Pros
Working from home is great, eliminates the hassles of commute, planning a "work wardrobe," etc. You get to know your co-workers through live-chat and many of them have become good friends even though we never actually speak to each other. It is a legitimate company in the sense that you are an employee, not a "contracted worker," so you get regular paychecks and an option for direct deposit. Some opportunities to move to different departments or take on additional responsibilities (note: this does NOT mean increased pay - just more/different work)
Cons
No one seems to ever know what is going on. It's like all the departments are in their own little world, there is no communication between them. Concerns voiced by frontline agents and coaches fall on deaf ears by the management and, in some cases, even the Team Leads. We used to have Team Leads who were involved, who stood up for the agents and tried to help. Now they take the side of management, or don't seem interested in resolving the issues affecting those in production because they are so swamped with their own work. Right now we don't even have specific Team Leads for our our department because they have moved on to other departments or left the company. Employees are given a forum online to offer suggestions but there is some doubt about its effectiveness. Even if someone says "look, we always get swamped with calls in the afternoon and we are always severely understaffed at that time," they just wave it off or say "this is the staffing we estimated we would need." Well, your estimates are WRONG and they have been wrong ever since my first day. Anyone actually working in production can see it, but the management only seems to look at numbers on spreadsheets and statistics and estimates. They set their production agents up to fail and then blame them for the failure. They will change your shift, sometimes with only a few days' notice, due to "business needs," and say "tough cookies, find someone to cover for you" if you cannot work the new shift. They will require you to make time off requests weeks in advance, but then wait until the day before to tell you if it is approved or not, so don't make any vacation plans that include non-refunable deposit or cancellation fees. They will tell you "work hard and perform well and you can get a better shift on the next shift bid" all while hiring in new agents and giving them the shift you'd asked for without ever having to work a day for it. In the case of at-home live chat coaches, they have doubled the workload by expecting them to perform all the duties of an inbound call agent AND chat coach simultaneously. Quite literally, expecting those coach/agents to take inbound back-to-back customer calls, help OTHER agents with their call-related, and communicate with Operations and Techs. They talk about how much they value and care for their employees but it is never demonstrated. No pay increases or show of appreciation, not even for long-term employees, or employees who are consistently top performers. Teletech is a revolving door for employees, and not because they don't hire hard-working people with good work ethic. They hire some great people who want to perform well and seek opportunities to grow in the company, then wear them down to the point that they just don't care anymore. The rule of working there is "never say 'how bad can it get? Certainly they can't make it worse'" because yes. . .they can always make it worse, and they usually do. They will chew you up and spit you out and then hire another to take your place, all while making you feel like their own incompetence is your fault.
