Convergys Comcast project Lying sacks of crap! Logan, Utah

Being off the mark of your demarcation doesn't mean that it's a waste of time and that you're too stupid to help the customer with their issue. It simply means that it's outside the scope of what you were hired to do, so if there's another department for that, you should transfer the customer over there. You are hired to do X, not Y or Z, so if you're making your calls longer by doing work that you weren't hired to do, of course that would get some attention from your superiors.

Most callers aren't 90 year olds with recent hip replacements. Everybody has long calls sometimes, but the call time metric is based on the average time of all your calls. Even hang-ups and transfers are a part of that average, which would bring your talk time down just as much as the long calls bring it up. Team leaders listen to your calls and if you have a long call that is legitimate (a 90 year old with no tech savvy and a recent hip replacement, for example), nobody would bother you about that. Those calls aren't the problem.

Selling is everybody's job, to some degree. Maybe your primary job was tech support, for example, but everybody has to make offers and if you make them the right way, there's generally no harm. Often, there are offers for discounted movie channels, for example, and that constitutes a sale. So how terrible is it really to say something like, "Ma'am, I'm glad we were able to resolve your issue today, but I'm so sorry for the frustration it must have caused you. Can I make it up to you by offering you $5 off of HBO every month for the next 3 months?" Some very angry customers will accept that offer and see it as you GIVING them something. Some won't. It's not a high pressure sales situation - you get to move on if they say no - but why wouldn't you want to make an offer like that and help your customer while also making a little commission for yourself and getting your boss off your back? It's not your job to determine whether or not a frustrated customer would like to hear about an offer that's available to them. It's your job to make the offer and their job to either accept or decline it, and when you make the offer in a way that fits the situation (as well as their needs), you'd be surprised how many people take what you're offering. I can't tell you how many customers I talked to who were mad that they didn't get as many offers as they would have liked. It made them feel that they weren't appreciated as a customer who pays money to the client every month, meanwhile, they see offers on commercials and in print ads for discounted programming that someone didn't offer them.

I'm sorry that there was confusion between training and the floor. That's unfortunate. Personally, I think Convergys is a great company to work for and had a great experience working for them. I hope you found something that you like better.