Note: This is a sticky post to help you or your friends land a call center job. Feel free to check below for my other posts in this call center blog.
Having a call center job seems to be fun, enjoyable and provides a steady income for most people. But there is also the other side of call center jobs that you would like to know before you apply. Working in the call center industry is not all fun and games; it is actually very hard work and will ask a lot from you.
While the initial salary, salary increase, benefits and bonuses are all very attractive, you may want to consider a few things first before you apply in a call center company. You’d want to make sure that you know that you are getting into especially if you got accepted. Here are the things you need to know before applying for a call center job:
Type of Service
In the process of your application, you will be asked call center interview questions for the company to gauge what type of service will fit you best. There are 2 types of services: inbound and outbound. These are two very different services and choosing the right one for your skills and qualifications will do wonders for the company.
With inbound calls, you will be the one answering phone calls. Callers usually have something to ask about, needs help with something or will raise a concern. Inbound customer support agents should be knowledgeable about their products, able to handle complaints and has the ability to address problems fast.
On the other hand, outbound agents are assigned to make unexpected phone calls to random people offering them new products. Outbound agents should be very patient in case these people get irate because of these unexpected calls.
Quotas
Some call center jobs have quotas especially for outbound call agents. Quotas are meant to be met every month and sometimes, if an agent doesn’t reach his/her quota sales, he/she will be under probation or will be let go. There are also what you conversion expectations. Let’s say an agent is assigned to call 10 customers a day and the company has a conversion rate of 30%. This means that the agent should have at least 3 successful sales in a day to meet the conversion expectation.
Commissions
Aside from the benefits and bonuses, call center agents also have the opportunity to earn big every month because of the commissions. Call center companies offer big commissions to motivate outbound call center agents to achieve more sales. Although outbound call center agents may find this more challenging, they have more opportunity to earn big sum of money at the end of the month.
Work on Holidays and Weekends
Call center companies are usually up 24/7 and 365 days in a year regardless if it’s on a weekend or a holiday. If you are willing to work in a call center, this is already something you need to anticipate. While there are other agents that do not like this kind of schedule, some call center agents who won’t do anything during the weekend or the holidays take this opportunity to earn more cash.
These are just some of the things you have to look forward to when applying for call center jobs. As you can see, these jobs can be pretty demanding but can also be very rewarding. There are other things to consider so make sure you read part 2 of this article that I will be posting soon.
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Regarding to qouta, it is not easy to hit a quota especially when you selling an expensive product to the client. Sometimes if you doesn’t hit a quota you can’t leave to your designated workstation until you hit a quota but the worst is you can’t your overtime rate.