answer this question

Like Tree8Likes
  • 3 Post By cedartown
  • 2 Post By another rep
  • 2 Post By Finally Free
  • 1 Post By Fed Up
Results 1 to 14 of 14
  1. #1
    cedartown
    cedartown is offline
    Newbie

    Cell Phone
    LG Neon II Blue
    Carrier
    AT&T
    Posts
    5 - liked 3 times
    A letter fired off to AT&T CEO Randal Stephenson:
    Mr. Stephenson,
    I am writing you this letter because I am concerned about the state of affairs in the call center I am employed. I started with Bellsouth Mobility many years ago and have worked hard and put every bit of myself into the jobs I am expected to perform. Throughout the years of my employment, I've seen many changes take place and I've accepted these changes with a smile. Today my smile is gone and not because of external life circumstances. Every day I walk into the call center, a new event takes place and the world around me crumbles. I know this sounds a bit dramatic, but for eight hours five days weekly, my world is my co-workers and customers I interact with. My co-workers are miserable and I am miserable. And with the recent changes, now our customers are miserable. Let me explain why we are all miserable.

    Our call center encompasses several jobs, and this is how I've known things to operate for many years. It's exciting to work for a call center where there are other facets of the job one can explore. I've always loved telecommunications. To break the call center down in its most basic capacities, I can say that we handle two operations for AT&T: Porting Activations and Chat Support. Porting has been with this call center since its inception in 2004. Our director has an online team of employees and an offline team of employees for the Porting Activations department. The head count has lowered over the past few years because the porting process has been streamlined with software that can handle the transitioning with automated precision. Since the stream-lining has gotten even better, our center director has moved a lot of the online employees to the offline jobs. The offline employees handle any fallout from the porting process. And since other call centers are involved in handling porting issues, the volume of porting calls is at its lowest, thus the fallout has lessened. The other side of our call center houses our chatting team. The chat team was put together, for the most part, by Mr. Tom Brogan, former call center director (now retired). His department was formally technical support on a national level, handling complicated switch errors to the uncomplicated general support of troubleshooting device issues. Mr. Brogan liked to be addressed as Tom, so I will refer to him as Tom from this point. Tom was eager to set his department up on a pedestal above others. He regarded his people as a group and encouraged his group to interact and learn from each other. His people admired him greatly because they knew that in Tom they could confide and trust. When I say trust, I refer to the fact that we all knew there were other call centers ready to equip with jobs and Tom made it known that when we lost a job function for his department, he would work hard to find us another, and we always seemed to exceed expectations, all receiving high marks from customer letters to meetings of acknowledgement of a job well done. Our morale was high then. I am letting you know about some of our history so you will be able to later contrast the differences between then and now.

    Since Tom's retirement in 2010, our new call center director has taken his department into a different direction, and not for the good. We always heard rumor that Tom Brogan was being forced into retirement and that the other call center director, Beth Hendrickson, was eager to take over so that her head count could increase, providing her additional pay and bonuses. I am not one who condones rumor, but for the purpose of my letter to you, it is apropos to mention opinion with fact. The fact is that when Beth Hendrickson took over the entire call center, she made it known immediately that her way of doing things was much different than the way Tom handled his affairs. When Tom left, our chat support was still new because the software changed several times and stream-lining the process of handling technical support could not be as streamlined as taking a porting call. Technical issues come in a vast assortment, where the issue(s) are entirely with the customer's device, or the issue(s) are not as simple and perhaps require attention to both the network and customer's device interaction, to entirely a network issue. As network issues occur often, sometimes we are the first line of defense and the customer requires us to file a network ticket to gather attention from our network engineers. As you may not know, this process of filing a ticket is unjustly time consuming and takes the average representative 12-15 minutes. Then, when it is time to submit the ticket, we are bombarded with a listing of over 200 departments to dispatch the ticket. On chance that the ticket did make it to the correct queue, one will eventually see their ticket come back to them with an email carbon copy sent to their manager. The manager will then schedule an appointment to meet with them regarding why the ticket was sent back. Tickets are sent back for mundane reasons, in most cases. This allows the person working the ticket to expunge their responsibility for seeing the issue to resolution. If they send the ticket back, they no longer have to deal with the issue. I am giving you an example of one of the job functions we perform on chat so you will have a general idea of how long an interaction with a customer can be aside from just the expected chat flow which include the customer greeting and acknowledgement of the issue, the verification of the customer's account, accessing the account, reading the notes on the account, investigating the issue, and noting the account.

    Since Beth Henrickson and her group of area managers have taken over, we have seen so many changes that it is almost impossible to discern company policy from local call center propaganda and outright lies. In December of 2010 it was communicated to the chat department that AT&T is expecting our small department to handle the chat flow of thousands of wireless customers. To adequately handle this flow, it is expected of us to take two chats at a time. Our managers communicated with us that AT&T likes to "do more with less" and boy have we seen this philosophy in action. In November of 2010, our department was labeled "Total Care" and we were expected to take on all issues, encouraged to take on as many chats as possible. We were juggling billing issues, network technical issues, phone software issues, international usage issues, order support, and general customer service. Beth Hendrickson and her area managers would dole out orders that were relayed to our managers who would then cover this information in our weekly meeting huddles (when we had them). Our responsibilities were increasing, the metrics we were expected to abide were unrealistic, and our handle times to properly assist our customers while attempting to uphold great customer service was well beyond the maximum "allowed" per chat. Let me emphasize with clarity that our small department was not trained adequately to handle customers as concerns six different job functions. When this news was dumped into our laps, we all were overwhelmed and unsupported by upper management. We all begged for the training and support that it would take to prepare us for this large scale operation. We were given three days of training for billing and then thrown to the sharks. This was all a big joke as far as the chat employees were concerned. We had few people in our group who were assigned to be our floor support and they were mostly all new people who management felt comfortable with. While management felt comfortable with their floor support, we were all sinking. LeAnne Priebe comes to our rescue, or so we think.

    Ms. Priebe announced her job function and goals in an email. We read this email with a genuine feel of enlightenment, all believing Ms. Priebe would make sure we had the training we needed to not only do our jobs well, but to make our customers our first priority. When Ms. Priebe announced she would be visiting our call center, our upper management made strides to assign a group of employees to offline projects, such as coloring wall decorations to cleaning desks, adding speed bumps in the parking lot, and getting the grounds keepers to give the outside a makeover. Houseplants on the upper management office cubicle ledges were removed and we were all told to be observant of our company and stay busy. Low and behold, Beth Henrickson and her area managers were all ready for their company and ready to put on a happy face, touring Ms. Priebe through the call center. I was there the day Ms. Priebe visited. Ms. Priebe was ushered around and visited with some employees, but not without Beth's presence. There were several employees who wanted to tell Ms. Priebe how things were really going in the center, but whistle blowers are not tolerated in this call center. If you have a tiff with the way things are run, you can either keep your mouth shut or you can tell management and be retaliated against and lose your job. Before Ms. Priebe left our center, a union steward handed her a note. In this note contained useful information - information that could have been used to the company's advantage, to find out what things are really going on behind the scenes. As far as the note concerns, it is a fact that many of these items of concern in this note were not and still haven't been addressed.

    One particular item of interest is Beth Hendrickson's expectations of complying with company policy. However, it has always been my contention that examples are set and followed if said examples follow their own expectations. This has obviously been overlooked by Ms. Hendrickson, who has, on many occasions, fired people for accessing their own account or had worked on a friend's or family member's account. In December of 2010, Ms. Hendrickson not only showed flaw in her role as call center director, but also in her general character. She had her husband, who is also an AT&T employee in another call center, chat in with one of our employees to work with his account. As if this isn't an apparent conflict of interest, he didn't have a pleasant interaction with our chat representative. In fact, he called his wife to let her know that he was not happy with what was transpiring and his wife, our call center director came out to the floor to prop herself over the employee and ask the employee what was going on. Ms. Hendrickson then told the employee what to do and propped herself aside the employee against the cubicle desk drawers and stayed there until the chat interaction was complete. We all heard about this. We all saw that the employee who was unfortunate enough to work on Ms. Hendrickson's husband's account was distraught and confused. The ethics hotline was called and we found out later that this entire incident was covered up, Ms. Hendrickson escaping what would have been the demise of one of our jobs if it had been one of us. It was unfair, and the events following are unfair, unjust, constitute customer abuse, and tread on some fine legal line.

    Since Ms. Priebe has come to our call center, our management has had many roundtable sessions with Beth and her area managers. We don't get offered a lot of information coming from these meetings except for what management can now dole out to us next. Our weekly huddle sessions used to cover useful tidbits for our job functions and interesting company information. These meetings have now dwindled down to why we aren't meeting expected goals and reading useless communications seemingly to take up the time allotted for the meetings. We used to have time to read over our emails and complete a huddle agenda quiz that would help us learn more about changing policies and procedures. These emails are still sent, but we have no time to read the information that has been prepared for us, so it really is a waste of company resources to have a Methods & Procedures department prepare this information and send it out weekly. I suppose the emails are CC'd to upper management, justifying their job, but sincerely, a waste of money as we are all expected to sign into our chats within three minutes of signing in for the day. I'd like to say that what Ms. Priebe, Steve Sutton, Ralph DeLaVega and Randall Stephenson send out in emails is read and implemented, but in all honesty, most of us just delete these emails or file them away in our archives. It's not that we don't want to be on top of our game and know what our company expects, it's just that our call center director and area managers see things in a different light and we are not in tune with what our company wants. We are expected to be in tune with what Ms. Hendrickson wants.

    More recently, our management has notified us that Ms. Hendrickson has established that Ms. Priebe is numbers oriented. This contradicts what I've read from Ms. Priebe. Ms. Priebe wants to give us the title of "trusted adviser". Ms. Priebe has told us that the ultimate goal is to make sure our customer is treated with respect and their issues resolved in as few transactions as possible, meaning a one call resolution. Since Ms. Priebe's visit to our center, we were advised that we are no longer Total Care advisers but we are still expected to take on any issue that comes our way in a chat. If we don't take on the issue, we will be disciplined. This still sounds like we are Total Care. We were absolved of taking on two chats at once for a brief time and told to take an extra chat when we could. Our chat software is not user friendly for taking a second chat. When we go to take another chat, we had to click on a button which would time out our chat session briefly and would expand a long list of customers waiting to chat. When we accepted the chat, the chat session timed out again causing a delay in handling our first chat interaction. Today, we are still using the same flawed software, but once again, we were told last week that it will be expected of us to take two chats on a consistent basis from here on out. We started this today, again. But it is much worse than you can imagine.

    Beth has now fired and lost over 20 of our chat employees, bringing in a mere 15 people from her porting department. So we are five less than what we were in December of 2010 and we have a lot of new people who are scared to death every day they come in. For the length of my employment with AT&T, I always understood that the "quality" of the interaction with our customers was scored with significance. At the present time, our quality metric makes up 70 percent of our score. Other things such as average handle time, concurrent chats, and "operator utilization" make up the remainder of our score. However, Beth has advised us that AT&T is expecting our average handle time, concurrent chats, and operator utilization to increase quickly, or our jobs are on the line. It has been communicated to us that AT&T likes to do more with less, and this is being emphasized every day now. We've been told that Beth is trying to fight to keep the chat function in our call center. I honestly don't know why. She does not encourage her chat employees. Instead, she treats them with ill regard, she never frequents the floor to speak with any of us like we are humans. Instead, she has elected an offline porting specialist to walk the call center floor from aisle to aisle taking note of infractions and people talking to each other. We no longer have a medium to communicate with our employees. We have limited training on the phones we offer and we have very limited support by our managers. If we have a computer problem, we are expected to sign out into a special queue so we can file a ticket which will be dispatched to an IT group in India, will then pass the buck until an escalation needs to take place for the same issue, and eventually our IT guy will come to the floor and pull the computer and replace with another. In the chat department, we are assigned desks, so if our computer is down, so are we, but our metrics suffer. Our metrics are what label us a good employee or a bad employee.

    So today, we are a department suffering with a limited head count and thousands of customers waiting to chat with us, meanwhile on the other side of our call center are online and offline employees receiving emails to go home early because the volume of porting calls and port fallout doesn't constitute the hours worked. Beth has managed to keep her availability numbers high, but not too high to warrant the loss of any more employees. I know this is a smart business tactic, but it also doesn't make sense to have a representative paid hourly to walk the floor proactively seeking out trouble while there is a fully staffed management team. Recently, we've been told that if our chat department cannot handle the flow of customers (taking two chats at a time), we could lose our department, having it outsourced to a country where chat can be staffed paying less than half of what our American representatives are paid. Also recently, management has taken note of the sour economy and have told us all that we should be happy we have jobs. I am happy I have a job. I'm not happy that my job is demeaned every day with remarks from management telling us that we must maintain quality while adhering to unrealistic chat handle times and concurrent chats. I will break down the structure of what it is like to take two chats at once.

    Chat comes in with the statement "My phone is freezing after installing the new operating system and I don't know what to do, can you help?". We must acknowledge the customer's issue within one minute and then verify their account with the account holder's name, last four digits of the account holder's social security number, or account passcode if the customer has one. After we verify our customer, we must ask questions to pursue the issue and gather details to determine what is causing the issue. Meanwhile, while we are verifying the account and haven't addressed the substance of the chat another chat comes in. We must then acknowledge this customer's issue within one minute, verify their account, and gather information. We are expected to update the customer within three minutes of our last statement to the customer. If we do not get back with the customer within three minutes and if this chat is scored by our managers or the QA group based out of India, we automatically lose 40 points out of a possible of 100 points for this chat. We are observed on four chats per month - two from our manager and two from the QA group in India. If we lose 40 points on one chat, we have failed the chat. We can also lose 25 points for two or more mis*****ed words in a chat session, another failed chat because we must score an 85 or better to pass the chat. The real substance of the chat is not observed as much though. We have very limited control over a lot of issues that come to us in a chat, so if we pay attention to the semantics of what our managers and QA are expecting to see, we can get away easily from resolving the customer's issue so long as we've come back to our customer within three minutes and haven't mis*****ed any words. So, in essence, our quality is a number negated by concurrent chats and average handle times. We can't spend too much time with a customer, so we are forced to either shuffle the customer on or lie to our customer.

    The point I am making is that we are not doing our jobs for the good of the customer, we are meeting numbers for our call center director. Our call center director has one interest and it is clearly not to exploit our talents as skilled representatives, it is a puppy mill to pass the customer through and take another. Our managers are meeting with us more each week, not to discuss our progress but to discuss ways we can improve. If all our call center is wanting is better numbers, then why is quality scored at 70 percent and discounted when we meet our customers' expectations but it took too long to get it done? It's confusing to us because it has been pounded into our heads how important it is for a one call or one chat resolution and yet when we strive to be the best our company employs, we are demoralized with not meeting Beth's numbers. Each year, JD Powers and Associates reviews and scores communications companies. I understand that rating low in their scores can have an effect on potential customers and our company. With sincerity, our call center seems removed from AT&T's ideals and visions. In our call center, we are separate from others in the company, and we feel that way too. We don't feel like we are part of AT&T, we feel like we are numbers. As long as our numbers are in line with what Beth considers good, I suppose we keep our jobs and continue to function, but not like we wish to function. We want to assist our customers and go home feeling like we are part of the bigger picture that AT&T is. We see commercials on television that remind us just how big AT&T is, but we can't feel big. We feel detached.

    And as it pertains to the T-mobile merger, I'd like to say we are excited to gain over 34 million additional customers, but that is not how we view the news in our call center. We already feel that we are short-changing our present customers. We can't imagine the addition of 34 million additional customers, which will greatly impact our chat volumes only making us resent the fact that we are pushing more through the queues. It's the fact that we are not only incapable at present to handle more chats, we are exhausted, frustrated, confused, lethargic, and bullied to the point we know we are unwilling to take on a heavier load. If you are wondering what life is like in our call center, talk to our employees, but come in unannounced. If Beth and her crew know company is coming, they will be prepared to walk you through an artificial existence. If you want to know why customer service is dismal and why we don't rank on the top of JD Powers and Associates survey, come into our abode and we will tell you why. Sit with a few of us and watch how confused our employees are, watch our customers angrily leave our chats, threatening to go to our competition. My opinion is, I don't know how we will take on the new responsibility of so many more customers. It's scary when we haven't been trained on the majority of our phones and network changes, being coined "Trusted Adviser" and rushing to take on our next two chats at a time.

    I ask you to keep this email from our call center director and to visit us. We will welcome you with open arms. We need a change desperately. If Beth and her crew won't come out of their offices, perhaps you can visit them in their offices to ask them why.

    Mr. Stephenson, I implore you to take this letter into consideration and know that I am a concerned employee and hope you truly think of what IS possible.

    Kind regards,

    Concerned AT&T Cedartown, Georgia call center employee



    See More: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter
    Last edited by camstuf; 05-04-2011 at 07:21 PM. Reason: merged post




  2. #2
    another rep
    another rep is offline
    Newbie

    Posts
    1 - liked 2 times

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    I also work in the Cedartown call center. I work in the Offline group that this rep speaks of. We have numberous job functions to keep us busy. We don't get go home emails, we are constantly working and listening to the "Chat" group sit over the isle and grip and "cuss" and complain about the fact that they are not "getting" their way. I am not speaking of all chat employees but there several that just come in each day to see how many other people they can make miserable. We have heard several folks say they are going to try and see if they can get Beth Hendrickson out of the call center and I feel this is what the letter was about. Do I think there are some "dumb" rules in the call center? Yes, but for 90% of the dumb rules, they were created because the reps on the floor kept on pushing the limits and the rules had to be made. So for all you folks out in the Cedartown call center that are "out to get Beth" you better look around at how much the folks around you have caused, and what could come in and be worse..... just saying....

    Another Rep from Cedartown
    tavenger5 and whogivesashyt like this.



  3. #3
    Finally Free
    Finally Free is offline
    Newbie

    Posts
    1 - liked 2 times

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    I was once an AT&T (Cingular Wireless) employee at Cedartown. As my name shows, I am finally free. The frustration I felt on a daily basis about a lack of concern for the employee or a solid operation was overcoming. Many nights, I came home in a rage and took it out on my family. If AT&T thinks that the operation at Cedartown is healthy, they need to review the thousands of people who have given their time in the past to work at the call center. Most of Cedartown has worked at the center and most of them do not have nice words about it. It just so happens that Beth Hendrickson has been at the wheel the entire time. It was not until I left (not fired, miraculously, but a better job) that I was able to retain my sanity and sleep at night without twitching from anger. Yeah, you're thinking that I need anger management classes. I was a calm, quiet person before I entered the call center at Cedartown. If I worked too slow, I got written up. If I worked too fast, I got written up. If I worked one case over another, I got flagged for customer abuse. I was on a final written notice several times, not for anger or bad behavior, but for DOING MY JOB. Go figure! Check it out, Stephenson. Time's ticking and some of your reps are ticking too.
    tavenger5 and whogivesashyt like this.



  4. #4
    tavenger5
    tavenger5 is offline
    Mr Admin Guy
    tavenger5's Avatar

    Cell Phone
    Samsung Galaxy S4
    Carrier
    AT&T
    Location
    PA
    Posts
    11,189 - liked 1151 times
    Blog Entries
    8
    Follow tavenger5 On Twitter Add tavenger5 on Google+

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    Thanks for providing some insight into your world! Hopefully the right people will see this and make some changes.
    John

    Please click LIKE to show if a post is helpful or not!



  5. #5
    Fed Up
    Fed Up is offline
    Newbie

    Posts
    1 - liked 1 times

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    The morale in the call center is down and really bad. We need the job and we know that we cannot get a job with good pay or insurance any where else in the area. The job that we do should not be as stressful, but it is. Alot of us love our job and the company and do not want to go anywhere else. We just want to be listened to and at times our ideas used. We are the ones working the processes and know how long the calls or chats take. We have been advised that the management does not need to know how to do a port or a process they just need to be aware of how to do it. The only time that the management was on the floor taking notes of how to do something was when the union was talking about a strike last year and they were getting ready to do the work if need be. If they do not need to know how to do it then maybe they need to listen to the ones that do it.

    Offline has a productivity tracker that we must use daily that shows how "productive" we are. I know alot of tenured reps that know a good bit of information about porting but their "productivity" level is down because they are being asked questions and they are getting into trouble because their numbers are down due to that. They have been told that they need to answer the questions and to send the questions to others because they need to focus on their "work", but then we are told we must answer the questions because we have new reps in the offline side that in our opinion did not receive good training. Let's take one of the functions that offline handles, Reseller. Reseller is a very difficult process that needs to be handled differently for each company. There are companies that it takes 6-8 weeks to get a port done and then there are companies like Tracfone that uses our service that we just have to submit a port. The difference is there are errors that are different for each and has to be handled in a way that you would not handle for a normal wireless to wireless port. Reseller is just one speciality, another one is Wireline ports, let's not even get into that one. Wireline is a whole different animal that many reps groan about when they get one.

    I believe that questions need to be asked, but not of the reps that management picks. One of the times that a visit was done the reps that were "chosen" were told what questions they could ask and what they could not ask. We don't need that here, we need someone that is going to ask the questions that "should not" be asked.

    Please take this letter serious, our union is not fighting for us so we are left to send it to the web hoping that something will be done. If the squeaky wheel gets the oil, we are squeaking.

    Sincerly,
    Another Concerned AT&T Cedartown, Georgia Call Center employee
    whogivesashyt likes this.



  6. #6
    camstuf
    camstuf is offline
    /\/\s.Super/\/\odette
    camstuf's Avatar

    Cell Phone
    Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Rose Gold White 32GB
    Carrier
    Sprint PCS
    Location
    Houston, Texas, United States
    Posts
    3,730 - liked 291 times
    Blog Entries
    72
    Follow camstuf On Twitter Add camstuf on Facebook Add camstuf on Google+

    Cedartown Call Center Shenanigans

    Merged>>>
    Quote Originally Posted by cedartown View Post
    My girlfriend told me today that Beth Hendrickson (call center director) for the Cedartown call center is gone this week. She leaves a lot to be desired in the way of her babysitters. Her area managers, Karen Casper, Pam Cargal, and Regina Holman were partying hard today and being so loud that some if us were forced to plug in our headphones to concentrate on our chats. The cat was away and these mice did play!



    We are taking two chats at once and are scared to death, quite frankly. You don't know how easy it is to have two accounts accessed and open, switching back and forth, to add or remove features or change rate plans on the wrong account. In fact, we are doing this often and we don't have time to go back and make the changes. We are being forced to transfer our customers to another chat queue so we can lower our average handle times. We have thirteen minutes to chat with someone. If we don't resolve your needs in thirteen minutes, then you will likely be transferred to another queue, told to call customer service, or contact the manufacturer. If we exceed thirteen minutes, it reduces our score for average handle time and impacts our ability to meet monthly goals, and then your name is put on a list.



    They are sending managers to the floor with furor. These managers are walking aisles to make sure you are on two chats. We've been told that if our customers ask us if we are occupied with another customer to lie to them and say no. I have a sneaky suspicion that they don't want our customers to know how susceptible they are to account errors and negligent customer service. What say you?
    If you find this post helpful, click on bottom of each post: Like l Share
    * FAQ * Search * CPF PhoneDatabase* CPF Super/\/\odette



  7. #7
    cedartown2
    cedartown2 is offline
    Newbie

    Posts
    1

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    I was once a employee of the Cedartown Call Center and I also quit and was not fired. I can start off by saying that honestly we were treated like grade school children. I remember once the morale was down and the area managers,(which most employees have never seen or met because they would never come out of their offices) brought us ice creams and let us color pictures they printed from a coloring book. Almost all special events we got to color or fix up a shoe box or decorate baskets to sell for money for that call center. Which means we would all put money into a project as a group and once the project was complete the management would sell the baskets and keep the money, supposidly for the call center. And that call center also has a car wash, again the money goes to the call center. And team leaders have to paticipate. The call center representatives are not allowed to sell any kind of merchandise. Although on many occasions( to Beth's advantage) she will sell items along the lines of watches, candy bars and candle warmers. If I am not mistaken it is a AT&T wide rule that no items are to be sold in their call center's. When the call center does have company from higher management. They make us clean up for a week solid. Also they pick certain represintatives that the area managers know will say what they would prefer them to say. Instead of what is really going on there. In other words they sit them down and they go over what they are to say based on the quetions that they are asked. They also have certain team leaders that go in on all meetings to represent the call center in the way that Beth wants it to be represented instead of the way it really is. I would also like to know where the charity goes for that call center, because the trash cans have been taken away from the desk and the utensils that they provided the employees at one time like forks, knives and spoons have been taken away. Also the condiments as in ketchup, mustard and mayonaise.There are no longer any paper plates or coffee. There is no evidence there which indicates that the area managers nor the director are using that money for the employees benefit. And as far as having to clean the call center for a week, that is true it is a total wreck. I once was taking a call at my desk and a roach crawled right over my desk. Not to mention how many people have been bitten by fleas and spiders. When the area has bad weather, if the employees are not able to make it to work because of the weather conditions they will recieve a point. If they are at work, instead of being able to leave early they are expected to spend the night without pay. There are absolutely no exceptions to that. For example if your house was destroyed by a tornado you will get a point. If you are not able to use any other means of absence like vacation. And I promise you if you was to call today for vacation it would not be available. So what other choice do you have? Also, it will show you in totalview that vacation is available, but when you call the Workforce Desk they will tell you that there is no vacation time available. The requirements for the reps stats are ridiculous. It is truly almost impossible to do the job exactly and precisely like the director wants you to. In the aloted time frame. I have never worked anywhere where I thought everyday that my job was in jeopardy. They use that as a tool against the employees to keep them on edge and worried all the time. When someone is terminated, the director makes a big spectical of it. The manager of that employee has to go get the reps basket( which they no longer have, each employee has an assigned desk now) (then you had a basket that you had to carry to your desk everyday and find a seat.) And the rep was hauled through the call center for a meeting in the Creekmore room. Which is a meeting room. Then they were fired and had to wait until a later date to get their belongings. I also know that another former employee had to have a major surgery and when she came back she could not speak very well at all, so she setup a meeting with Beth to ask her if she could be put in the offline queue so that she could work, Beth told her word for word, If you cannot do your job then you don't need to be working here. The employee could not talk because they put a breathing tube in her throat when she had her surgery. This was not a permanant disability, she just needed time for her throat to get well. The point is is that Beth is running that call center the way that she wants regardless of the rules of AT&T. And regardless of what is right and wrong.Honestly how many complaints does this call center need until someone opens their eyes and confronts the situation. Happy employees makes happy customers. Things simply cannot go on like this for both's sake.



  8. #8
    AT&T Will Fall
    AT&T Will Fall is offline
    Newbie

    Posts
    1

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    Who ever sent the letter in on (AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter) I give you a GOLD STAR**** I also was a chat rep at cedartown hell hole. I was fired unfairly and everything you people wrote about the cedartown call center hits the nail on the head. Someone should print these forums out and send to the news papers or to a news station. I want AT&T to fall on it's unfair face. UNHAPPY EMPLOYEES MAKE UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS. We are set up to fail everyday.



  9. #9
    MiniWorker7
    MiniWorker7 is offline
    Newbie

    Posts
    1

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    I am also an AT&T employee. I have not been with the company for long, but it has had many changes since I have been here. First of all we were hired to do one job function and after a few months we were told we were to perform another. I was hired on as a porting representative and after the chat department employees either got fired or quit, many of us were forced to move to the chat department. We were told that we were not going to handle two chats at a time, however we are now on two chats. The ones who have only been in the chat department for only a month are expect to exceed the other representatives, since we have more training on all the systems. This is very unfair. We have not got used to taking 1 chat and now we have to take 2. We have managers sending messages and walking the floor to tell us to take 2 chats. They do not ask if we are working a case or having a hard time with a chat. We stay on chats for 2 hours and we are not offered assistance from a manager. Their response is "It happens". We are not being treated fairly at all.
    The employees that started 6months ago do not have insurance coverage yet. Their insurance will go into effect after their 7th month on the job. The only insurance they have had since they reached the 30 day marker is vision and dental. Those employees have also had their jobs on the line because their seniority is not high enough for them to use vacation time because they are sick. Whoever seniority is higher is who gets to take the vacation day. It should be based on first come, first served.
    This is seriously an outrage. I have a friend who works in the chat group, who googled their name. Once the name was pulled up, chats were found that have been posted on the internet with the name and it tells which call center they work in. This should not happen. We are mistreated on both ends of the call center but the chat department has it worse.
    Chat department is now required to handle billing, after it was removed from the call center. We are required to ask would the customer like to add paperless billing and other features. We are all taking classes now on billing and commission. Porting departments are now being trained to take payments after being told "No, we do not take payements".
    We are not allowed to talk to others while on the floor. If one person is on break and walks past another, we are not allowed to say anything more than Hi. If you stop and ask "how are you doing today" and the other responds, then you have a manager come behind to let you know to keep going. People have family members that work with and can not go to their work area to loan them $20 for gas, without a manager saying "why are you over here and you need to go back to your area". We already work on different shifts and do not see our family outside of work. I feel like if we have a family member at work then we should be able to speak to them when we see them at work.
    I wish they we could get the right person to view these messages on here and do something about it. The total blame is not on Beth Hendrickson, but if you allow your employees (Managers) to change the way things operate then it is your responsibilty to fix it. Pam Cargal does not have the proper training to manage the chat department and allowing her take over was not the best option. Judy Duff, who was the previous chat support area manager, was forced to go to a different department so Pam could take over. It is my opinion that Judy should not have left. This may seem to be a lot of complaints, but when we discuss how we feel with our managers things are overlooked and not took into consideration.

    FROM AN AT&T EMPLOYEE, THAT WOULD LIKE TO KEEP THEIR JOB, CAN WE PLEASE HAVE A RESOLUTION.



  10. #10
    Free from AT&T
    Free from AT&T is offline
    Newbie

    Posts
    1

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    I too worked at the AT&T Cedartown Call Center. I was an employee for 5 years and then I was fired because the Sedgewick Disability company they use did not want to cover all of my time out for my surgery. This has happened to many others at AT&T. But enough about that. A lot of what was said in this post I agree with. The main problem I encountered was the micro-management. For the most part, the Area Managers want complete control over the employees and Managers' lives. The schedules are being constantly changed, you have very little chance of getting better hours unless you have been an employee for over 10 years, and most of the time, you have to work weekends. There is really no work-life balance. There is never any exchange time or vacation time available if you want to attend a school function for your kids. The Area Managers work their cushy 8:00 am - 4:45 pm shift and they get to go home to their families. They never work weekends or holidays. I must say that Matt and Karen are the nicest of the Area Managers. They are both very personable and kind. Gina is just a control freak and a royal witch with a capital "B". Pam can be nice, but she is very moody. Not to mention, she likes to lay on her back, if you get what I mean. Word is that she got her position by laying in the horizontal position. I never really had a problem with any of the managers. There are a few that I am glad I never had, just from what some of the other employees had said.
    When the company was still Cingular, there was more of a warm and fuzzy feeling. We felt like we were cared about as employees. When AT&T took over, we were basically just a number. You never would hear how well you were doing, but why aren't you doing more. It seems nothing was ever good enough. The pay was good, but at what price did you pay? No time with your kids, missing important events, no work-life balance, that's what price I paid. Luckily, my unemployment was approved, and I am going back to college to pursue a degree.
    Also, the attendance policy only applies to who the Area Managers and Beth want it to apply to. I personally know there was an employee who had over 40 attendance points and was not fired. You are only allowed 12 in a year. Others have been fired for much, much less. Another employee was fired for updating a schedule for an employee. Her manager told her to update the schedule. She was only doing what she was told by her manager. She was fired and the employee she updated for was fired. The manager still has her job.
    I do miss my job and my friends sometimes. I do not miss the constant micro-managing control freaks.
    There really needs to be an internal investigation done as far as special treatment is concerned. You cannot fire one employee who had 12 points and keep another that has 40. I would think there may be some legal recourse.



  11. #11
    Timetoletgo
    Timetoletgo is offline
    Newbie

    Posts
    1

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    I worked at the Cedartown call center for 10 1/2 years until this spring. They fired me for performance they said. I worked in the chat line tech support team. The center is no fair to the employees who are faithful to their jobs. When you come to work every day sick or not because you're afraid of loosing your job it's hard to take getting fired over mis*****ed words or because of a pissed off customer that was already pissed off when you got to him. There is a lot of two face and double standards going on in that center. A manager can and will do things that a rep would get fired for. Scents I wad let go, I tell everyone not to get any AT&T services because of how they treat their employes. Needless to say I have stopped many potential customers of AT&T.. I hope everyone that are mistreated by this unfair company does the same. I know a lot of past customers that are very upset with how they were treated by the company are also spreading the word. Lets do our part in bringing down this call center. Maybe someone in upper management will take a look at what is happening in that call center. Too many rules are broken by management and covered up to save their ass where if we type a mis*****ed word we are kicked out the door. THIS IS SO STUPID!!!!
    I really hope this company crashes on it's face. SPREAD THE WORD! BLACK BALL AT&T SERVICES!!!!



  12. #12
    FedUpWithATT
    FedUpWithATT is offline
    Newbie

    Posts
    1

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    I feel for all of you employees at AT&T's Cedartown Call/Chat center but, if you think you have it bad, try being one of the many "outsourced" chat employees for Arise.com (and others); who AT&T uses to handle much of their chat traffic. We not only work from home using our own equipment (as dictated by Arise and AT&T), our own power and net connections (also dictated by Arise and AT&T), etc., but we get paid a pathetic, per hour wage, have no benefits and we must handle 3 concurrent chats with 10 seconds to make our initial response, when a chat comes in, with 45 seconds to respond to questions ; often of impossible complexity or so off the wall and esoteric it would take days to research the answer properly. The performance expectations and metrics are impossible to satisfy, especially if you are the type of employee who really wants to help your customers; who truly wishes to give sound advice as opposed to being primarily focused on "asking for the sale," at least 3 times in each chat. Training? Once the initial, cursory to say the least, Arise training is completed, for our lousy wages we are expected to train ourselves, on our own time, and "know all the devices and their features by heart because [we] are the experts." Experts? Who can be an expert in over 100 devices, each with its own nuance making it just a shade different from the 99 others available? It cracks me up to see how many of you remark that the AT&T corporate line is "AT&T does more with less." Funny. On TV all I see, is that at AT&T they like to "Rethink Possible." Yeah, that’s true. They like to rethink all the possible ways to squeeze the last breath (keystroke) out of their slaves while they beat them with down with "you're just not good enough," quality assurance "tips." What AT&T has actually and consistently accomplished, and continues to "improve" upon, is the systematic degradation of any shred of integrity the AT&T name once represented. Whether it be in one of AT&T's brick and mortar employee centers, or through one of the many "outsource" companies they use (we are not allowed to tell you we are outsourced employees); the only concerns of AT&T and Arise management are ramming products down customer's throats, whether they need them or not, to offer up a consumer web site that is so confusing it makes an AT&T bundled bill look simple and placing their chat/call center employees under so much pressure to "do more with less" that any customer who remains loyal to AT&T will continue to see their prices go up and their level of customer service go downhill, fast. Yes, we all need our jobs, especially in this economy, and our corporate mentors never miss an opportunity to remind us of how “lucky [we] are to be working,” but did you know that each level of management, whether it is AT&T or Arise or some other outsource company, gets a piece of our earnings based on those impossible to satisfy metrics? Live Chat is just another way for corporate greed mongers to impose unreasonable expectations on underpaid, over criticized employees who have had the last positive aspect removed from the work experience - pride in their work and job satisfaction. And, with the advent of companies like Arise, and other outsourcers, the only things AT&T offer to their customers, now, are worn out employees who are not permitted to take the time and care necessary to give these deserving, loyal, already being over charged, consumers the stellar customer service they should receive and which they pay a premium for. Believe me, dear AT&T customers, when you chat with us, we truly want to be attentive and helpful but 45 seconds as a response metric, for three concurrent chats, makes that impossible. We end our work days feeling horrible because, in effect, we are not allowed to perform quality services for you, our loyal AT&T customers. But, as so many of you point out on this forum, we are numbers to management; not people. Face it, when, so many decades ago, the words Human Resources were joined, it was a clear a sign of things to come. Like a tire on a car, we are nothing more to AT&T or Arise than a resource to be used up and then replaced, without thought or care, once our "tread" is worn. At least those of you who actually work for AT&T, evidently, receive Union representation, sick time and benefits, as long as you can bear the combat like conditions at work. We, out sourced Americans, receive nothing except zero tolerance across the board. We are on our own, flapping in the wind, underemployed and over criticized. Both of our situations are nothing short of abuse, I agree. AT&T really does rethink possible...how can we possibly abuse our customers a even more (for profit); how can we abuse our employees a even more (for more profits) and how can we lay off employees from our brick and mortar locations by being even more abusive to growing numbers of unrepresented, outsourced employees? Yes, AT&T really does do more with less and they really do rethink possible; just not in the same way their glitzy TV advertising would have you believing. It's a shame things have come to this and I hope AT&T goes down the tubes as a result of their greed, hyper productivity metrics and unreasonable demands on their low level employees; which all add up to exceptionally poor customer service. The real shame is the fact that those getting most outrageously dis-serviced are AT&T's (once) loyal customer base. Wake up and smell the fiber burning, AT&T. Everyone has cell phones (and your other services) now; the market is saturated. The only way anyone is going to stay with a provider will be when that provider treats their customers like gold. Two & three concurrent chats, no real training, low to nil employee support and outsourcing to even bigger greed mongers, than those who work directly for AT&T, is not the road to customer retention. But what do you care? You have Washington in your back pocket and are about to embark upon yet another monopolization of an industry through the proposed T-Mobile acquisition. At least I know one thing for sure....Karma pays everyone a visit, eventually, even you - AT&T.



  13. #13
    wilma
    wilma is offline
    Newbie

    Posts
    1

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    I too work for ATT at the Cedartown Call Center. I am a Technical Chat Rep! While many of the things in these posts are true, some are stupid and just childish. First of all, many of you post to shut this call center down! Well how about the 500 employess that depend on this job to feed their familys, pay the bills and provide insurance. how selfish of you to want to put hundreds out of a job because you are unhappy! So any of you who think getting on here slandering specific people is helpful, your wrong. Having legit complaints is one thing, but the personal attacks are childish and WRONG! Why come on a public forum and act like your 10 years old?

    Yes there are many problem in this call center. Many of the policys are broken and do not work. I sit surrounded by people who are unhappy and are looking for another job. That is what you do when your unhappy- MOVE ON. No one forces anyone to work at this call center.

    The rules and stats do seem to me unacheivable. I come to work and do my best. Never once has my job been threatned for my stats. Most of the belly aching is just laziness. Many of you just want to work on EASY street. I suggest you go to EASY STREET. You will see that the grass is not always greener.
    All I can say is if your unhappy, find something that can make you happy. Dont waste your time in a job that is making you so hateful, spiteful and mean that you would come on a public forum and mention people by name and talk trash about them.

    Many of you that is doing the complaining would be the first crying if your true idenity was found out and you lost your JOB.

    You may not need or want your JOB, but I do. As do many others. If this job is too "hard" on you LEAVE! If a manager doing their job making sure you do your job is more than you can take, LEAVE! I am sure ATT would not mind- we are all replacable!



  14. #14
    Tired of AT&T
    Tired of AT&T is offline
    Newbie

    Posts
    1

    Re: AT&T Cedartown Customer Abuse Letter

    I too work for AT&T and beleive that this company has forgotten about it's customers. When upper management wants to concentrate on the numbers and not the customers. There is a huge problem!! Employees are given 15 minutes to work on any customer's problems and if the problem is not solved in that 15 minutes. The employee is being told to transfer the customer to another department or provide the customer the Manufacturer information. I work in Tech chat and when you have 2 customers on chat it is impossible to provide the customers the best quality customer service even if you want to. The customers are going away feeling that they do not matter. Which in reality AT&T is sending the message to the employees that the customer does not matter. THIS IS THE MOST FRUSTRATING JOB I HAVE EVER WORKED FOR!!!!! The employee that was on this site saying that if you are not happy that you can leave. Believe me, I am looking and applying for any and all jobs that I can to get out of this place.

    Upper management sets the atmosphere and it trickles down. I really wonder how happy upper management is in AT&T because they are making the employees under them miserable. Also when employees are so stressed that half the place is on medication that says it all. The doctors that take Cedartown AT&T employees will all tell you to get out of this company. Because all the employees are having to go to doctors to stay on this job. It is sad when you have serveral doctors and nurses to tell you that AT&T will kill you if you work there to long. Also the Paramedics that are called out to get employees will ask "what is AT&T doing to their employees when we have to come out once to three times a week". They have been told that this company is stressing their employees out and they do not get how stressed the employees are. WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR AT&T MANAGEMENT TO WAKE UP??!! Complaints do not help and usually make things worse than before. That is why people are turning to this type of forum to complain but even this is not helping.

    I have worked in Customer Service for many years and I have always been told to assist the customer. This is the first place I have ever worked that I have been told that I can only have 15 minutes to help customers when the average problem can take 30 minutes or more. The employee is held responsible for the average call handle time and gets into trouble if they do not pass the customer to another place for more assistance. Since I know how AT&T inside works, I am a customer that will be transferring my service to another provider once my contract is up. It is sad that such a huge company as AT&T cannot promote better Customer Service than this. I hope to find another job soon so I can get out of this call center. I applogize to all the AT&T customers that I have not been able to resolve your phone issues because of these problems!!
    Last edited by Tired of AT&T; 08-02-2011 at 01:59 PM.



  • Similar Threads







  • Quick Reply Quick Reply

    If you are already a member, please login above.