TSR - Anonymous employee OneSupport Employee Review

Several concerns and surprises: Training quality: While I realize that the training week was shortened to 4 days due to the Labor Day holiday, the effectiveness of the training was lacking. Perhaps, as was noted in Tracker, there could have been a 5th day of training on Saturday. The first few days of training lagged slightly behind even the normal 5 day schedule for training. I took time in the evenings to review and study the information provided during the training for that day. Even so, by Friday, training became "what else do I need to show you?", seemingly so that the trainer could check off that box on a form. This was my first "Are you kidding me?!!" moment that I had while working for Telenetwork Frequently, the trainer told the class to check with L2 or TL when they started taking calls if they had any issues. I have been a technical trainer for call center agents during my career and have come to know that reduced or minimal training causes and increase in the number of problems and frustrations that agents experience when they actually get to the floor. Basically, poor training leads to poor results. Mentoring calls: On one of the very first calls that I shadowed with my mentor, he actually lied to a customer. A very upset customer called in to find out the status of the repair to his DSL service which had been promised a number of days before. The mentor showed me in Viryanet that the onsite service call was not actually assigned to a field technician yet, even though the customer had been promised on several previous calls that the technician would be there on those previous days. It seems that this customer had been lied to before. The mentor stated to the customer very clearly, as I was listening, that he (my mentor) was in direct contact with and was speaking to the actual field technician on another line, even though there was no field technician assigned to the call yet. The mentor had only sent a message to dispatch with a request to expedite the call. This was a flat out lie to the customer. The mentor's reasoning was that he had to tell the customer something to calm him down. The mentor then went ahead and promised the customer that a field technician would definitely be there on that day. How could such a promise be made to a customer when the onsite repair call still had not been assigned to a field technician. I do hope that the promise made did not turn out to be another lie to a customer. I did not research the call logs or the open trouble ticket to find out. I was, and still am, shocked that any company would condone such behavior from any employee towards a customer. My mentor seemed unphased and unconcerned when I asked him about this in chat. This was really a "You have got to be kidding me?!!" moment that I had while working for Telenetwork. The bricks: In Tracker, my schedule was listed as 9:00AM - 2:00PM. I planned my personal activities around this schedule. Even on the first day of "mentoring", Tracker showed my schedule as 9:00AM - 2:00PM. Apparently, that schedule for the second week of training was incorrect, and the schedule should have been shown as 9:00AM - 3:00PM. However, Tracker still showed 9:00AM - 2:00PM as my working schedule. When I requested clarification with regard to this from my manager, I was informed "Whatever is listed on your My File for this week is what you should go by", and was referred to a different manager for additional clarification. I requested additional clarification and was told that the schedule should have been 9:0AM - 3:00PM and that the inconsistency was due to "limitations of the hiring software". If this were the case, and were known in advance of the second week of training, management should have provided the new employees with this updated and corrected information. Ambiguity is one thing, but for two different managers to whom I report simultaneously to provide two different answers to the exact same question is senseless and indicates a serious lack of knowledge or lack of communication within call center management. Conclusion: The job of providing direct support to external customers can be difficult. It is simply the nature of the beast. I more than understand this and actually revel in having the opportunity to honestly "turn a frown upside down" when confronted with a difficult and frustrated customer. Knowing that this customer will tell 10 other people of their frustration when they first contacted support and how elated they were when the call ended is the best possible outcome for the customer, for the company and for me. As a former tech support manager in an inbound call center, with up to 45 direct reports, I was astonished at the level of "compartmentalization" and the lack of effective communication within management regarding even simple things such as "limitations of the hiring software". This simply underscores the lack of knowledge by management or the lack of effective communication from management to customer-facing employees. The exceptionally high attrition rate of front line agents within the first 90 days of employment is only a symptom of poor and ineffective communication from management. Employees do not leave companies, they leave managers. When I resigned, my manager called me to inquire why. When I began to answer his question, he simply fired off comments and questions of his own, not wanting to hear what this front line agent had to say. He cut the call short because he "did not have time" as he was dealing with a DDOS attack against his call center. Actually, the IT department was dealing with the issue, not the manager. His lack of concern and his desire to possibly "check the box" that he followed up with me further underscores the lack of communication and concern from management. Treat your employees in the same way that you want your employees to treat your customers. Because your employees will treat your customers in the same way that they are treated.