US Call-Center Jobs — That Pay $100K a Year 362
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timothy
from the payment-for-the-gift-of-gab dept.
from the payment-for-the-gift-of-gab dept.
bheer writes "BusinessWeek profiles a call center company called iQor which has grown revenues 40% year-on-year by (shock) treating employees as critical assets. It's done this not by nickel-and-diming, but by expanding its US operations (13 centers across the US now), giving employees universal health insurance, and paying salaries and bonuses that are nearly 50% above industry norms. The article notes that outsourcing will continue and globalization will continue to change the world's economic landscape. 'But the US is hardly helpless. With smart processes and the proper incentives, US companies can keep jobs here in America, and do so in a way that is actually better for the company and its employees.' Now if only other companies get a clue as well."
Um, I'm doubtful (Score:5, Insightful)
A phrase I saw in the summary almost had me sending a note to timothy from the "See any serious problems with this story? Email our on-duty editor" link, then when I RTFA I saw that it was word for word from TFA: "IQor also gives its U.S. employees universal health insurance".
A meaningless phrase, I think. The words "health insurance" suffices; universal health insurance is what Canadian and European residents get from their government. Bad writing at the least, which lead me to suspect that there were bad facts as well. However, most of the rest of it seemed well written.
Sure, some companies, such as Dell (DELL), have moved call centers back home after customer protests.
Makes it look like the customers are protesting outsourcing, when in fact what pisses most people off is that the offshore phone monkeys are completely unintelligible. If you're handling calls from Mexican customers, your call center workers should be able to speak fluent Spanish, not bad Spanish like I speak.
The best of iQor's front-line call-center workers make more than $100,000 per year.
What's the starting wage? TFA doesn't say.
And unlike many of its competitors, and an increasing number of other U.S. companies, iQor offers all its employees good health insurance and generous benefits packages.
Some time in the early 1980s, the head of one of the airlines (that ironically became a union airline later) said "any company that gets a union deserves one". Treat your employees like shit, and they will treat your customers like shit, and may even organize a union.
IQor also invests in technology designed to make its employees more efficient
Gad, there's little I hate worse than robocallers. When I say "hello" you better echo my "hello" PDQ or I'm hanging the phone up. You called me; don't put me on hold as soon as I answer without even responding.
From TFS: But the US is hardly helpless. With smart processes and the proper incentives, U.S. companies can keep jobs here in America, and do so in a way that is actually better for the company and its employees.
That assumes that today's busiesspeople aren't so greedy and stupid that they're like the monkey who has his hand stuck in the jar, too stupidly greedy to let go of the treat inside. A pretty unwarranted assumption, I think.
This... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure in the lean times we don't get the nice bonuses we are used to but we get to keep our jobs because they don't squander away money when times are good because they know bad times are coming.
Common sense that seems lost in this day and age.
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:2, Insightful)
read the fucking article
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate to say this, but the company I work for (pick any 3 letters), and any other IT company ends up doing the same thing as this company.
Either they get competent staff on the front lines, or your back end Sys Engineering staff ends up supporting issues they should have been handled at the front lines.
Not helpless, but uninterested and clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
Quote: "But the US is hardly helpless. With smart processes and the proper incentives, U.S. companies can keep jobs here in America
.
Managers rarely care, and even more rarely, have the technical expertise to handle labor decisions in ways that benefit themselves and the country. Their entire focus is getting that next bonus. If they have to move 75% of their operations to lower Slobbovia to do it, they will, rather than spend the 15 minutes of googling and thinking that would allow them to do the job more efficiently and cheaply in the USA.
.
Unfortunately, in the USA, most managers have MBAs but nothing else, an education which seems to leave most of them with the ability to do almost anything financial except understand and run a business in real time.
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure there are some things to nitpick in this particular case, but for all the different ways of crushing souls that corporations have come up with, there are still plenty of companies out there that see value in having happy employees, and with owners just trying to make an honest buck, rather than squeezing every possible dime out of the world.
I guess the lesson at the end of the day is that there's more than one way to run a business. Imagine that.
Universal health insurance (Score:4, Insightful)
In addition to these benefits, the company also offers world peace, satellite launches, and ponies.
Keeping jobs in the US is easy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What a load of crap... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:5, Insightful)
The words "health insurance" suffices; universal health insurance is what Canadian and European residents get from their government.
No, it makes sense. Many companies offer health insurance to salaried professionals, but not to hourly employees. Others have different plans available for workers at different levels. In the context of a business, "universal" excludes those cases.
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:5, Insightful)
Even though they say that they can give you more perks, the call center jobs still sucks...
Why?
Because when a company is proud that it's turnover rate is only 45% (less than half the industry's average), it tells me that this job is something I would never want to touch with a five foot pole (as opposed to a ten foot one).
A company with 45% turnover on 11000 employees means approximately 4950 employees get churned out in a year. That still isn't very good...
Re:Keeping jobs in the US is easy... (Score:4, Insightful)
At the very least, minimum wage should be decided at the state or local level. What constitutes a "fair" minimum wage in B-F-Nowhere, Ohio sure as hell isn't a "fair" wage in New York City.
Re:This... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
Immigrants have always been key innovators in American business. Nothing ironic about that.
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:5, Insightful)
From my understanding of TFA, IQor does customer service type of stuff. So, sophisticated knowledge bases, good front-ends for customer service tools, flexible processes, etc. can all be examples of tech that makes a customer service group more efficient (there's much more). Robocallers wouldn't even apply (the only automated piece of the called is, sometimes, the greeting).
Did I miss something?
Re:This... (Score:4, Insightful)
The point of capitalism is not to lift up the employees.
You are looking at this through the evil end of the prism. The point of the article is that you can make money *while* lifting up employees, possibly more than if you crush them beneath your booted heal.
Only works when customer service actually matters (Score:5, Insightful)
If you've already made a decision to provide crap customer service (an MBA would call it "minimizing service cost to the extent feasible"), it is cheaper to do this from locations with low labor costs. Most companies still prefer to provide crap customer service, and if you call almost any company selling cable, wireless, credit card, satellite, ISP service, banking, or insurance of any kind this is what you're likely to get.
I presume that iQor is working with clients in high-value segments where high-quality customer service still matters. At this point, such a market is relatively small. There's no doubt it costs more, because you have to be able to retain the good reps, which means you can't put as much pressure on them to meet quotas, and you have to pay them more, and generally put up with things like doctor visits and bathroom breaks that drive down productivity. And you have to hire managers who actually know how to manage and motivate people. Compared to low-wage offshore locations, you end up paying 10x or 20x as much per call (I'm guessing).
The wireless places and the banks and credit cards aren't, at this point, willing to do this. They model how much churn they're going to get, and what it will cost them, and decide that it isn't worth it. So it's a niche, where if you've sold someone a $20,000 injection molding machine or something, you feel more compelled to have someone on the phone who can actually figure out when it's going to ship.
I'm not convinced that that changes anything, because niches by their nature do not scale well.
And I don't think that my cell phone company is going to start having live humans making $30 an hour answer 611 calls on the second ring, either.
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:5, Insightful)
A company with 45% turnover on 11000 employees means approximately 4950 employees get churned out in a year. That still isn't very good...
A call-center job, no matter how fun and rewarding it might be, is still an entry-level position. When most of your workforce is already planning on being somewhere else in a few years while you are training them in, a 45% turnover rate is OUTSTANDING.
If you're still holding the exact same position at the exact same company which you took right after graduation, that's not an "entry-level" job, but a "dead-end" job.
A call center is where you work while you take night classes in network administration, computer programming, or towards your MBA, which will prep you for whatever your REAL career will be. Nobody dreams about growing up to deal with angry customers for a living until retirement, unless you mean "deal with" them in the mafia sense of the word.
Re:wealth generation by industry (Score:4, Insightful)
The widening income gap has left a huge hole in consumer items, particularly durable goods. High end goods (ie durables that actually last) are many multiples of the price of cheaper goods. Somehow luxury and utility/durability have merged. If you don't believe me go try and buy a set of knives. Your choices are: a) bendy throwaway toys at walmart/target/whatever or b) half a paycheck at some kitchen boutique.
My policy now is that if something is supposed to last (and I can afford it or afford to do without it for a while) I make sure to buy well and buy once. It sucks though that I have to do so from brands and places that have outrageous markups though.
"companies" may get a clue - executives won't. (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope one day people will realize that most executives (in publicly-traded companies) DON'T have the companies', the investors' or the employees' interests at heart. Most of these executives gained their position due to crafty manipulation and NOT by actually, really improving a product or product line, increasing profitability or market share. But they were and will be always great at presenting their (short or very short term) results in the best light possible, and excellent at knowing and manipulating the right people.
This breed of executives will outsource to poor countries (thus providing a short-term, fleeting increase in margins), lower salaries and/or fire employees at home (thus providing a short-term, fleeting increase in margins) and eliminate R&D and products/services (thus providing a short-term, fleeting increase in margins) - which will look good for a short while. Long enough to get a new promotion or a job at another company, after cashing in.
Please do yourself a favor and have a glance at this book. [amazon.com]
Re:This... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a simple rank, 'tho. Without employees, customers are useless. Without customers, employees are useless. Without customers and employees, executives are useless. Of the three, executives are most expendable. Or, at least, most of the executives.
If it doesn't make sense, there's a reason. (Score:5, Insightful)
These $100k phone jobs aren't, "How do I plug in the VCR?" support.
As somebody else pointed out, It's collections and sales. That's a totally different beast from what most geeks think of as call-center.
These 6-figure people collect or sell 7-figures. They are not informing you that the router is down, or giving you the IP address for the mail server.
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
What industry finds call center work so valuable that they can pay iQor enough to pay its employees so well?
Pretty much all of them. The only difference with iQor is that they are focusing their cashflow in a different way than the traditional model.
They are paying the people who directly create wealth instead of the risk managers who indirectly create wealth. Given that risk management (capital management, the executives) is becoming a rather boring and formulaic specialty, and that we recently proved that the "best" really aren't that much better at it (the bank collapse was a direct result of poor risk management), it seems reasonable to shift cashflow toward paying the direct creators of wealth and to get by with more state school BABMs and fewer Columbia MBAs.
Over the past 40 years in particular we shifted to the point of paying risk managers compensatory wages that exceed their wealth creation, while paying labor competitive wages that are vastly below their wealth creation. Perhaps that made sense when capital/risk management was a new, complex, and poorly understood science. What this company seems to be positing, and something with which I agree, is that capital/risk management is becoming formulaic, and so now a portion of the risk management compensation cashflow can be efficiently repurposed toward improving the quality of the product (hiring better communicators in this case).
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This... (Score:5, Insightful)
Errhm...There's a reason that so many people have poor experiences with work -- it is almost guaranteed that you will make significantly more money by crushing them beneath your booted heel...
Actually that is not true. Why was Henry Ford successful? Because he paid his employees enough to be able to afford the cars he produced. Robert Heinlein called it enlightened self interest. If I run a business and treat my employees well (and make sure that they know it), they will be more likely to do everything in their power to make my business more successful. On the other hand if I work for a business and it treats me well, if I do everything in my power to make that business successful, I am more likely to have job security.
Re:This... (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of capitalism is not to lift up the employees. The point is to take their work and pay them less than the amount of money it generated for the business, do the same for yourself while investing the difference.
There, fixed that for you.
There'll be anomalies here and there, but it's never been normal for employees to be paid in proportion to the value they create.
Nope, never. Not even non-profits do that. Not even communist countries do that. No one, ever, ever, ever does that as a matter of practice and stays in business. You see, there are things other than the employee that must be paid for. Taxes for one. Social Security is mostly paid by your employer. If a company paid you exactly what you produce for the company, the company would be losing money in Soc. Sec. alone. Of course, there is the building you work in, your desk, your phone, your computer, the PC that you use to browse slashdot and so on that your company pays for so that you can do your job.
It's called overhead and everyone pays it. Even contractors that work for and pay themselves still have to take a chunk out for overhead.
Also, stop trying to bash capitalism and profit. First of all, profit is not a dirty word. It is the point of business. If a business doesn't make a profit, why bother? It would be just as good to stuff the money in your mattress. It would be better to buy CD's or government bonds.
And capitalism... you have a problem with capitalism? I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm sure you will be happy in your new job making rubber vomit in a factory in China. I'm sure those factory workers are so much more happy than those of us sitting in cushy chairs in our climate controlled buildings surfing the web here in the Capitalist West!
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:1, Insightful)
My God. Are Americans really this stupid? Or is it just callousness?
Hint: Horrors are tens of millions of people with no right to healthcare, how can this even be up for discussion?
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not "universal" healthcare until every one in the universe is covered. Guh! Surely we can pay for that by just forcing the rich to pay their fair share of taxes, right?
Seriously, I doubt the toilet cleaner has health insurance from IQor, because he's not an iQor employee. iQor might be a great place for all I know, but many companies who proclaim "wonderful benefits for all employees" have a suspiciously low percentage of workers who are actually employees, and the others generally get treated like crap. Google is really extreme about this: I keep expecting the announcement that there are now two sets of bathrooms, one for employees and one for contractors (from the news I've seen, Google contactors can't have any of the free sodas, can't eat in the cafeteria, can't use the ping-pong tables, are beaten if they allow their shadow to touch an employee, etc, etc).
the 'right' to health care (Score:1, Insightful)
> Horrors are tens of millions of people with no right to healthcare, how can this even be up for discussion?
I agree, how can we even have a discussion about some mythical 'right' to healthcare? Hint: It isn't a 'right' if it requires the enslavement of someone else. Doctors and the rest of the healthcare industry are not required to serve you. You do not have a moral claim on their services.
This is the problem with all of the new progressive 'rights' they kee on inventing compared to real human rights. To illustrate, free speech is a fundamental Right possessed by every human being, regardless whether they live in a hellhole that oppresses them. But the right to speak does not give me the right to demand a printing press be given to me, it doesn't include the right to storm into a speech being given by someone else and demand a turn at the microphone, etc. It doesn't include an obligation on you to even listen to me. But Freedom of Speech does imply a right to listen/read whoever the heck you want to.
Regarding health care you have a Right to trade freely with anyone you can come to a mutually agreeable deal with. Any government that interferes with that right is oppressing you to varying degrees.
And there aren't tens of millions of Americans without health care. That is a lie invented by the progressives to try and scare us into doing something stupid. The number they throw around is usually 47M. An instant with Google gets this:
---
The Breakdown
The largest, overlapping, groups of uninsured in the US include:
* 9,000,000 Millionaires
* 27,000,000 people who make more than $50,000 per year, but choose not to get insurance
* 22,000,000 Young adults who can afford insurance, but choose not to
* 14,000,000 People who can already get medicaid, but choose not to
* 11,000,000 Illegal Immigrants
* 23,000,000 People who are actually insured. That's right; you've been lied to...surprised?
This adds up to more than forty seven million, because of the overlap - for example young adults who are millionaires and change insurance companies fit into four categories, above.
---
And anybody can walk into an emergency room and get care regardless of their ability to pay, that is Federal Law. Dumb perhaps but it is our current law. Of course since we don't have universal health care you can usually go to an emergency room and get to see someone before you die, unlike the routine horror stories coming out of the British press.
Re:the 'right' to health care (Score:5, Insightful)
Practically all British GP's run their own businesses. There's nothing preventing them from operating entirely privately, and many do, but most strong to receive NHS payment to take NHS patients because it's well paid and takes all the billing issues out of the equation. A large chunk of British hospital employees also offer private services. Many of them in NHS hospitals, using spare capacity that they can get access to at a low cost, benefitting both them and the public who get some of their hospital costs offset by private providers that way.
Certainly none of them are being forced or coerced, and clearly I must be misguided seeing as I don't know of any countries that force people to become doctors and then force them to work for the public. But I guess that doesn't fit with your fantasy world.
All rights are human inventions. To pretend otherwise is meaningless.
And all rights are meaningless without at least the possibility of having the means and ability to make use of them. First and foremost that means actually staying alive and in good health. Any society that insists on caring about human rights that doesn't also take steps to ensure that everyone has a recent shot at good health is just plain taking the piss.
This is not a *new* idea - it's an idea that is well over 160 years old, gaining ground starting with the first socialist ideologists, and one that has been penetrating further right in the political landscape ever since (i.e. look at Europe where the vast majority of conservative parties no also staunchly support the concept of a *right* to a level of basic welfare).
You must be reading different stories from the British press than what they actually publish in Britain. As it stands here, anyone can go to an emergency room and be guaranteed treatment here too, but we don't because the vast majority of us get more than good enough treatment by going to our GP and get referred.
People who are not satisfied are perfectly free to get private health insurance - it's available and *cheap* since they only provide cover above and beyond services where they know they don't stand a chance of competing with the NHS.
Re:the 'right' to health care (Score:2, Insightful)
You do not have a moral claim on their services.
Actually, you do. They are professionals, and that is one of the 'catches' of being a health-care professional.
That is, if they have professional ethics. If they don't - well... they don't really have any business in the profession, but that's the profession's call.
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:the 'right' to health care (Score:1, Insightful)
ok, Ethics 101. If you have the power to prevent an evil and choose not to, you are, to some degree at least, responsible for that evil.
All developed nations have the capacity to provide universal healthcare, at a cost yes but it can be done easily. We acquire therefore a responsibility to do so, in the same way that if you see me dying of thirst and you have plenty of water, you acquire a responsibility to give me some. To invert it, I have a right to your water if I'm dying of thirst, assuming you have enough to share.
That is what I mean by a "right". It gets confusing talking to Americans, since to you a "right" in normal usage refers to something set down in the US constitution (as amended). I'm talking about a moral imperative.
And while I accept that the uninsured figures banded around are probably suspect, your own breakdown is still a damning indictment of your country.
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:3, Insightful)
A meaningless phrase, I think. The words "health insurance" suffices; universal health insurance is what Canadian and European residents get from their government. Bad writing at the least, which lead me to suspect that there were bad facts as well. However, most of the rest of it seemed well written.
No we don't.
Sure, if I stab myself with a fork, or need a prescription, going to a doctor or hospital is free. (expensive for the system, but free for me)
But dentists aren't free... and neither are optometrists. To get arch supports or other foot correction covered requires special (expensive) health insurance, but to get back surgery done doesn't.
After tripping down the stairs I had to pay for a chiropractic visit out of my own pocket. Our "universal healthcare" is pretty much limited to hospital/MD crap.
Re:Keeping jobs in the US is easy... (Score:3, Insightful)
what you're arguing for is the right for moneyed interests to run roughshod over both individual rights (e.g. the right to a safe workplace) and drive down individual opportunities.
We tried laissez faire in the 1890s - we got slums, tenements, sweatshops, and ultimately the dustbowl and the great depression. Every time we dial back regulation we end up with another S&L fiasco, Enron, or Lehman Brothers.
I know I'm not about to disabuse you of your supply side fantasy, but the facts are against you.
Re:the 'right' to health care (Score:3, Insightful)
I would say that personal liberty/freedom extends so far as not to infringe on an other person's rights. Lets assume we have the following rights... The right to live, the right to property, the right to defend one's life and property. All other rights can be considered secondary to these very basic rights. The right to travel is based on the right to live. The right to speak is based in the right to defend oneself and property. Personal freedom should extend so far as not to infringe on the rights of someone else. Law & government can be seen as those conditions where individual wants and needs overlap, and restrict the absolute extension of life and property.
Basically, I like to break things down into rights, needs, and wants. I should further state that I don't consider "intellectual property" to be property in terms of a "right" I consider it a want. Everything else pretty plainly fills into these categories which work out pretty well.
I find it ironic when people consider wants as "rights" where they infringe on another person's actual rights. ie: the want of a smoke-free environment outweighing a business owner's right of property (their business establishment). Yes, you can argue that smoking is a danger to one's health, but it isn't an immediate danger, and there is no restriction on a person to leave a smoking establishment. I only use this as an example here because it's probably the best example of this case. I don't like smoking, and wouldn't encourage it, however what someone does in their own property isn't the place of the government to regulate beyond an eminent danger such as poison, rotten food, etc.
I think people could get along a lot better if there were far less government intervention, and far more common sense over issues that should be relatively simple. And to the detractors against a free market, bear in mind that unionization, protest, and other means of rallying as a collective group are natural parts of a free market, as are loss and failure. Also bear in mind that globalization is not the same as a free market... you cannot trade freely with another party/group/country that does not trade freely.
Re:Um, I'm doubtful (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. I want to get paid (well) and then go home to the people I *really* want to hang out with. When I see companies with movie theaters and free drinks, all it tells me is that they expect their work to become my life. Thanks, but no thanks.
Re:the 'right' to health care (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact that people have to pay at all to get any kind of healthcare is just shit. Countries with universal healthcare don't "force" doctors to treat you. Doctors choose to work in whatever hospital they want, or open their own practice or quit and play the stock market or become a plumber... just like any other job.
All countries I lived in also had free universal healthcare, I went into the hospital several times as a kid with a broken arm or leg, got treated and walked out without even a mention of billing, payment insurance cards or anything like that. My brother stayed in hospital for 15 days and didn't pay anything. My partners mother had breast cancer, and not only was she treated within 1 day of being diagnosed (during a free annual visit), but all the surgery was free and even the reconstructive cosmetic surgery was free (this was in Finland btw).
In the 21st century, universal healthcare IS a right, especially in the developed world. It's not a matter of being left or right. There's absolutely no reason a government should allow its own people to have substandard access to healthcare.
It really shits me when I hear people talk about "death panels" and "forcing doctors" to work in hospitals without understanding f all about the concept of modern socialism. Oh no!!! socialism! nooooo we're all going to be enslaved! sent to the gulags! USA.. USA...USA
The fact is that the government already runs many services - Cops, firemen, the army, FBI, CIA and any number of federal agencies. Would you like to privatise those also? "somebody is robbing my house... come quick" "I'm sorry sir, that item is not covered by your Security Provision Policy... for only 13.50 extra a month we could add it on. It becomes effective after only a 40 day waiting period - subject to eligibility"
Sure people complain about public health systems in W. Europe, but protesting about stuff makes (good)governments do things about it.
The plain fact is that the US spends more on healthcare than anyone else and still has lags far far behind other countries.
All this crap about not supporting the poorest people because that's the capitalist way - bullshit... the only reason they rich can afford healthcare is by keeping the rest of you on minimum wage. Health care affordability isn't exactly skewed to the lower end of the income bell curve is it? If you were sick, would you rather get treated according to how sick you were or according to how much your policy allowed them to treat you?
I'm all for capitalism and small government, but up to a point. Certain things NEED to be handled by government (law&order, military, health, infrastructure) otherwise it becomes a shitfest with the lowest bidder building stuff to appease the lowest common denominator, interested only in todays profits rather than the betterment of society (and by extension the nation - the whole reason for the government to exist)
People are talking about freaking internet access being as fundamental as water and electricity - don't you think healthcare should take priority over that?