The Call Centre BBC3
Discussion
northwest monkey said:
I ran a 400 seat call centre some years ago doing inbound/outbound & it is very much like that.
The average employee age will be early 20s & about a 50/50 mix of male-female is what you aim for on the floor. They can be soul destroying places to work, you've got 1500 calls to make that week if you're on outbound, or there can be 500 inbound calls waiting to be answered from 8am to 8pm every day. Teams will be about 15 members with a TL who reports to me every day.
To deal with the tedium and to motivate staff, we had a team of 5 people who organised stuff to do. Nights out, competitions, spot promotions etc. One competition ran for 6 months & included holidays & cars as prizes. We had a budget of around £1m - £1.5m per year for this sort of stuff. Staff retention levels were very high & we paid well.
Nothing wrong with call centres if you ask me. We generated over £2m per day in revenue & employed over 400 staff & paid far more than a lot (probably 75%) could have earned anywhere else.
Good fun place to work if you're tough enough to do it & the nights out were awesome!
The chap on the TV wasn't running a boiler room ripping people off of their life savings - he was trying to sell something some people will actually want to buy. If cold calling didn't work, it wouldn't exist.
£700m a year turnover, from a 400 person call centre? Really?The average employee age will be early 20s & about a 50/50 mix of male-female is what you aim for on the floor. They can be soul destroying places to work, you've got 1500 calls to make that week if you're on outbound, or there can be 500 inbound calls waiting to be answered from 8am to 8pm every day. Teams will be about 15 members with a TL who reports to me every day.
To deal with the tedium and to motivate staff, we had a team of 5 people who organised stuff to do. Nights out, competitions, spot promotions etc. One competition ran for 6 months & included holidays & cars as prizes. We had a budget of around £1m - £1.5m per year for this sort of stuff. Staff retention levels were very high & we paid well.
Nothing wrong with call centres if you ask me. We generated over £2m per day in revenue & employed over 400 staff & paid far more than a lot (probably 75%) could have earned anywhere else.
Good fun place to work if you're tough enough to do it & the nights out were awesome!
The chap on the TV wasn't running a boiler room ripping people off of their life savings - he was trying to sell something some people will actually want to buy. If cold calling didn't work, it wouldn't exist.
escargot said:
That makes perfect business sense. Why would you buy the same data six times?
Its the way these gaffs lie about how they get the data I'm not saying this place is like that but some are, what I mean is if you don't give them anything they wont have nothing to go on some of them do that dodgy pretend survey stuff to then use and they can get round regulations by saying its a survey we just don't do withhelds or unknown numbers and never give a phone number on anything our hospital don't withhold its number our doctors don't withhold there numbers. If you do withhold your number you get a message cuts in saying we don't accept them and put 1470 before your dialling
We don't get cold callers so I think we got it right I have noticed a lot more of the sellers on the streets in last few months there's big push on changing your gas/ electric stuff and the other biggie is insulation cant be easy jobs for these dudes but that's not something I can be helping these guys out with
northwest monkey said:
you've got 1500 calls to make that week if you're on outbound, or there can be 500 inbound calls waiting to be answered from 8am to 8pm every day.
So, assuming a 10 hour day, you're making one call every 2 minutes? For 10 hours non-stop?That seems incredibly hard.
Countdown said:
northwest monkey said:
you've got 1500 calls to make that week if you're on outbound, or there can be 500 inbound calls waiting to be answered from 8am to 8pm every day.
So, assuming a 10 hour day, you're making one call every 2 minutes? For 10 hours non-stop?That seems incredibly hard.
escargot said:
400 people each generating 5 grand a day. Bloody hell. What were you selling?
It wasn't PPI or anything like that. Each customer (residential) was worth approximately £400 to £700 annually to the company so £5k daily target isn't a lot - basically 10 new customers signed up. Business customers worth a lot more but had more competition. The time I was there was a period of massive growth & the market is now much more mature.
The Spruce goose said:
+ 26 team leaders reporting to boss, that makes no sense at all.
Why?Not a stroppy answer - I'm genuinely interested. Your numbers are about right give or take. Call centre was open 8am - 8pm Monday to Friday (3 shifts), 8am - 6pm Saturday (2 shifts) and 10am - 4pm Sunday (1 shift). There was no cold calling weekends.
It was split like this:
15 Team Members (approx) - 1 Dep TL, 1 TL per team - report to CCM - report to CCD.
escargot said:
Countdown said:
So, assuming a 10 hour day, you're making one call every 2 minutes? For 10 hours non-stop?
That seems incredibly hard.
and still able to generate £5k revenue every single day.That seems incredibly hard.
Your 300 calls wont be speaking to 300 people. Phone numbers / names are loaded into a predictive dialer which calls numbers all day long & puts them through to people when they get answered. Most people will say "no" very quickly, so you end the call & the dialer gives you the next call. You can easily speak to 40 people per hour - probably more. The times you get called at home & there's nobody on the line - that's the dialer not predicting very well, i.e there is nobody free to take your call.
As in my other post, £5k revenue is 10 customers so not a particularly high conversion rate. This wasn't selling something for a one off fee. Put it into perspective, my gas/electric bill at home is approximately £2500 per year so that's 2 customers like me per day that need to say "yes".
gpo746 said:
utilities your boss didn't have an aston martin and want to be like Elton john did he ?
not being sarcy if know what i'm on about it will make sense if not it wont mate
My boss at this company didn't, no - sorry mate. Bizarrely enough, my boss at the place I worked at next did!not being sarcy if know what i'm on about it will make sense if not it wont mate
p.s I'm sorry for the multiple posts - I've got no idea how to do "multi quotes"!
northwest monkey said:
My boss at this company didn't, no - sorry mate. Bizarrely enough, my boss at the place I worked at next did!
p.s I'm sorry for the multiple posts - I've got no idea how to do "multi quotes"!
no worries I only know this other guy thru a footie connection but I know he was into that telesales malarkey so thought it may of been your old boss take care fellap.s I'm sorry for the multiple posts - I've got no idea how to do "multi quotes"!
marcosgt said:
Entrepreneur? He's a f
king cold calling tt.
We need a cottage industry of private hit men to rid us of tossers like him!
M
My thoughts too. He doesn't create or build anything, he just annoys people. He refers to himself as Napoleon and throws things at his staff.king cold calling tt.We need a cottage industry of private hit men to rid us of tossers like him!
M
A bigger bell end I've yet to see on TV.
B17NNS said:
marcosgt said:
Entrepreneur? He's a fking cold calling tt.
We need a cottage industry of private hit men to rid us of tossers like him!
M
My thoughts too. He doesn't create or build anything, he just annoys people. He refers to himself as Napoleon and throws things at his staff.king cold calling tt.We need a cottage industry of private hit men to rid us of tossers like him!
M
A bigger bell end I've yet to see on TV.
With regards to the "Napoleon" and throwing stuff at people, that's Reality TV for you. 99% of the time I bet he's no different to any Sales Director
condor said:
Nev was a great boss.
Really?, he is a successful businessman, but I wouldn't want him as my boss. Odd-ball behaviour aside, he was actively encouraging a workplace romance. What happens when that slinger bloke decides he wants a bit of tea girl with his cake?. Cake girl crumbles, can't cope with seeing him at work, and now there is an even bigger mess that will probably affect other co-workers.There is a reason for the saying "Don't s
t where you eat".Gassing Station | TV, Film, Video Streaming & Radio | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff