boardroom somewhere decides to initiate some moronic policy for no apparent reason. The result? I would deal with twice the call volume and have to get my *** chewed by the clients whose best interest we were supposed to be considering when implementing policy.

When you get your head snapped off so many times a day for representing a company that doesn't really care what you or the client think, you tend to get a little hard boiled and cynical. It's not the most healthy professional environment to be in. You spend almost half you waking hours at work, so I take it as a personal policy to not spend that time in such a hostile and volatile workplace.