AT&T CEO says hard to find candidates for customer service jobs (he's lying)

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Since when do customer service jobs count as skilled? Please.... he is lying through his teeth. A CSR skillset can be developed in almost anyone with a few weeks of training!!!

-VJ Troll

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - The head of the top U.S. phone company AT&T Inc (T.N) said on Wednesday it was having trouble finding enough skilled workers to fill all the 5,000 customer service jobs it promised to return to the United States from India.

"We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs," AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio, where the company's headquarters is located.

So far, only around 1,400 jobs have been returned to the United States of 5,000, a target it set in 2006, the company said, adding that it maintains the target.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080327/tc_nm/att_workforce_dc

[Heracles 417]

Since when do customer service jobs count as skilled? Please.... he is lying through his teeth. A CSR skillset can be developed in almost anyone with a few weeks of training!!!

-VJ Troll

He's is full of ####. Especially when the economy is the way it is here.

Decent CSRs do take a few months to train and acquire the appropriate knowledge about products. Try calling crapcast and you will see how poorly their reps are trained.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

crapcast, lol.

I don't think I've spoken to a CSR in years who wasn't a waste of time. The standards are very low now. You can get a CSR taking calls with a few weeks of training, IMO. It does take months before the CSR is truly good, though. But by then they leave and go work for someone else. Turnover is a problem, here and in India too. But these CEOs like to pretend the US workforce has all the problems while in India it's all smooth sailing... it is not.

[Otto 83]

"We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs,"

What he means is...'For $5.75 an hour...we're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs."

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

"We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs,"

What he means is...'For $5.75 an hour...we're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs."

Probably.

Patriot Media has job fairs here every few months for CSR positions. I drove someone to one recently, could hardly find a place to park. I waited outside, spoke to a few people, almost everybody was employed in sh1tty jobs in retail and the restaurant business and wanted something better... and they thought this was it. They end up hiring a small number out of the huge number of applicants they get. But then they do that every 2-3 months because of turnover.

Not enough customer service people in america? What a fukcin lie.

[Heracles 417]

crapcast, lol.

I don't think I've spoken to a CSR in years who wasn't a waste of time. The standards are very low now. You can get a CSR taking calls with a few weeks of training, IMO. It does take months before the CSR is truly good, though. But by then they leave and go work for someone else. Turnover is a problem, here and in India too. But these CEOs like to pretend the US workforce has all the problems while in India it's all smooth sailing... it is not.

I spoke to over 33 people at crapcast begging for them to fix my phone service. Whereas companies like American express are on the ball. I think all of the teclos seem to employ people who have no idea. I remember speaking to someone at verizon and teaching them about their products.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

crapcast, lol.

I don't think I've spoken to a CSR in years who wasn't a waste of time. The standards are very low now. You can get a CSR taking calls with a few weeks of training, IMO. It does take months before the CSR is truly good, though. But by then they leave and go work for someone else. Turnover is a problem, here and in India too. But these CEOs like to pretend the US workforce has all the problems while in India it's all smooth sailing... it is not.

I spoke to over 33 people at crapcast begging for them to fix my phone service. Whereas companies like American express are on the ball. I think all of the teclos seem to employ people who have no idea. I remember speaking to someone at verizon and teaching them about their products.

I had fun with a clueless beeyotch from Vonage. All I wanted to do was disconnect my service, her playbook required that she record a reason and the reason I gave her was more verbose than it could have been and she didn't know which category it went into. So she ended up reading the whole thing out to me so I could help pick an answer out for her. I turned the whole thing into a conversation on what the different answers meant and how they overlap. In the end, we got disconnected, I called back, got someone else and got the disconnect wrapped up in a jiffy.

[Heracles 417]

Not enough customer service people in america? What a fukcin lie.

I can think of 100 places off the top of my head that would be more than happy to have AT&T setup a call center. He should just come say that there are no CSR who will work for the few dollars an hour they are willing to pay.

We used to pay our reps $16 an hour in AUS. It was a win win situation. Surprise Surprise the call centers / companies that I worked in which paid poorly are now bankrupt. These bottom line CEO / CFOs don't seem to understand you get what you pay for. They need to look at Google and compare them to Ford and GM. The latter two are companies which cut corners and are now almost bankrupt.

Edited March 27, 2008 by Boo-Yah!

[HAL 9000 96]

Since when do customer service jobs count as skilled? Please.... he is lying through his teeth. A CSR skillset can be developed in almost anyone with a few weeks of training!!!

-VJ Troll

He's is full of ####. Especially when the economy is the way it is here.

Decent CSRs do take a few months to train and acquire the appropriate knowledge about products. Try calling crapcast and you will see how poorly their reps are trained.

FINALLY something we agree on 110%. Well written.

CSR training at AT&T was 13 weeks long, including live call training in the last 2-3 weeks, and a week of call-based training that weeds out those that are not qualified to be released to their respective call centers.

Due to budgetary concerns, the training program is now 11 weeks.

And we do differ on one aspect of the name for AT&T's competitor. I call them comcrap. Go figure.

[HAL 9000 96]

"We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs,"

What he means is...'For $5.75 an hour...we're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs."

Most CSRs at AT&T start at approx $16.00 per hour before commissions that usually boost monthly salaries by 50-75%.

And they juggle between 25 and 30 different programs on their work terminals all the while talking with less than stellar customers.

[HAL 9000 96]

crapcast, lol.

I don't think I've spoken to a CSR in years who wasn't a waste of time. The standards are very low now. You can get a CSR taking calls with a few weeks of training, IMO. It does take months before the CSR is truly good, though. But by then they leave and go work for someone else. Turnover is a problem, here and in India too. But these CEOs like to pretend the US workforce has all the problems while in India it's all smooth sailing... it is not.

I spoke to over 33 people at crapcast begging for them to fix my phone service. Whereas companies like American express are on the ball. I think all of the teclos seem to employ people who have no idea. I remember speaking to someone at verizon and teaching them about their products.

Try waiting 6 months to get a service reimbursement...

AT&T keeps VERY stringent CS standards. That's one reason people get canned. The other reason is that many can't take the culture of extreme micromanagement there.

[stevi1123 0]

Maybe he can start by re-hiring all of us who were laid off en masse back in the 90's. It took quite a while to re coup from that devastation. I had to transfer from Atlanta to Cincinnati (which was good because it was my home town), to keep my job, then two years later, most of the Cincinnati jobs were phased out. It was good while it lasted though. Great salary and benefits, etc... I wonder what they are offering now. Actually, I really don't even care. I have moved on - but I will never forget how AT&T had zero concern for thousands of loyal employees by "downsizing" us outta there.

[Amby 490]

they just opened an AT&T call center here a few months ago...a lot of my sister's friends got jobs there cos they're starting at $12.50/hr...maybe I want to be a call center b*tch for a few weeks

[DARUMA07 25]

crapcast, lol.

I don't think I've spoken to a CSR in years who wasn't a waste of time. The standards are very low now. You can get a CSR taking calls with a few weeks of training, IMO. It does take months before the CSR is truly good, though. But by then they leave and go work for someone else. Turnover is a problem, here and in India too. But these CEOs like to pretend the US workforce has all the problems while in India it's all smooth sailing... it is not.

I spoke to over 33 people at crapcast begging for them to fix my phone service. Whereas companies like American express are on the ball. I think all of the teclos seem to employ people who have no idea. I remember speaking to someone at verizon and teaching them about their products.

I had fun with a clueless beeyotch from Vonage. All I wanted to do was disconnect my service, her playbook required that she record a reason and the reason I gave her was more verbose than it could have been and she didn't know which category it went into. So she ended up reading the whole thing out to me so I could help pick an answer out for her. I turned the whole thing into a conversation on what the different answers meant and how they overlap. In the end, we got disconnected, I called back, got someone else and got the disconnect wrapped up in a jiffy.

I had the same problem disconnecting from Vonage. It felt like it was almost a crime to want to discontinue their service....