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tl;dr mah job my be in jeopardy noooez
So about a month or so ago give or take a week, 50 people in the technical support department at my office got a bit of a promotion, let me explain;
There are about 5 or 6 call centers that handle calls for my company, 1 in canadian, 3 in america and a couple overseas. Well my call center was doing so well in customer satisfaction and statistics we were given the chance to expand our workforce. We opened a customer service slash tech support department, mainly for brand new customers who need help with billing, first time installations, etc. It was kinda cool, we were given much more control over stuff, the ability to give credit to a customers account, interact with a phone number a customer is transfering if there were any issues, etc.
Now, my company handled this piss poor. Why?
Mis-management, I think.
At the time there were around 210 tech support agents, and they moved the 50 top agents into the new customer care department, I was one of those 50. The 50 had the best statistics, best customer satisfaction, best issue resolutions, etc. So that dropped tech supports department 50 in number BUT we were also rewarded with expanding tech support further, so they hired around 80 people for technical support in like a 2 month period of time. Instead of 7 weeks of training like I had, they gave them 4. So now tech support was actually gaining 30+ people if you subtract the 50 they lost.
Cut to two weeks later after the 50 have started in customer service, well technical supports statistics dropped like a rock. A combination of losing the 50 best tech support agents and almost half of the current ones being brand new people, they're stats were atrocious. Now I dont blame the new people or the existing people, it takes time to learn the tricks of the trade for the company, how to handle issue X,Y,Z etc. For a while there we were getting daily emails from our office manager asking tech support why the stats were so low, did they (tech support) want to lose their jobs etc cause frankly, their stats were so low the call centers in INDIA were doing better...
Anyways, the meat of the store is December and now they are forcing VTO on people. Volunteered Time Off. Basically, we get the go ahead from the companies we work for (I myself work for Vonage) to have X number of agents taking phone calls at any given day. Combined with the fact with have around 300 agents now in total, and the low tech support stats, Vonage has been reducing the available hours. Yep, less work.
In the last two weeks thus far, I've worked like 4 days. Now I did have PTO available to cover those days, so I at least get paid but my PTO is running out. VTO doesnt count against you in anyway BUT its unpaid time off. And while out of the 50 people in customer care, I'm usually within the top 15 agents, and have 6 months tenure over some new people (the turn over rate is pretty high), I need the money. I'm missing over 6 hours of paid time this week for VTO, no telling for next week or the next. Supposedly this is just for December until they balance out the stuff etc but...I'm afraid they wont be able to keep 300 people. They've basically over hired and put too many eggs in one basket.
So, should I start looking for another job? I've only had this one 6 months. I do actually LOVE this job, this is exactly the type of job I want, I can sit on my ass all day, most days it's not too busy in call volume, I can browse the internet, read comics etc to pass the time, and still make a decent paycheck (around $350 a week after taxes).
tl;dr job may be in risk, what shall i do
So about a month or so ago give or take a week, 50 people in the technical support department at my office got a bit of a promotion, let me explain;
There are about 5 or 6 call centers that handle calls for my company, 1 in canadian, 3 in america and a couple overseas. Well my call center was doing so well in customer satisfaction and statistics we were given the chance to expand our workforce. We opened a customer service slash tech support department, mainly for brand new customers who need help with billing, first time installations, etc. It was kinda cool, we were given much more control over stuff, the ability to give credit to a customers account, interact with a phone number a customer is transfering if there were any issues, etc.
Now, my company handled this piss poor. Why?
Mis-management, I think.
At the time there were around 210 tech support agents, and they moved the 50 top agents into the new customer care department, I was one of those 50. The 50 had the best statistics, best customer satisfaction, best issue resolutions, etc. So that dropped tech supports department 50 in number BUT we were also rewarded with expanding tech support further, so they hired around 80 people for technical support in like a 2 month period of time. Instead of 7 weeks of training like I had, they gave them 4. So now tech support was actually gaining 30+ people if you subtract the 50 they lost.
Cut to two weeks later after the 50 have started in customer service, well technical supports statistics dropped like a rock. A combination of losing the 50 best tech support agents and almost half of the current ones being brand new people, they're stats were atrocious. Now I dont blame the new people or the existing people, it takes time to learn the tricks of the trade for the company, how to handle issue X,Y,Z etc. For a while there we were getting daily emails from our office manager asking tech support why the stats were so low, did they (tech support) want to lose their jobs etc cause frankly, their stats were so low the call centers in INDIA were doing better...
Anyways, the meat of the store is December and now they are forcing VTO on people. Volunteered Time Off. Basically, we get the go ahead from the companies we work for (I myself work for Vonage) to have X number of agents taking phone calls at any given day. Combined with the fact with have around 300 agents now in total, and the low tech support stats, Vonage has been reducing the available hours. Yep, less work.
In the last two weeks thus far, I've worked like 4 days. Now I did have PTO available to cover those days, so I at least get paid but my PTO is running out. VTO doesnt count against you in anyway BUT its unpaid time off. And while out of the 50 people in customer care, I'm usually within the top 15 agents, and have 6 months tenure over some new people (the turn over rate is pretty high), I need the money. I'm missing over 6 hours of paid time this week for VTO, no telling for next week or the next. Supposedly this is just for December until they balance out the stuff etc but...I'm afraid they wont be able to keep 300 people. They've basically over hired and put too many eggs in one basket.
So, should I start looking for another job? I've only had this one 6 months. I do actually LOVE this job, this is exactly the type of job I want, I can sit on my ass all day, most days it's not too busy in call volume, I can browse the internet, read comics etc to pass the time, and still make a decent paycheck (around $350 a week after taxes).
tl;dr job may be in risk, what shall i do
