[keryx]

I work in an inbound call center that contracts with various clients to provide customer service. Our location handles most of the newspaper clients: Washington Post, NY Times, Fresno Bee, those are the ones I can remember. I do not work a newspaper campaign anymore. I did LA Times, but that was sent to one of the three new call centers our company is building in Manila.

Now I work a very stressful campaign where the root cause of the stress is not the members who call in (though they can be annoying), it is the local management and the client! We are given impossible call time and quality goals to meet. Yet if there is an issue that we need to get the client to clarify a procedure or correct information.....well let's just say we're still waiting. The OM is occupied by the contractual obligation to meet 98% quality or pay a fine back to the client. Of course it is the client that monitors the calls that determine this fine, not a neutral 3rd party. I cannot think of any call center in the country that would have made this contract, which is probably why we got stuck with it.

And yet I have very little sympathy for the call center workers in India. MY ADVICE: People are going to be mean. It's a fact. Get over it. Learn some skills to help cope with irate callers. Having perfect command of the English language helps. Knowing a lot about the client's product/service and being able to go beyond the provided script helps.

Mr Fargon spoke at length with a Lexmark CSR, and found out that they had outsourced customer service to India and in less than a year had brought it back to California. Biggest reason: customer complaints regarding the language barrier. And if your question was one that was 'not scripted' you were screwed.

As so many before me have pointed out, all jobs have stress. You want the paycheck, you learn to deal with it.