Customer Service Representative | Joplin, MO | Feb 14, 2015
Place is a Mess
A typical day at work was coming in early in the morning and taking calls for 8 hours with two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch. While the pay is good it doesn't really cover the amount of stress you deal with in the call center everyday. Here's why.
Strict Dress Code:
First off you are required to wear a "business casual" outfit everyday except Friday-Sunday. Which was really annoying because honestly who cares about what your wearing its a call center its not like the customers can see you! Why add the stress of having to wear clothes that are uncomfortable when your sitting in a cubicle all day where very few people can see you? I would have been much more happier in the mornings if I could of showed up in casual attire. And even though you can dress casually on Friday-Sunday, they are still very strict on what you wear. No holey jeans, No open-toed shoes, No tank tops, etc. And they have people who monitor the halls like some sort of "Fashion Police" who will write you up if your outfit doesn't meet their ridiculous code.
Breaks & Lunch:
As I said before you get two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch. Whats wrong with it? You have to switch AUX codes on your phone and then log out and lock up your computer before you leave the station, and in doing so you waste 2 minutes of your break or lunch. And if your even 2 seconds late logging back into your phone the front desk will page "beep" your phone repeatedly until you auto-in to the queue. I think they gi
ProsGood pay and full-time work that's about it.
ConsStrict on time, Poor management, No personal workstation/cubicle, Short lunches and breaks, Not flexible at all
A typical day at work: You log onto your computer. You answer a phone call on the computer with your headset. 9 out of 10 calls are angry customers because someone lied to them in the store about how their plan works. 3 out of 10 calls they ask to speak to your manager. You plead with your manager to take the call because you will likely fail the survey if the customer takes it even if you were honest, accurate, and kind despite the rudeness of the customer. The manager will try to talk you into taking the call anyway. The customer hangs up angry. You're required to call the angry customer back, now in an attempt to avoid them getting the survey call. Unless they tell you not to call them anymore, you must call back a minimum of 3 times. If you fail a survey, you are at risk of losing your job. The only people who pass surveys are good at finding reasons to transfer customers to another department, or they get lucky and have a nice customer, or they have extremely perfect phone etiquette. You are supposed to be able to challenge a failed survey, however, few managers will send them up and the criteria for it to be overturned is almost impossible. You will find yourself not wanting to get back on phones after every break and will try to find ways to get out of taking calls including attempting to extend your training where you listen to one of your calls with your manager and they point out everything you did wrong. They then write up a contract for you to sign saying you will
ProsNone
ConsPoor managment especially upper management, low pay, high stress.
You work like a dog to try to explain UPS's failures. Most of these failures are due to lazy delivery drivers. These individuals may or may not leave a slip and say they tried to deliver package. Packages just up and disappear, time commitments mean nothing, and driver disrespect of property, packages, and people is rampant. So you spend your day being cussed out by customers who are victims of UPS's lack of commitment to quality service. This seems to be a consistent issue that is not addressed on UPS's side. We can send the message but nothing happens to fix the problems on UPS's side. Your whole day is people frustrated by the unprofessional behavior of UPS employees. Seems UPS thinks they are above professionalism.
After putting up with a solid 2.5 to 3 hours of being yelled at and cussed out you have to clock in and out for your first 15 minute break. That takes 2 minutes out of your 15 minutes, and you better hope the bathroom nearest to your location is not being cleaned. If so you have to beeline to the other one and take care of your business. You do your business at this time because bathroom trips are relegated to this 15 minute break and your next or lunch period. If you have kidney issues this isn't the place for you. If you don't have kidney issues and you are a female, you will by the time you quit. After you get through with the bathroom you have a few minutes to swallow a drink so that you can talk for another 2.5 hours. Don't be late-even though they take
ProsBetter than minimum wage.
ConsUPS lack of change after feedback, management sucks, peeing on demand is close to impossible, sick time always counts against you even with a doctors note, there is no steady shift, head games, very stressful atmosphere.
1.0
Customer Service Representative | Green Bay, WI | Jan 31, 2019
Please read this if thinking about working for Alorica
I worked at Alorica located in Green Bay. I was needing to find a job relatively quickly, and had seen advertisements touting sign-on bonuses and other benefits. I went to one of the open interviews they hold, after some hesitation from reading the reviews online for the company. The interview process takes a very long time, but not due to their careful consideration. They will do anything in their power to have you sign on to work for them before you walk out the door. During the hiring process I made a note to ask several questions relative to concerns I had from reading online reviews. One such question was regarding mandatory overtime, something I saw repeatedly mentioned. I was told with certainty that they never enforced mandatory overtime and never would, which was important to me because I had family obligations outside of work hours. This was the first sign of the unbelievable disconnect between the higher ups of the company and the reality of working on the floor. From the beginning they make an effort to omit pertinent information and fill you with false hope. After being hired you undergo paid training, which is easy money, and many of the people there know it. I had people in my training group who had repeatedly been hired and completed the training process and then promptly quit once the actual work began. As mentioned earlier, they will also hire ANYONE. I felt unsafe within my training group due to incessant arguments, many of which nearly became physical alte
ProsAnyone will be hired
ConsExtremely short breaks, disconnect between floor workers and higher ups, awful pay and benefits, awful hours
2.0
Customer Service Representative | North Carolina | Mar 16, 2015
Unorganized
I worked at the Greensboro location for 6 months. Upon being hired I was told I would have the weekends off and my training would be from 6am-2:30pm. A week before I was scheduled to start a lady in human resources called me that Friday and said I needed to start Monday. Which was a week earlier. She went on to tell me the training was 3:00-11:30pm. I told her I had children and never worked that ate. She ensured me training would only be 5 weeks then I would have the traditional morning schedule. I asked if I would have weekends off. She told me I should but if not we would have one week day and week day off. I started training with the instructor. She was so unprofessional. Cursing and also watching videos. She said she was not our teacher just facilitator and we needed to teach ourselves the material on computers that Apac had provided. She also let previous agents come and interrupt our learning time every day all day. There was a strict no sales phones policy on the call center floor or no pen and paper. So all the agents would come in and use their phones disrupting our class. My class consisted of young adults 18-early twenties. They would go on lunch and smoked weed and come back and the stench would fill the class. On 3 separate occasions our training group had to be addressed by higher authority about marijuana smoking. We also had a couple of ladies break out in almost a fist fight. Cursing yelling and anything you can think of. One third of the class slept. So abo
ProsPay, Benefits, and Cafeteria
ConsUnorganized, Dishonest Company
1.0
Customer Service Representative | Lake Mary, FL | Aug 8, 2019
Unprofessional, Mismanaged, SEVERE lack of communication
I worked at this job for about an year and a half. While yes, I did get trained for multiple programs for one client, they had such a lack of communication with the client, that no one was ever fully aware of what the correct procedure was. Not only was the client terrible, but Alorica is GOD AWFUL. I understand different businesses will run in a different manner, how ever timing someone to use the bathroom and forcing them to take it out of one of their breaks is INHUMANE. Not to mention, while I was employed here, the power went out constantly, the bathroom was backed up, and we had to leave the premises to use the bathroom at another establishment because it took the site director OVER 6 hours to the portable bathrooms brought in. Your bonus was affected by every little thing you did. Alorica had a different grading scale then the client, and then if you had the nerve to try and fight it, they told you that they refuse to change it. so many managers that obtained the position were WILDLY unqualified. You are supposed to receive a coaching every week, yet when I was on specific manager's team, I did not receive one for three months.
On top of all of this, they had me trained for their Tier two process, but threw me into taking supervisor calls without proper training. You only had 45 seconds of ACW as a tier 1 agent to make sure all of the information they required was correct, yet you had to document every single thing you spoke about with the customer. There was so m
2.0
Customer Service Representative | Tampa, FL | Jun 12, 2021
Microsoft and Costco (Alorica)
Alorica was an awesome job at first when we were working in the office. The office atmosphere and people made the job worth while. On the other hand, the job I did specifically was not worth the pay. I worked for Microsoft Advertising, which paid $12 an hour. We were expert customer support for Microsoft Advertising and did not receive the pay we were worth. There is something called an ‘Agency’ which do exactly what we did, except they don’t have internal methods like us and are not official Microsoft advertising support, but these Agencies pay around $19 an hour.
When coronavirus hit, we all started working from home and numbers started to drop (we were understaffed). Microsoft, a multi-billion dollar company decided to pull the program from Alorica. Instead of letting us go, Alorica decided to transfer us to other programs. The entire transfer process was horrible. Not only did they not mention ahead of time that we would be out of work for a week, until the new trainings started, but they were super vague about our transfer options. From the beginning they said we would have many different options but it took weeks to hear our options which were super vague. The options were things like, Costco support for $15. No information about what the job entailed. So I knew I wanted the $15 dollar job and Costco was customer support from my understanding. Fast forward to training, the Costco support I ‘agreed’ to turns out to be for technical support, not the e-commerce Costco su
ProsPeople and office environment
ConsAlorica management, terrible programs, and terrible with paying their employees
3.0
Customer Service Representative | Greensboro, NC | Dec 19, 2018
a stepping stone, but not a career
I respect the fact that Verizon wants to keep the customer information secure, but the paperless environment is quite worrisome. If you're a visual learner, then you start a potentially crippling disadvantage.
Even so, trainer was great. She taught us a lot in five weeks. She prepared us for many varying scenarios.
After the five weeks of classroom training, we went to "ABAY." The nesting managers constantly told us to forget what we learned in training. Numerous times, they informed us of alternate processes for the same objective. I don't mind learning multiple possibilities of system, but my problem with the process was their condescending disposition. "Why would you do it that way?" "That don't work! Do it like this!" They seriously need lessons on how to teach without belittling their students.
After ABAY, they assign us to our managers based on our shift preferences. Some managers are very helpful. Some managers are a little too aggressive with the "I'm going to teach you to be self-sufficient" behavior. They even go so far as to refuse to take any "sup calls." No matter how irate the customer is, no matter how many times that they demand a supervisor, we must find a way to deescalate the call. They say that this is because we have the same resources that they do, but the reality is: they can waive fees we can't. They can change a customer back to grandfathered plans that we can't.
The Unit Managers (one level about Team Managers) have little to no idea how
Prosit's a job (better than being unemployed), excellent insurance coverage w/ life insurance
Conshigh school environment, unpaid holidays, so we must work overtime on other days
1.0
Customer Service Representative | Lake Mary, FL | Jan 16, 2019
The Most Soul-Crushing Experience I Have Ever Endured
Working here sucked out the life and any ounce of joy left in me. You are trained to dance around the truth and not tell customers anything or you had points taken off your score and your monthly bonus is compromised. Everything you do compromises your monthly bonus. Management constantly dangled those bonuses in our face, week after week, as a way to encourage us to do better on our calls, but really a manipulative tactic to get us to do what QA wanted. QA marks off points for the most arbitrary reasons. A coworker of mine got points taken off her call because she didn’t say “excuse me” after clearing her throat.
Their attendance system makes you terrified to call out of work. Their scheduling department is unknown to us and doesn’t even exist at their facility, it is supposedly done over seas. Schedule changes were hard to come by unless you wanted to work overnight. People were often sent home against their will due to low call volume or their computer passwords needed to be reset. Extremely cold temperatures on the floor, not even a blanket would help. We weren’t allowed books, card games... not even paper at your desk was allowed. Eventually management took away the ability to bring snacks onto the floor because no one was cleaning up after themselves. Most days I wouldn’t be able to eat until I got onto the floor for the day. God forbid you were in “the wrong aux code” when you were finishing up a notation in a call. You absolutely HAD to be taking another call 45
ProsJob stability, guaranteed hours, one on one performance counseling sessions with managers
ConsShort breaks, high expectations, toxic environment, careless managers
I waited a year or so to write this review, and honestly I should have done it sooner, but this workplace has been on my mind enough for me that I wanted to lay out my words here. So hopefully I get this off my shoulders.
I have hardly anything positive to say about the Joplin location for Alorica. The break room was nice and my supervisors for the most part were good people.
Now for everything else. I was miserable here. Toxic work environment, no camaraderie, and a lot of issues I had there.
The work environment was toxic with the way people would act and things in the workplace that gave off the impression.
I hope the swastikas carved in the men's bathroom were removed. I brought it up several times to supervisors, but nothing seemed to be done. There was also the time that I came across a keyboard on the production floor with swastikas and "KILL ME" carved into it. I reported it and the keyboard was disposed, but how it got there was beyond me.
The type of people I was around were a mixed bag. Some were nice, some were hard to be around, and some were plain rude. Like people making inappropriate remarks in the chat program and nothing being done to reprimand them properly.
Communication was often a huge issue for me, like getting help from supervisors when needed, and sometimes waiting up to 45 minutes if I needed someone to take over the call.
The parking lots were poorly maintained and poorly lit. Didn't exactly feel the safest there at night.
Be
1.0
Customer Service Representative | Remote | Jul 10, 2019
High hopes about company were diminished over time
I was (still technically employed but not for long) a work from home CSR (Customer Service Representative) with Alorica, and our contract was with a major Canadian retailer. During this time I spent 1 year on the phones and after 4-5 months, became a Subject Matter Expert (commonly referred to as an SME or a "roamer"). In this role, I assisted the other CSR's in our chatroom and took "Supervisor" calls.
The training was weak as to be expected for a CSR job but the trainer did as best as she could, and I found that the software was very easy to work with, so learning on the spot was a non issue for me.
Ultimately, this was a non-traditional job with no real emotional support; when you are working from home it is fairly isolating as I cant make a real friendship in a virtual world. And as a CSR job is naturally stressful, this was another factor to add to the stress.
Another stressful factor was that there are some members in management who are holding the company and the contract back. When a customer had a cancelled order due to verification issues with the method of payment, the majority of the SME's would advise to honor the sales price. However our quality coach disagreed, so depending on which SME the agent spoke to, the agent would get a different answer. This is one of many inconsistencies with our team
Another situation with the quality coach was the last supervisor call I took. We have one chatroom and in that chatroom as where we all communicate. A agent
ProsOvertime opportunities
ConsEverything else
Questions And Answers about Alorica
What would you suggest Alorica management do to prevent others from leaving?
Asked Mar 15, 2017
Give us paid sick time, better health insurance, and higher pay. Give us paid mental health resources. Teach the corporate staff to respect the CCRs.
Answered Oct 19, 2021
Need to provide more time for new employees to learn the system, all the necessary tools and how it all works. Management should understand that new employees need more time to understand, feel comfortable about using them and be able understand the know when and how they need to use them. They should consider changing their attendance policy as anything can happen unexpectedly every day. Employees and their family should be considered regarding sick days or personal days, aside from vacation time earned and not feel threatened they will be terminated over whatever happened.
Answered Sep 19, 2021
What is the interview process like at Alorica?
Asked Feb 8, 2018
It was very quick. It took about 15-30 minutes. There are two rounds of interviews. The initial interview is mainly asking you about your background history. The second interview is the start of your onboarding process.
Beware employee, they will not tell you this during the training class: You have to pass two tests with what you've learned in training class, and pass with an 80% in order to keep the job. If you don't pass, you'll be fired on the spot. They will not give you any hints or clues, but tell you the day before there's a test.
Answered Oct 20, 2021
It was a 15 minute process. Once they called me, they asked basic questions about my eligibility to work, then went into the actual questions. How do you handle stress, how do you explain something to someone who doesn’t understand, when were you required to use multiple sources to gather information, how do you build relationships with people, and one other question. I asked my questions and bam, verbal offer. If you’re looking to have virtually no free time, then this is the job for you.
Answered Aug 31, 2021
What is the best part of working at Alorica?
Asked Nov 23, 2019
To work in Alorica is a Big opportunity just to know something more
Answered May 20, 2021
Signing off and going HOME.
Answered Dec 31, 2020
If you were to leave Alorica, what would be the reason?
Asked Mar 15, 2017
They should find better benefit choices
Answered Mar 29, 2021
The response to COVID at the El Paso West site was god-awful. Otherwise, as stated by many others around the US: TMs can be nice or awful slave drivers, upper management doesn’t care, high turnover rates, if you’re sick they still want you to come in on your death bed or if you’re about to pop while pregnant (don’t think they have maternity leave as I’ve seen several pregnant co-workers lament about having to return as soon as possible after giving birth). You are probably better than that, so don’t do it.
Answered Nov 2, 2020
How flexible are your working hours at Alorica?
Asked Mar 13, 2020
For the Samsung project, you could only work either a morning or an evening shift. The 8 hours are not flexible if you have tasks to do during the day.
During training, they gave us the 6am - 3pm for the day shift. There was the 2pm - 11pm for the night shift. If you feel uncomfortable working during the nightly hours, they will not listen to you but instead question you (in a gaslighting tone) if you're really interested in the job.
Answered Oct 20, 2021
Not flexible at all. Time off has to be requested at least 2 weeks in advance, but no more than 90 days. You can't request a self trade for time off 2 days ahead of time, but the time has to be made up that week, and depending on the timing, you might find yourself working a 13 hour day. They strictly monitor breaks and lunches, points are given if you're late back from lunch, if you call in, start late, or leave early for any reason, if it hasn't been approved ahead of time.
