Working at Dial America Marketing — Reviews by Employees

The overall experience is horrible. The product they sell is not as good as it sounds. They tell you that since you work for sirius radio you will get free service. Yea that's a lie because ive Been with the company for 3 months and still pay for my service... lies! Some of the managers are great and give you a lot of respect. Other just don't care at all. I prefer the night shift over the morning shift because when I came in to work in the morning nobody would help you when you needed help. I just sat there with my hand up forever. Atleast on the night shift they help you and pay attention to you. The night managers are 100% better than the morning managers by far. Plus the commissions aren't really the best. There just ok

I worked at this company for 6 months over 10 years ago, and the current reviews that I am reading brought back some memories. At the time as an Account Representative i made $25,000 per year. That was about $15,000 less than what was entry level at the time where I moved onto. I keep reading how people mention that workers are going out to smoke all the time...that is so true, they were always doing that. Only work there if you want to put something on your resume other than working at a Target or something, that is all I recommend. Otherwise, you can find better.

I didn't like what the company was all about. I got to make some sales calls as part of my training. I was selling bear statues, yes...bear statues. Ones that would come to the client monthly if they agreed to it. I made sales to them to old ladies...I felt awful about doing it, I truly did. I know they were being scammed into something that was going to be a pain to get out of...ugh.

This company is horrible!! Don't believe anything they tell u at the interview. Its all lies!! First off I didnt even want to go to outbound I wanted inbound. My interviewer said it wasnt possible--lies!!! When I got there there were TSR's working inbound in my same shift! The supervisors all smoke, leave the building every 5 seconds. As far as sales, unless you are a good liar, its impossible to make there quota. I was there for only 4 weeks, 2 weeks out of training, and they already gave me a performance eval, saying I might get let go. Bulls**t!! They tell u to keep your refusals down but even tht doesnt work. As far as pay, they are so vague and confusing about how it all works. The base pay is 9 bucks an hr, which is horrible. Getting commission off the sales is even harder. Its definitely not for every1. I definitely wondered how ppl worked there for years. I couldn't do a month! They always tote those reps that have been made lots of money in their weekly check---too bad they had to work both morning and evening shifts to get that. Also they have a board that lists every1's conversion rates, sales, hourly pay, and gross pay. EXCUSE ME?!!? Isnt that illegal?? No one saw anything wrong with it. ITs bad enough the supervisors are breathing down your neck to get sales, now we have to see ourselves stacked up to everyone else. Horrible!

Ok work environment. Hardworking people except the ones that have to be treated like kids because they can't follow guidelines, dress unprofessional, talk unprofessional, and have no respect for their co-workers. There are so many rules due to the unprofessional agents that work there, that just can't seem to act like normal intelligent people and show up for work, on time, and do the job they were hired to do.

This review should have been submitted around this time last year when I was laid off, however I only just learned of this website. With that being said, I worked in the Greenville office for 4.5 years. I loved my job and I was pretty darn good at it. I will not say that there were not areas of opportunity in my performance, no one is perfect. There were certain redundant duties that required paperwork that, in my opinion, was useless and honestly did not affect my teams performance whether or not it was completed on a consistent basis as required by company policy. I had one of the top teams in the branch and on my specific shift pretty much on a regular basis once the Shift Manager above me was one that cared about their job or who wanted to be on the shift they were assigned. For almost the entire first year I was a full-time employee, the manager above me was one who was about to leave the company or one who had been wih the company so long they were burned out and just going through the motions. Then to try to correct that they took a senior manager whom I had flourished under as a part-time team leader and moved them to my shift to work with me again. This being the opposite shift for that manager, of course seemed like a punishment rather than using a more viable option of moving me to another shift until I was better trained. It was all politics involving pet managers who didn't want their work schedules to be affected. Of course the pet managers won out rather than doing what was probably better for the branch and for my training. I should have been placed on the shift with our program manager or the program manager should have moved or altered their schedule temporarily to directly train me. It was extremely frustrating for me to get a quarterly review during that time. I really didn't understand exactly what was expected of me and how the ratings I would recieve were derived. Finally after another quarter, they brought in a new manager after I basically refused to be pushed into the position. I felt if I had taken the position at that particular time, my days would have been numbered. Now keep in mind this was a newly promoted shift manager from another branch. Therefore, for about 2-3 weeks unitl he was brought up to speed to take the reigns, I was pretty much running my shift with a little assistance from the program manager who worked a 9-6 shift most of the time and much of the info the new manager got about our shift and our specific programs were either trained or supplied by me. It was a stressful time but I knew that things were going to get better on my shift and my half-cocked training would get completed the right way. Once I knew what was expected and fully understood how things were evaluated and how to get the results I needed to be successful, I began to see much better results from my team and our shift as a whole. I began to gain the respect of the entire shift and pretty much each individual TSR that worked in the branch. Our branch manager then was promoted and transferred. To me this was a blessing, b/c I had not always seen eye to eye with the branch manager concerning his management style. Our program manager was promoted to branch manager and I was so happy for her and for our branch. We had developed a pretty good working relationship during the time I had worked as a full-timer. I thought the job was getting done pretty good for the first year with the new branch manager. We did get branch of the quarter 2 times during that first year and our shift did get Shift of the quarter once. That quarter I recieved the highest quarterly review I had ever earned. Somewhere soon after that, I can't place i within a specific quarter or possibly two, things changed. The branch manager became extremely complacent. Rarely did things of great performance get recognized at all. Pretty much things of only bad performance were addressed in weekly meetings. I would see the branch manager sitting in the office on their cell phone texting or on the internet during alot of my downtime between shifts. Rarely would anything get addressed by the hands on method we had been accustomed to anymore. Things would be addressed by the shift manager only. There seemed to be a great deal of favoritism shown to our PM manager. He could take time off pretty much spur of the moment. He was allowed to work opposite shifts when it suited him or his plans. Things became it seemed like he was running the branch as an assistant branch manager rather than as assigned specific shift manager he was paid to do. He was allowed certain priviledges that others would be denied even when others had requested in advance in writing the same temporary privledge. More and more the branch manager became less and less involved in normal operations. It seemed the only time the branch manager would be active (as a branch manager should be) was when the regional manager would be in the office for a visit. During this time our performance as a branch began to suffer. Therefore our leads began to be the less productive leads which eventually lead to budget cutbacks. As a part of the cutbacks, I got laid off. I was laid off because my team had the lowest score. This was the first time during my full-time tenure I had had the team with the lowest score. During that quarter I had lost some key team members due to reduced earnings or to better jobs. I was given a performance alert and told I needed to get my scores up, however I was not even given half the next quarter to bring up my scores before I was laid off.
I just learned that the Greenville branch has been closed. From what the managers that remained for the next year after I was laid off have told me, nothing improved with the branch manager. If I had to place blame for the office closing, I would say the lack of involvement from the branch manager caused the closing.

DialAmerica is probably the best company and work environment among outsourced call centers. That, however, is like saying "this is the most comfortable coffin you can be buried in".

I worked in a call center that had transitioned from outbound to inbound. The majority of reps worked on health insurance customer service / sales programs for Medicare providers. The company is paid whether the agents take calls or not. Therefore if call volume is low, there is nothing to do. People are not allowed to do anything at their workstations but stare ahead at the screens, or to talk quietly with each other. No books, magazines, newspapers--not even TRAINING materials for the insurance license course that is heavily pushed. There are some shifts where agents got 2, 3, or sometimes even NO calls whatsoever. On other days calls would come nonstop.

The environment is okay. There are up to 50 people in a single room at long desks that are not divided into cubicles. As in most call centers, there can be tons of noise, but in this case, most of the noise came from disrespectful agents and supervisors who would shout and laugh at the top of their lungs while we tried to communicate with callers. Co-workers would leave food, dirt and snotty tissues behind after their shifts, leading to a very unclean environment. We were given small wet-naps (the kind you are given at rib joints) to clean up. That is like giving someone a dixie cup to bail out the titanic. No assigned seating means that you are using a headset and computer that hundreds of people have used. In every row there seemed to be at least one agent or supervisor who needed to be hospitalized for pneumonia or the flu. People either never showed up, or showed up way to sick to work.

People with no work experience, or even marginally literate were hired. I sat next to a guy who had never used a computer before, but he picked it up after a few weeks. The term "bodies in seats" was used often by management to explain the lowered standards for hiring several busy times each year. Training was basically an afterthought for both the clients we worked for as well as for our management. Most of the training was while you were on a phone call with old people needing advice on health insurance. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Although the computer systems had an advanced messaging system, training materials and memos were distributed via photocopied leaflets that you may or may not get to see during your shift (the company violated its own "clean desk policy" by doing so.

Because of the mentality of a lot of the workers, the rules were very restrictive and seemed aimed toward children, at the expense of those who were professional. Attendance was generally awful, and the company's policy allowed it to be. Up to 24 unexcused absences a year were allowed (6 per quarter) before any disciplinary action was taken. Workers pushed the envelope on this policy and would disappear for days at a time, because they could. Upper management created elaborate sets of rules that were unequally enforced (it seems only right before a client visited, or when they needed to reduce staffing). You could get a manager to bend the rules, or completely ignore them, if you were buddy-buddy with them. Workers routinely mingled with supervisors outside of work...and spent the whole day gossiping about it. For the most part, the supervisors and managers believed that they had to be friends with their employees to manage them, which is a big mistake. Everyone stabbed eachother in the back, as most of the time, there was no work to do, and gossip ruled the day.

Recently, many people were laid off. Which is funny because right before the layoffs, a class of 15 people was being trained as others with experience were being laid off. Seriously. It's now a ghost town, and the company's future seems uncertain.

The positive: the job pays more than flipping burgers, and if you pay $275 and get your insurance license, you can make $11.25 an hour (or more when they decide to pay you.) Payroll is weekly (after a two-week hold), and most of the time the hours are correct (good luck if you have a dispute). Most people are hired on-the-spot which is cool if you're looking for a job and need money fast. A lot of funny, friendly people work there, and I've made many friends. They are also on the busline if you don't have a car.

MANAGEMENT IS VERY UNPROFESSIONAL AND TREATS U LIKE YOUR NOTHING! WHEN U EVEN GET 10 SALES IN ONE DAY THATS NOT EVEN GOOD ENOUGH! THEY HOUND U FOR MORE AND ITS INSANE! THEY FIRE PEOPLE EVERYDAY AND DONT CARE AT ALL! THE PLACE IS LIKE A REVOLVING DOOR AND MY ADVISE IS TO STAY AWAY FROM THEM. ITS ONE OF THE WORST PLACES I HAVE EVER WORKED FOR IN MY LIFE.

This branch in my mind would have never shut down if the original branch manager was still running this branch. Or yet, someone other that the most current Branch Manager. The current branch manager was negative, not once did she give recognition. When we did well the managers would praise us, keep us motivated but not the "Branch Manager". Of all people you would think she would be the one who would show the most appreciation. Most of the time you would pass by her office and she would be sitting at her desk texting on her cell phone, and from what I recall the policy is NO CELL PHONES!!! She never said hello, or introduced herself. Some people did not even know her name or who she was. And they worked there!

Most of the managers were very helpful and you could tell worked very hard. I feel bad for everyone who lost their job. I could go on and on about what I have seen and heard. I enjoyed working with most of the people. That was the one good thing about the job.
Then the office closed, it was no surprise to anyone. Most said they saw it coming.

I have been with DialAmerica in the Greenville office for a number of years on and off. If you know anything about call center work it's all about the same. The good thing about TSR job in Greenville is that it is a ready job to use as a fill in between serious jobs. If you can read, write and speak some english your in untill your numbers drop or you burn out. Thats why they hire each week to replace the dead and wounded.

A big problem they have is that they consistantly have to promote to management from the lower end of the gene pool because thats the only kind of person that would take that type of job. Either you didn't know better when you took the job or thats who you are as a person. In order to keep their jobs the managers are driven only by the reps numbers and they would let their own mothers go if they don't get the number. Thinking about it isn't that how it should be in a sales enviroment? Thats not to say that they have not had and still have some good folks on the floor as ABM and shift managers and supervisors. I think they are working within the format provided because thats the game they decided to play. I've often asked those promoted "Why did you take the job?" and they would say "It got me off the phone!"

What kind of person does it make you at the end of the day when you have had to let go people who really need a job because it just so happens your trying sell publications to folks who are legally blind. "We'll Mrs. Smith are you completely blind or can you see some so we can get your a great deal on the large print edition, OK!" I'd say it makes you employed. But at what cost. Or the person next to you is coding calls incorrectly so they can get their conversion up - and management knows it and promotes it. I'm sure it goes on it all the offices.

It's sad to see any jobs go away with things being how they are but wouldn't it be better to be in a real job with a real company than to content with scrub work like Dial? Part-time work has it's uses but between that and staffing companies it has realy undermined the settled labor force that built America. The best way to stop it? Don't buy from them or the people who contract with them.

I worked for DialAmerica for a very long time. Anyone who knows me-will know who I am by reading this, and I don't care. I worked the hardest out of everyone in that office. I say that, not to put down (some of) my former co-workers, because some of them did their job, but I did my job (every bit of it and to perfection) and then some. I always went above and beyond. Most of my gripe is due to the fact that this is a cheap company anyway. Yes I stayed for a while-but even with all my complaints, had they not closed, I would still be there. That doesn't take from the fact that they don't want to pay you what you deserve. I was told by my boss on my annual review that corporate does not want to give anyone in my position an above average score. ???? I never deserved below, that's for sure...but what about 90% of the time I deserved better? They just don't give it to me because they don't want to give me the appropriate raise to go with it. It took years for corporate to even recognize my position with an award.

To speak on my boss. Let me start with my previous boss. He was the best boss I have ever had in my life. No complaints on him at all. He got relocated. Next boss was OK. We got along well for the most part. But me being who I am, and the hard worker I am-knowing I was the least paid staff member in that office-watching her be able to do absolutely nothing-was hard. I'm not going to say she never worked-she came out when she had too. When something bad happened, numbers were low, people were visiting office, or if I got stressed and needed her…she was there. But she was kind of laid back…she did not discipline anyone. I probably didn’t need any, like I said, I did my job. But when I see other people getting away with stuff I wouldn’t even attempt-it makes me look at her. She should have stopped a lot of bs that went on there. She was a push over. I may have taken advantage of it a little too….to be honest. But only by asking can I leave (short notice), or coming in late to attend a school function…things of that nature. I can’t stress enough that my work was always done, and correct.

To close, because I could go on forever, they closed the office I worked at. Came in on a Wednesday, let us know that this AM shift made the last calls from Greenville. All of us got was 3 weeks pay and 4 hours of personal time. 1 person, obviously was favored, because that person was asked to come work the next week, or at least that Monday, with the boss. Why would they work for free? They wouldn’t. They got paid. We’re not stupid. Bottom line is DialAmerica could be a good place to work as a job-but long-term career-don’t do it because all the years I put in-didn’t matter to them. They ended all of it in 1 day.