'I was tired of the unfairness of it all': Call center worker decreases their output by 80% after workplace changes pay incentives

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    I'll meet the call count but won't make the calls count I worked at a call center for a collection agency for nearly 5 years. Anybody that has worked in this type of environment knows that there are all sorts of targets that are expected to be met, be they daily, monthly, or whatever.
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    One of our targets was to make a certain number of calls per day, I believe it was 120. Naturally though, the more contact you would make with debtors the less time there was to make other calls. It's usually not an issue but but some days you might make significantly more contact than others and sometimes your call count might be like 2/3 of what it should be.
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    We would get regular updates on the call count and our manager would let us know if we were on track and at the end of the day they would give you the final results.
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    I found it very annoying when you would have a successful day, collecting debts and generating revenue for the company, only to have a manager dwell on your call count. Any protest of, yes I didn't meet the call count requirement but hey, look at the revenue I generated today. It doesn't matter, the target must be met.
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    Even if it wasn't a successful day but I knew I still ended up spending much time in contact with these debtors in attempt to collect I would ask managers to review my talk time to see that the efforts were being made to do what we are hired to do. It doesn't matter, the requirement must be met.
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    Now, to be clear, a call only counted if someone picked up or the call went to a voicemail box that wasn't full. The system was unable to register events otherwise (not in service, voicemail box full, rings out with no vm box or answer) meaning if you were to make hundreds of attempts in one day only a fraction are registered. Everyone is aware of this but it didn't matter to the company.
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    Well, I was tired of the unfairness of it all. It also doesn't help that the company was grossly skimming our bonuses that my department's client provided to us as a reward for successfully collecting on these debts. It was really obvious when our bonuses became random numbers when it was only possible for them to be multiples of 5. Frustrated with
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    this literal theft and under appreciation of successful collection (the whole point of the job) I decided to comply with the call count expectations and never be under the target again. I created a notepad file with a list of all the telephone numbers that went straight to voicemail. These are often numbers that have blocked us or presumably the owner of the number set up as 'away' or something. From then
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    on I made sure to make 15-20 calls per hour that would register (implying that even more calls were being made that they just couldn't see due to the way the system registered calls). I would spread these calls out so my activity wouldn't seem suspicious and would spend all day reading articles on the internet.
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    Naturally, the revenue I had been generating decreased by about 80%. "How come you're not collecting!?" "Well manager, you can see I am surpassing my call count target and my talk time is very low so I'm just not getting the opportunities to do so!" It should be noted that whatever I was collecting after doing so was
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    really easy; the people whose accounts we received who could pay and wanted to pay anyway. Often these people would call us so I just relied on that to make it appear like I was doing anything at all. They started giving me lower value portfolios to work, which is fine by me. You are stealing my bonus, the very incentive I have to do more than the bare minimum anyway for a paycheque.
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    I honestly thought I was quiet quitting, but no, I had a reputation as a valued member of our department and company, so no one wanted to fire me. I guess they just chalked up my lack of success to the portfolios they were assigning me.
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    Steal my bonuses and dwell on a target that would be better judged as a marker of effort rather than an end all be all and I couldn't care less. I was getting paid to read. This went on for nearly 2 years until I had to leave for mental health reasons.
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    [deleted] OP I should also add that I had created macros for the AS/400 (old IBM software) so that I could complete most system tasks with a simple keyboard shortcut, further reducing my bare minimum workload and increasing the time available to read.
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    AppropriateRip99... I was at a call center providing technical help. I closed tickets but my call volume was down. The person who the managers valued the most had the most call volume because they imitated a clueless but charming voice and closed no tickets.
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    FearlessKnitter12 Goodhart's Law! When the measure becomes the target, it ceases to be a good measure.

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