If you work in a call center—especially if you lead a call center—you might want to stop reading now, because I’m about to bum you out. Hard.
Being a call center agent sucks and it is management’s fault.
And not just because a handful of customers are absolute nightmares or because customer service pay is consistently lower than pretty much every other department.
No, the real kicker is that the very structure of contact center work is engineered—almost comically—to induce maximum misery.
Here are three undeniable signs that your call center might be a problem:
1) Does everyone in the contact center get an ankle monitor?
Back when I worked in a call center, my boss would gleefully present me with a weekly report detailing exactly how long my breaks were, how many times I put customers on hold, how long my calls lasted—and then, for extra humiliation, make me listen to a recording of my worst call that week.
If you’ve worked in a call center, you know the truth: call center employees are tracked more than federal prisoners.
There is no other department in your company under this level of scrutiny.
They measure everything. And I mean everything. Your call center overlords don’t just schedule your bathroom breaks—they track how long you take.
And here’s the real joke: every CEO loves to wax poetic about the importance of taking care of customers, yet they hire a bunch of people they clearly don’t trust.
2) Do you think two YUUUGE monitors fix everything?
My five-year-old goddaughter is jealous of her baby sister. She’s convinced her parents love the baby more. And you know what? She’s not wrong.
Customer service is the five-year-old—the existing customers, the ones already paying. But all the attention, money, and shiny new toys? Those go to the prospects and new customers—the newborn.
As a consultant, I’ve worked inside over 100 companies, and I can tell you this: even companies with god-awful call center technology somehow manage to first invest in a high-functioning website to attract new customers.
Meanwhile, the service reps—the ones keeping those customers—are juggling 50 ancient green-screen windows with zero insight into what the customer called about 10 minutes ago.
But don’t worry, customer service agents! We have a solution: we’re giving you two yuuuuge monitors!
3) Do they call the contact center a “bunch of heroes”?
Every few months, the CEO and their executive posse will roll into a town hall meeting and heap praise upon “the people with the toughest jobs in the company.” They’ll say things like, “We couldn’t do it without you!”
Cool. Now pay me more.
Recognition is nice, but you know what’s even nicer? Functioning tools. A livable wage. And for the love of all things holy, stop telling me when I can pee.
There’s a better way.
(But first, we have to admit how truly, spectacularly bad this one is.)
Amas Tenumah is
