Call Centre symptoms

[Gray]

So a few years ago when i was at O2 it was my first visit to call centre work and i was there for a few years, but i had this issue where my call times where always so high.

Basically you get monitored/stats on how many calls you take per hour/day and an average of how long each call would take, which they would class as Average Handling Time (AHT).

When i was in O2, my AHT was always higher than the rest of my teams, and also higher than the average of the call centre, so i was pulled up on it on several occasions. I always had my reservations as to why my calls would last longer, but it was never really delved into, so no disciplinary action was ever actioned over it.

So i left call centre work behind, because firstly i hated customer services and never wanted to do it again, but also i felt as if my voice was actually "going". I thankfully don't suffer from too many chest infections or sore throats, but i always ended up where my throat would be incredibly dry even though i drank plenty of water and what not.

So years down the line when i had nowhere else to turn, i had to go back into call centre work with Argos. basically making payments, so in fairness a fairly simple job which merits quick calls, but is generally busy.

When i first started here, my call times would range from about 1:20 to about 2minutes, but even then i found i was still behind everyone else in terms of the AHT/time spent on calls. It got to the point where i was feeling down about everything because since i got the job, i got over (about 80%) my social anxiety which had been affecting me had gone.

But it felt like it was rushing back with a vengeance because i felt i was letting down everyone on my team, which again brought the cognitive behaviour out of me. I got over that to the point pretty much thinking "Who cares what anyone else thinks, i can just get on with it". Upto now that seems to be working.

But now (9 months into the job of taking payments...) i feel like its taking its toll on me. My voice feels broken, it hurts like hell if i talk fast and if i talk fast i end up messing up my words of feeling as if i sound incoherent. As such, i have tried to relax my voice, but with it comes higher call times.

This means now my calls are averaging 2minutes per call, meaning my stats have gone to shit. But this physical ailment seems to be screwing me over bigstyle.

I've been drinking plenty of water, but obviously with drinking comes the obvious toilet breaks. Too many toilet breaks leads to disciplinaries, so i obviously can't guzzle down loads of water in a short space of time.

As an alternative method, i decided to try to eat suckable sweets. I went on a Trebor Strong Mints binge, maybe getting through a pack a day until one day i looked at my teeth in shock when i seen that my lovely teeth had started corroding. Obviously kicked that habit.

Now though i'm on a Wrigleys Gum chewathon. But that has its own drawbacks too. I can't suck on them, because after a few minutes the gum goes soft and tastes like shit, but chewing them only provides euphoria for about 5minutes before it feels like a drain on my jaw.

I'm at a loss how to make my voice and throat feel better without rotting my teeth to shit, it's coming upto Christmas soon and it's going to start getting majorly busy - I don't want to leave this job in the current climate obviously, i made that choice at O2 and i regretted it, but if my throat doesn't improve, nor will my calls which means i'm screwed either way.

 

[Ctuchik]

Place an air humidifier at the desk if possible.

I imagine the air can be quite dry in places like that.

Alternatively, go see a doctor and ask for help. I recommend this the strongest as you really don't want to fuck up your throat. And as you talk a lot i doubt many of the normal cures would help properly.

 

[Ctuchik]

Found this that might help, but as you've had it earlier it might not but it's well worth a try.

Raspy or Sore Throats: A Call Center Representative's Guide - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

 

[Gumbo]

What do you do when you're not working?

Sounds to me like you need to relax more. I hope I'm not out of line in saying that in the 10 years or so that I've virtually known you, you've been maybe a smidge highly strung?

That's cool, I've had my moments too, and you've had some shite to deal with.

It's easy for a job, and it's inherent worries, to take you over. Make sure you're getting the most out of the rest of your life, away from work.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Here in merry old Finland, we have non-sugar menthol candy, great for throat etc, no damage to teeth. Maybe there's some variant over in your part of the globe.

 

[Lamp]

gargling with salt water?

 

[Moriath]

sounds to me like you need to go to hr at argos and tell them you need to be cut slack tbh.

the company has a duty of care to its employees you know.

 

[Gray]

Aye, sadly though i've only just got my Argos contract after coming through temporary agency work, but even now this is a temporary contract once again, just through Argos directly rather than agency work.

They'd no doubt be able to relieve my services at any time for whatever reason, especially performance related ones which is obviously the sticking point here.

I've found though the issue with chewing (Or uh... sucking) especially the larger/chunkier candies/gum is that it's not so wise to have them while you're on a call, i've had it in cases where obviously with something in my mouth you can end up messing up your words (or having that chewing/sucking sound in the background).

The humidifier thing is a possibility, with the warm weather we've been having (Though not so now) the department has had on the air conditioners, which i have heard actually dries out all the moisture, however the management are keen it seems to keep the air conditioning on at least until it gets colder, but no one seemingly has complained about it to get them turned off.

 

[Rubric]

How long have you been doing the job? Do they have an issue with your performance yet? Also there are more loo's in a contact centre than just aht. How are you doing with those?

 

[Rubric]

Kpi's not loos

 

[Himse]

Try some vocal warm ups?

You may find where you've been talking alot your vocal chords may not actually close properly anymore, which means you basically just need to shut up and get a notepad!

Do you find after some days you cannot talk at all? Just a whisper?

Also as others said, go see a doctor!

 

[Gray]

Well this has been ongoing now for 9 months in this job specifically, and i've had a good 3-4 year break from the last call centre work.

But usual performance based stats are usually things like

AHT (How fast your average call time is)
Timekeeping (Logging in on time, managing your personal breaks etc)
Call observations (Evaluating how good calls are)

At the moment it's just the AHT that is letting me down, i am gaining passing all the time when my calls are being evaluated (Whether it is from a side-by-side coaching, or from previously recorded calls).

Plus i'm never late, i always assure that i at least get into the department 30 minutes prior to my shift start, and always show my face to my manager to prove i'm in and around.

My AHT has been consistantly high from the moment i actually joined the company though (And again, it was also at my older job as well), and just prior to signing off our contracts i was on a coaching plan that again, my manager signed me off on because i showed "improvement".

Basically the "improvement" was that i was a few seconds in and around the average target of the department, instead of being wildly out. Usually they give you lee-way of about 5-6 seconds i think of being over the average handling for the department.

Whereas i would always be over by quite a bit, this week for instance i was about 30 seconds over, which was one of my worst yet.

Other people in my team seem to be cruising along nicely, which is actually knocking my confidence even more in essence, obviously the stress of being last in the lot takes its toll, and i end up feeling frustrated towards customers now if i end up getting a foreigner or someone who asks a million questions because i know it ends up bumping up my calltimes even more.

But as soon as i even remotely try talking fast it just feels like my throat is tightening up, so i'm buggered either way.

 

[Bahumat]

You're fucked and psychologically will make it worse as you're expecting your throat to tighten. See a Dr and look at a change of career. You've already thought about this so no need to wait for everyone to agree with what you've decided.

 

[Rubric]

Well this has been ongoing now for 9 months in this job specifically, and i've had a good 3-4 year break from the last call centre work.

But usual performance based stats are usually things like

AHT (How fast your average call time is)
Timekeeping (Logging in on time, managing your personal breaks etc)
Call observations (Evaluating how good calls are)

At the moment it's just the AHT that is letting me down, i am gaining passing all the time when my calls are being evaluated (Whether it is from a side-by-side coaching, or from previously recorded calls).

Plus i'm never late, i always assure that i at least get into the department 30 minutes prior to my shift start, and always show my face to my manager to prove i'm in and around.

My AHT has been consistantly high from the moment i actually joined the company though (And again, it was also at my older job as well), and just prior to signing off our contracts i was on a coaching plan that again, my manager signed me off on because i showed "improvement".

Basically the "improvement" was that i was a few seconds in and around the average target of the department, instead of being wildly out. Usually they give you lee-way of about 5-6 seconds i think of being over the average handling for the department.

Whereas i would always be over by quite a bit, this week for instance i was about 30 seconds over, which was one of my worst yet.

Other people in my team seem to be cruising along nicely, which is actually knocking my confidence even more in essence, obviously the stress of being last in the lot takes its toll, and i end up feeling frustrated towards customers now if i end up getting a foreigner or someone who asks a million questions because i know it ends up bumping up my calltimes even more.

But as soon as i even remotely try talking fast it just feels like my throat is tightening up, so i'm buggered either way.

I would take quality, adheranceand work ethic over aht Everytime in my call centre.

 

[old.Tohtori]

At the sucking at work, not being bad, but sucking stuff to keep throat lubricated, you could try this;

Smaller(pez sized etc) sugarfree, minty candy under the tongue. They have those, silver boxes usually, small round mints.

Just something under the tongue(takes practise) that stays there and basically makes your own body do the work.

 

[Fweddy]

Is it solely you speaking slowly that's causing the long call times? I mean is there any chat you could cut down on or could you find a faster way to use the computer systems?

Even if so it sounds like your best bet is to see a doctor and start looking for a better job like other people have been saying. I know job hunting is going to suck in the current climate but that's why you should start sooner rather than later.

 

[Cadelin]

Go see your doctor, they might be able to help you with the anxiety/stress/depression the job is causing you. You are definitely suffering but it might be nothing to do with your throat.

Also if the average call time is around 1-2 minutes and you are on average between 5 and 30 seconds slower per call it will be the longer calls that you are doing badly on. If somebody is phoning up saying: "I need item x, here is my card details" and speaks clearly then it would be hard to make that call faster. Your average will be getting pulled up by the long calls, which you are already anxious about. Everybody will get the confused foreigner now and then and you need to turn that call into something that last 5 minutes rather than 10. Speaking slowly and reassuringly maybe all you need to give that person the confidence to just order and stop asking questions.

 

[Bahumat]

Apologies for my "you're fucked" comment. Was late and I had been drinking lol. Yeah see the Dr and see what they recommend.

Can you ask your work to listen back to some of your calls? You will be able to hear yourself struggling when speaking to fast? or maybe you can analyse your calls to work out how to reduce the fluff words/phrases.

 

[pez]

As someone who manages peope in a reasonably similar environment (retail rather than call centre) I think its incredibly important that what you just told us, you tell your line manager.

You're not currently performing to your company's standards. Its incredibly important that your line manager understands the reasons. If he doesn't, at the moment you just seem like an employee who wont do the job or can't dot he job and doesn't care.

If you explain the above then he can either try and help or, accept that you will always be in this position and evaluate whether your other good qualities compensate.

I would suggest that, so long as he knows you want to success and understands why you are struggling, he will be comfortable keeping you on as you are. You may feel a lot of the stress and pressure disappears and your performance actually improves.

 

[StRaNgEdAyS]

A healthy does of speed always seemed to work speeding up my vocal transmission rate. Intelligibility drops pretty rapidly after about 8 hours or so, but you're in a call centre, you should fit right in.

 

[Gray]

I will probably end up bringing it up with my team leader tomorrow, again once i seen my stats for the Friday/Saturday that i was in and seeing that i was well over again.

The big issue at the time i think is that while we were still under agency, obviously my performance in terms of this AHT was behind everyone else, so there was a reluctance from the company to take me on, without at least trying to help me improve through a small series of coaching plans.

However in fairness the coaching plans, my manager wanted me to succeed because he said that while my calls where long, i was good at them (Even getting praise from some other managers when i was sat near them) due to my friendly and clear attitude while on the calls.

I sat next to other people (Whose stats where really good) but at the end of the day it proved fruitless. They basically did the same as i did, except they where significantly fast talkers. My manager took it upon himself then to sit next to me as part of the coaching plan to listen to calls.

It helped, but the only thing he said was that there was a certain part of the call which would essentially "drag on" and cost me about 10-15seconds of the call. It was a very immediate change for me, and straight away it improved my call times. I have also been taking shortcuts now that i am aware of the system we use, but over the weeks it's been getting worse.

Because though my coaching plan was a "success" (basically i was riding the absolute maximum on AHT) i passed and was taken off the coaching plan, so now that my AHT failures are happening it makes it even worse now, because for the 2-3 week period my call stats where "good".

One thing i might add is this though. Because my time at the agency was coming to an end, any holiday hours that were unused would end up being lost (You would get paid for them instead). I screwed that off so instead i took them.

I had 2 weeks holiday (Worked out at like 6 days or so) but i had to work my normal Saturday shifts inbetween because i couldn't get those off. On these Saturdays i felt obviously refreshed and my throat wasn't aching, but by the end of the shift i could certainly feel it since they're always busy days.

But i can't tell my manager to give me more days off obviously, i only do 26 hours or so per week anyway because that's all they have to offer with 3 full days off work.

 

[Rubric]

How did it go?

 

[Bahumat]

Unless you love your job, change companies or careers. I worked on an IT 1st line help desk for a few years and they were never this anal about call times.

 

[Gray]

Well not much been happening upto now, only been in the one day this week so far which was Monday, i spoke to my manager briefly about it, but it did feel like there was an air of "yeahhhh pull the other one..."

But we have our weekly meeting either tomorrow or friday to catch up on everything so it will be a good time to discuss everything there, i know tomorrow though we have our group meeting as well were we go over the weeks previous stats'.

Already forsee my stats being bad, which will be terrible considering that we have a few new people joining the team meeting, going to be super embarrassing no doubt!

He did confirm to me on Monday though that there would be no second chances about action/improvement plans since i already came off one where it was a success, but even then it wasn't really about the action plans or making the calls quicker, was more so about the dry mouth/throat issue.

 

[Chilly]

jiz helps sore throats

 

[throdgrain]

Look, if you're crap at the job maybe you ought to think about doing something else?

 

[Gray]

jiz helps sore throats

Doesn't.

And strangely i'm not bad at my job. I think i've come along strides since my old customer service job years ago, the experiences there helped me along nicely in this job, mistakes i made were not getting repeated.

However this is one issue, that has carried over from my other customer service job.

By the way, i never actually wanted to go back into customer services due to the never ending anxiety i had on the phones, which i've got over somewhat, but since i sent never ending applications to various other places without reply i had little choice.

After all, if i said "no" i'd have been branded by people like you as being a jobcentre bum, so while i don't like call centres i'm not bitching and moaning about leaving (Even if i do want to) because there was nothing else to fall back on.

So, in essence. Piss off.

But yeah will be speaking to my manager today or tomorrow in depth about it.

 

[Ch3tan]

Gray, the answer is really really simple.

Drink water.

Clearly you are over anxious and need to see a doctor about that, as most of your problem seems to be in your head. Water will help the dry throat, just keep a bottle and have a few sips between calls. It's not rocket science people!

 

[Chilly]

Can semen be a remedy for a sore throat? - Yahoo! Answers

 

[Helme]

I have a job that also requires me to speak pretty much 8 hours a day on phone, and my advice is to do just what Ch3tan said, drink lots and lots of water. I probably go through 5-6l in a workday, if not more. Fuckloads of runs to the toilet to piss but the alternative is a sore throat.

Also, if at all possible take like a 5min break every hour at the very least where you don't speak at all. I find that it helps a lot more than you'd expect it to.