service à la clientèle

bilingual customer service associate

customer service representative

infirmier

inbound customer service representative

Foundever

They tell you in initial contact before starting that it's a customer service position looking after billing questions when customers call in and that it's a rotating shift work hours with every 2nd weekend off.  Ends up when you're hired and in the first week of training, nothing they told you is anything near the truth.  The job ended up being high pressure for sales (they kick in the high impact sales training sessions starting in the middle of the 2nd week of training).  Train for 4 weeks in class to learn approx. 6-12 computer program applications along with trying to learn extensive product details for a very large corporation.  After 4 weeks, out into the training bay on phones right away, taking calls where customers scream and swear at you and call you an idiot or worse and the trainers are behind you insisting you 'turn the call around' and make a sale.  A sale is expected in each call.  Quotas are established almost immediately, although in training they tell you no quota until out of training.  Were advised in first week of training that it was a shift job working 12noon-9pm everyday and every second weekend and if you don't like that, don't come back tomorrow. Within just 8 weeks, the way the shifts looked and what hours we were to work changed at least 5 - 6 times and sometimes daily.  Changes were made with less than 24 hours notice for work days/shifts. Most of the training staff that walk the floor and listen to your calls are rude and condescending and are, themselves, fairly new employees with some of them only having worked there for 3-4 months.  Each one has different answers than the next trainer.  Very confusing, depressing atmosphere. Talking with other employees next to your little cubicle is frowned upon and they try to enforce no talking to other workers while at your desk at all.  The place is full of highly tense people that are there only because they can't find another job.  Lunch or breaks are mostly nothing but a complaint session by employees. Quality assurance people listen to calls and rate your calls.  If you are highlighted as making a QA (quality assurance) mistake, your commissions are taken away for a determined period of time (mostly 2 weeks previous sales commissions!).  Management is condescending and rude at the best of times.  Floor trainers stand behind agents on the phone and scream, in their opinion, "encouraging" sales rants that customers can hear and were startled by.  For the most part, calls come in so quickly that there is no time given to do your required "wrap ups" or "dispo the calls" (tracking information for sales).  Floor supervisors watch your times logging in/out and yell you name out loud across a floor of 175 people that you're not in "Ready" position and why!!  There is so much stress and angst that it is not unusual for an employee to be TAKEN AWAY ON A STRETCHER IN THE AMBULANCE AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK!!!    The rating I have given for compensation shows a mid-range rating ... not saying there is good compensation, but compared to working at Tim Horton's or McDonald's, it's at least  $2/hour an hour more and there is opportunity for commissions .. if you can hold on to them .. and they finally pay you for them.  There is also medical/dental coverage which isn't offered at most jobs.  Any time you miss at work, for whatever reason, they expect you to make up those hours in the work pay period you are presently in, so they can bill their customer for your hours they need to bill.  If you are thick skinned with a high tolerance for stress and in desperate need of a job, this could work out for you, otherwise stay away.  People cry and have to go home all the time.  The employee turnover ratio is probably higher than 50%!!!

Unrealistic goals applied to all staff, minimal training which focuses on less essential things; "get on the floor" and have to learn MANY things on your own unless you are fortunate enough to have one of the rare amazing coaches or make a friend who has been there awhile to help you get to where you feel like your able to keep your head above water. My campaign was inbound collections for an American large communications company; had the majority of calls being angry or frustrated people who were upsold into plans they cannot afford or do not want and were not fully informed of what they were getting into. Support from the "support team" is near non-existent or when you would eventually get a response (after waiting 5 minutes; yet get scolded for having a customer on hold beyond 2 minutes) it was very sarcastic and demeaning. After a call or interaction with a customer you must log all the notes of the call in detail (they expect you to do this while on the call but you must multitask through several programs for a single call) these notes you must log; they again expect you to summarize thoroughly in under 2 minutes yet if you're a competent agent, customers will have you tackle multiple concerns within a single interaction. You must thoroughly record notes and needs but they give you the impossible time frame to do it in, and when you go over the allotted time, they harass you... (so they expect you to be able to run multiple programs, listen thoroughly to customer, address all needs and complaints of customer and resolve them, de-escalate irate callers, be able to offer plan changes, billing changes or any and everything the caller wants, write all the details WHILE you're listening, explaining and maneuvering programs.... ) You must hound "coaches" to get them to teach you what you need to be confident and capable at the job yet by no means does that mean it'll make it a tolerable job, even if you are call centre  experienced. Many reps you'll be "working with" do the least possible amount of work they can so will transfer to wrong departments, give you bad or incorrect info, give poor if any support.... and it's a "do as I say, not as I do" job.... busy days you would think at least pass fast but think of taking back-to-back irate calls and time feels like it is moving slower than reality (1 hour feels like 2 or more, busy day or slow.) slow days at least maybe you can read a page or two of a book if you've brought one but expect to be interrupted at the best parts (but you had better bring something to pass the time as not allowed on facebook or any non-work sites or a phone or electronic game platform...) 
If anyone grows up and says "I want to be a call centre agent" then do it anywhere but sitel, or if a parent or spouse forces someone to work there; tell them they should work there before making anyone else suffer that fate or thinking they want to make that their "career" actually try it first.... and if someone DOES say great things about it; odds are they work there and are trying to get a "referral bonus" by getting others to work there OR are one of the REALLY lucky ones who have a GREAT coach who helps and supports them and treats them like a human being not a faceless drone. Also if you suffer mental health issues or disabilities of any kind; you must fight for your basic human rights for "duty to accommodate" and then they get rid of you as fast as possible, well that's what happened to me anyways....

I am a university student and I worked at Sitel Saint John for my summer job in a pinch, because my plan was changed last minute.

I was able to complete the training fairly quickly and had to wait around for quite a bit for my class to catch up, no complaint there, as the training was paid full time. As long as you are decently intuitive with computers (e.g. younger people), you can navigate the albeit quite outdated system easily indeed. The training class had a good atmosphere, Steve is an easygoing instructor.

I worked in the billing department for a US telecommunications company, outsourced to Sitel. Customer service care is a story of its own. The job itself isn't erroneously terrible. As long as you don't take the angry customers (and there are angry customers) personally, you'll be alright. It does take some getting used to, being a "professional stress ball" that stands between the corporate and the end customer can be emotionally draining, you need to be used to regulate your emotions.

The real sales culture comes out of the shadows when you are placed on the phone with the customers. Despite being "billing only", you are encouraged to push for sales opportunity for each phone call. This is then later evolved into that you are expected to push for sales for each call. The coaches (different from trainers) say that they are there to help you with anything, but they are really placed there to nag at you every day until the end of on the job training to have you sell customer telecommunications services. Often times, the customers have no need of these services, but you are expected to make attempts to sell ANY products you can, even to elderly customers or customers that clearly want their prices reduced, not increased. 

You are expected to advertise and promote to sell products whenever you can - during customer "care" billing calls. Even if the product they are promoting are essentially flawed and completely uncompetitive - most of the people in my class struggle to make sense of some services they are providing. Your performance is measured by the metrics of sales and your future at Sitel depends on sales, not customer satisfaction. You won't succeed here if you want to retain your moral decency - the managers do not care about how you feel about what you do, only about bringing sales unit to the charts.

The atmosphere may seem homey - your peers are as friendly as acquaintances get, but the management is dominated by corporate metrics and sales numbers - and sometimes outright greed. You should always be on the lookout for better opportunities because everyone is here a for a transitional job. This job is stressful and unrewarding, and truly, reminds me how lucky I am to have the opportunity to pursue a higher education.

I worked for this company for 3 months. I enjoyed the work quite honestly. I was working in their department that handled Intuit Quickbooks Online technical service. The training was virtually non-existent, which didn't really bother me because I have been to both college and university for Accounting training. I felt bad for anyone who didn't have that training, mainly because you were expected to answer technical questions (for bookkeepers and accountants) regarding the Quickbooks software, while also "not giving accounting advice"; this was reiterated over and over and over again to escape liability, but also made fully resolving issues for the customers near impossible. The "management" was comical to say the least. Uneducated, unqualified, and generally bad people. I found it impossible to avoid being constantly harassed by their nagging and attempts at intimidation. Yes, intimidation; they don't ever let you relax or feel comfortable at any moment. They periodically move your desk every so many weeks, perhaps so you don't have an opportunity to build any relationships with the people that you work with. They are still learning the ropes regarding client expectations, so their metrics for work performance are constantly outdated and rarely provide any useful information for evaluating worker performance. After you end a call with a customer, surveys are automatically sent out. If you receive anything less than a 9 or 10 out of 10, it will count negatively towards your metrics. If you receive 6 or lower for ANY reason (even if the customer specifically says in the survey that the customer service was fantastic, but they were not happy with the software, you will have a meeting with your team leader, where you will listen to your call, and have some incompetent, halfwit tell you that you had "Opportunities" to turn that into a 10. If you get too many "detractors" (that is what they call them), you will be fired. No bonuses for excellent work. You might as well work in their collections department for more money and less workload. The amount of knowledge required to do that job is not worth the pay. If you take this job, understand it will be short term, you will be mistreated, underpaid, and overworked. I loved helping the customers; I laughed, I had a good time, but management made the job unbearable.

A typical day would be login into thin client, make sure all windows are up. you have customers calling in for questions and technical support issues that need to be solved. some customers are ok , some are good and some are not so great, but i have handled each call with ease and it wasn't a problem. I have learned so much about cable repair and there was alot to get to know, but once you get another call that was the same as the previous you had problems with, it gets easy. Team leads (ICU) were ok, i think it would be great to let agents know before hand there will be a maintenance before we log in which took 20 mins and most of us were logged in late.that was unprofessional. They do pull you aside in another chat room to talk about work related things and help you out, but they do expect you to know everything. They should also pull each person aside if something needs to be said instead talking to other colleagues about  certain things that needs to be said to individuals, if that happens, every person knows and tries to mock, it makes the person uncomfortable and not feel they should be there when they want to. The hardest part of the job was remembering everything that was taught in training. it's alot to take in. Training was great and lots of role playing.There was a good amount of time frame, but learning other new things that was alot of material in one week made me very nervous! (training) but then i got use to it as i went along with the calls. Some calls are easy going and some calls are not so great, but its how you handle the calls as well. The most enjoyable part is when i can talk to customers and help solve problems as mush as i can and still make them feel comfortable about the service they signed up for. They are looking for people who do pick up the pace quickly, they will say no one is perfect  and not everyone is the same way, but that's what they mainly look for, know and understand the job. All i have to say is do your best. Overall it was great. i wish i stayed longer , but till next time. :).

A typical day at work:

Try to get logged in on time, hope that the computer can start up in under 10 minutes. Be constantly harassed and abused by customers with no way out as we are not allowed to disconnect (not even for death threats).

Short breaks that are watched like a hawk. No bathroom time allowed, can only be done on your break (which can be three hours or more apart). No time after calls to make notes or make sure a ticket is completed. 

Constantly worried that the ticket system may not save all of the information and give you a ticket error (one ticket error can damage your shift bid severely).

Hours may be increased or lowered by 2+ hours with no warning from a day to day basis. Scheduling system is wrong nearly every day. 


What you learned:

I learned that people who complain the loudest get the attention, and in order to advance at Sitel you need to be friends with management.

Management:

Where do I even start with this? The coaches are largely terrible and useless. They routinely avoid their jobs, refuse escalation calls, provide wrong information, and generally treat you like garbage.
The standard coaching style is STOP THIS OR WE'LL FIRE YOU! DO THIS OR WE'LL FIRE YOU! You get the idea. 

Your Co-Workers:

They were great and the only thing that made this job sustainable.
However there were a few rotten apples who abuse the systems and skate on by... because they're friends of management. Favoritism is rife.

Hardest part of the job:
Dealing with the crushing incompetence of the outsourced work force constantly making our jobs harder. Couple that with mindless peon management and you have a bad time.

The most enjoyable part of the job:
Seeing your friends.... That's it.



There are no incentives for doing well or exceeding. The only thing worth doing is the bare minimum required not to be screamed at.

The benefits here are terrible and the pay is barely above minimum wage. 


TL;DR 

Avoid at all costs unless you need a place to be for a couple of months

This company has been given contracts by Rogers to handle their customers' technical issue.  This is what they do:

1- in one hand they preach respect in anther hand they harass you in the chatroom to finish the call in 5 to 10 mn. they don't care if you fix the customer's issue they care about getting rid of them as soon as possible, they can show those stats to rogers and get rewarded with more contract hours. basically this info is provided to us in the training.

2- in one hand they preach respect in another hand they put people in the training who are very good in disrespect. They have indecent communication skills, offensive language and last not least lacking technical and personal skills, if you ask question he answers you angrily. Many of us reported the issues we had with that so called trainer and asked to change class, they ignore you.

3- we started over 20 persons and many left in the middle of the training because of the dictators they put to train people. what matters to them how much money they get from Rogers. they don't care about their employees, nor they care about Rogers' customers,  they care about how much they fill the company's pocket.

4- They make you load your tools prior to the start of the shift and too bad you won't get paid for 20 mn you spend loading the work tools every day, and when their system is down you will spend about an hour trying to load the tools.

5- they make you believe their work from home option will allow you to balance life/work. wrong, you end up worst balance life/work because they set your schedule and keep changing it every single day and you have to check your schedule every night.

6- they present they have happy employees while you find out many employees take sick leave. why they got sick the way they have treated as second class humans.

The list goes on.....

Advises to CEO: stop telling lies to people, be honest at least people know what to expect.

Horrible. Management is constantly yelling to the whole room while we're on the phones dealing with irate customers, who then get upset that we can't hear them. No room for advancement, promotions were a popularity contest (someone with horrible stats got chosen for a promotion over someone with perfect stats because he was another supervisor's boyfriend). hours were a joke, we were promised to get better hours with seniority, whereas new hires were given the best shifts over people who had been there for years. Next to no job security. Someone got fired after having one metric not meet target for one month (when they always had perfect metrics). "Team Leaders", Supervisors, Managers etc were very rude and condescending, seemed to be on a constant power trip.They really don't like to answer your questions in order for you to help a customer... Not lenient on days off at all, I personally witnessed people getting fired constantly for being sick for "too long a period of time", even if they were not over their allowed amount of sick days. Made up excuses for firing people that were not legitimate reasons, but still shady enough so people couldn't claim wrongful dismissal... Very sneaky... Only good part of the job was getting paid and commission, and even then, some employees didn't receive thousands of dollars of commissions that they had earned last christmas, and never received adequate compensation for it. I don't exaggerate AT ALL when i say thousands of dollars. A friend of mine earned over $4500.00 in commission and only received $500.00 of it.NOTE: THIS IS NOT TRUE FOR ALL SYKES LOCATIONS!!! This is just my personal experience at the location I worked at. Don't let this deter you from seeking a job there, as it is good pay, just make sure you ask HR a lot of questions during your interview, and know how to stand up for yourself in these situations...

Sitel was a mixed bag. If my job only consisted of what the customers actually called in for, it would have been a great gig for an IT student. Unfortunately, Sitel is part of a "service-to-sales" model, which basically meant I had to earn my own salary for the client by pitching customers with Internet-related issues to sign up for Cable TV and Telephone services, no matter how irritated or frustrated with their technical issues, or how many representatives they'd gone through already. They insisted sales weren't "mandatory", but they still had "definitely not quotas" sales goals that you could get written up for not meeting. I'm grateful for everything I learned about Internet infrastructure, but after getting left hung out to dry over a busy summer season where I'd given up my flexible student hours for a more rigid schedule, suddenly mandatory (paid, fortunately) overtime kicked in, I'd had enough. There's definitely a reason why turnover for these kind of places is so high. The culture was constantly in flux during my brief tenure, with a group chat coming and going because they couldn't quite decide if it was okay to casually chat or to keep things strictly work-related, resulting in the whole thing being scrapped because the managers clearly had little IRC moderating experience. Still, in person, everyone was understanding and kind, although you definitely got the sense that the supervisors were overly grateful to be off the lines, which gave the sense of being fed to the wolves. I hope that the situation has mellowed off since I was there, and hopefully whoever is still there is doing fine and can enjoy the troubleshooting, problem-solving aspect of it, which was actually quite fulfilling and satisfying.

At the beginning I really enjoyed working at Sitel, a month in after my training was all done I realized that there was a lot of things that i should have set up and learned in training that I did not. I have no problem working under stress but when it comes to having no idea what was going on in some situations because the topic was not covered in training. I felt a little lost. I was really disappointed in my trainer. She was always giving us extra long breaks because she said that my training class (which was me and one of my friends from high school) were doing so good that we where flying through the topics that needed to be covered, when really there was the extra time because she did not have all the things that were supposed to be taught and shown to us. That was not so much her fault it was her first time training so the person above her should have gave her something showing ALL the topics that we had to go over to be prepared to go on the floor.  
 
The co-workers as well as the management were always talking about other employees personal business. I was not going to be any part of that. I mainly kept to my self and the two friends i had working there with me.  
 
I did not like being called names by customers on the phone. I had a few incidents where I got really upset over the things said on the phone by the customer. I can handle situations where there are conflicts in the work place but there was many inappropriate calls that i received that were just completely over the top. I really enjoyed the calls that I received by other customers that had a problem that I could solve for them it almost felt rewarding to have them say thank you because i solved there problem. I really enjoy making people happy wither its a customer which is most important when you are working with people, or if its a co-worker. 

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