| Category | Rating |
|---|
| Pay | -3 |
| Respect | -1 |
| Benefits | 5 |
| Job Security | -1 |
| Work/Life Balance | -4 |
| Career Potential/Growth | -2 |
| Location | 2 |
| Co-worker Competence | -2 |
| Work Environment | 3 |
My position as a CAE taught me that call center jobs are only good for certain kinds of people (NOT me!!). First of all, the training for this position was 9 weeks long, with a majority of it spent staring at powerpoint slides. When I first hit the floor, I had no idea how to fix anyone's problems, you deffinitely have to rely on those around you for your first few weeks. With only a maximum of 1min 30secs between calls, you are like a robot taking call after call. And not only are the calls coming in back-to-back, but you are ideally supposed to end each call in less than 10mins. So plan on saying the same stuff over and over again all day long. Things get repetitive very fast. And you are not allowed to get up at all unless it is time for your break or lunch. Suppose you do have to get up and go to the bathroom unexpectedly, you better believe the time you take is monitored and recorded in the system-and if you do it too often you'll be repremanded. Most people in this position quickly gain a good amount of weight due to the sedentary nature of this position.
As a CAE, you will be trained to assist in all 3 services (phone, video, internet) and will find it nearly impossible to upsell these customers as most of them already have all of Comcast's services. This hurts your commission. Also, the call centers are open 24/7, this means they offer tons of crazy shifts, which could be a good thing or bad thing for you. When I got hired, both of the shifts I could choose from were horrid, so I tried my best to choose the lesser evil of the two. Most new hires get awful shifts and since the shifts rotate supposedly every 6months, plan on going through several shift bids before you get enough seniority to get anything decent. ALSO-of late, the shift bids don't even happen every 6months in most cases they get pushed back-which can be a good or bad thing depending on the shift you have. This place has a high turnover like you would expect at like a mall retail store or fast food chain. People don't even care enough to put their 2 weeks notice in, they just stop showing up. Most people get fired for attendance issues. But this is because this job drives you mentally insane and you need more than just 2days away from it each week. People who agree to 10 hours shifts get 3 days off, but the days they are on, it's like they are walking zombies-your life sucks. The customers treat you like garbage because they know your are like a captive audience for them- you have to listen and you can't hang up on them or say anything rude since every call is monitored (sometimes in real time). They have a zero tolerance policy for talking back to customers-and it will get you fired. So yeah, you deal with the trashiest people , or really rich people who think they are the most important thing in the world and can't understand why you can't send someone out to their house right now to fix their problem. When you get an escalated phone call (and you will!) most supervisors refuse to take the call for you, you will be forced to either talk the customer down on your own or transfer them to like a generic supervisor hotline. The supervisor you are assigned to will also really influence the kind of experience you have (basically varying degrees of terrible-ness). The one thing I can say about Comcast is they offer really great health benefits, stock options, and will pay for tuition. I think that's why so many people are lured to this position to begin with. I advise anyone considering a position similar to this one with comcast to seriously reconsider. At least for myself- I found it to be the worst job I ever had-i was constantly depressed, miserable, and was hardly able to do anything on weekends or holidays since I worked most of them.
HR makes this position sound much greater than it really is. In fact, I really felt misled about this position altogether. I thought it would be an advanced technical support position where I am really empowered to help the customer with tough problems, but really I was just another drone in a cubicle amongst many others. Advancement is also difficult when based in the call center-especially in the current economic climate. The only way I would recommend this job is if you are in desperate need to good benefits for you and/or your family, or you just need a job that you can do to make some "ok" money for a few months. Good luck!