APAC Customer Services Reviews

Pros

Great pay.
Hours are always available.
Bilingual a HUGE plus.

Cons

Call center.
Get monitored frequently.
Don't get stuck in one department too long; you'll never get out.

Pros

promote from within for management

Cons

low pay, making the incentives are 50% what you put into it and %50 based on customers actions

Advice to Senior Management

raise the wages for employees to decrease the high turnover

Pros

Good people to work with. Job Security. Due to high expectations if you make it at APAC you can make it in any call center environment.

Cons

Advancements are based on who you know and who likes you. Perception is their reality regardless of your work ethics. You are only as good as your last success in their eyes. You can be on top of the world one day and out the door the next. Lack of development in leadership positions. In one statement if promoted to leadership you are thrown to the dogs and set up for failure. Not many members of leadership act as mentors...more like dictators.

Advice to Senior Management

Develop your employees and stop worrying about the numbers all the time and focus on moral.

Pros

Relatively easy to get hired, when openings are available. Very clean call center, with large work stations. All new equipment, operation began in December 2011.

Cons

Limited training, considering the complexity of the job. You must access a very complex S.O.P. database for every step of the work process, even after committing the job requirements to memory. Constantly changing work standards, methodology and requirements. High stress job, with very rigorous call quality standards and strict attendance policies. Starting pay is only 10$ an hour, with one pay raise after a year's service, maximum 50 cents an hour increase. High cost medical benefit packages, with high deductibles. Small crowded break rooms. Business casual dress code.

Advice to Senior Management

APAC should have made a higher bid, when initially contracting with Medco. The pay scale is too low for this type of work. They are now locked into a 3 year contract. Employee turn-over is bound to be high, due to job stress and low pay. My advice to management, would be to relax the dress code. Negotiate better medical insurance packages for employees. Increase the size and number of break rooms. Be more lenient with your attendance point system. Improve the training, by allowing more hands-on access to the software and don't crowd the classrooms. Raise your hiring standards, too many employees are under qualified. The APAC employee self-service website is NOT ACCESSIBLE from a home computer, using the instructions provided. This needs to be corrected.

Pros

There are a few quality leaders in Sr. Management. There are some areas in the company that are well run. APAC is a company that offers opportunities for job seekers often viewed as un-employable by other firms.

Cons

Out-sourcing is a difficult and highly competitive industry. APAC manipulates client results to gain an unfair advantage with competitors. Sr. management often uses intimidation and bullying to "lead". This, coupled w/intense pressure from clients, leads to rules being bent and/or broken. Sr. management changes the past 2 years were heavily geared toward positioning the company to be acquired. The new leadership did whatever it took to make the financials look good (at the cost of running the business as it should be) and the company was sold in mid-2011. The company is no longer focused on client success as the new CEO and majority of the Sr. Team have questionable approaches and ethics. The new CEO has very limited industry knowledge and was brought in solely to sell the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Until some key Sr. Leaders are replaced, APAC will continue to struggle. A fundamental return to basic business ethics and processes is key to any improvement. "Associates" need to be treated fairly and paid livable wages. Financial results for 2011 were well under projections despite questionable efforts to reduce expenses and artificially inflate revenue/profits to ensure an acquisition would be completed.

Pros

Constant feedback with regard to performance, good incentives for those who go above and beyond, generally good first and second level management.

Cons

Inconsistent information and answers regarding client policy, incentive system has too great an element of luck involved (e.g. one can be effectively barred from incentives by following policy, assuming one has sufficiently bad luck).

Advice to Senior Management

Attempt to get information out to the call floor on a more regular basis. Print more materials expounding on new and changing policies, as it can often be a game of telephone by the time it gets down to us in the trenches.

Pros

Get resume and skill set building.

Cons

Not a great deal of career growth. Management opportunities are limited and the local management is at the whims of corporate banks.

Advice to Senior Management

Purchase the MS account and create an employee owned company.

Pros

Gave you extra .50 cents when you pass a corporate call.
casual dress
Can advance quickly to team lead or other departments
Good benefits

Cons

Scream for One location to another which not proffesional at all or organized.
Not properly trained on certain areas especially my choice on ups.com
No coaching to know if you doing good or bad.
Team lead are clueless. They look like chicken without heads. When customer ask for a supervisor they never wanna handle all they say it " you need to learn how to descalate the call" which don't help. Also everything is sending messages to the customer Service hub onthe customers city and state which many times can't do nothing. When I'm Customer Service I should be happy to help more but don't got the tools to do so.

Advice to Senior Management

Find a better way to help Customer with there packages. Everything is not the driver or sending messages. Team lead need training themselves bc half of my questions they didn't know and they would ask another team lead. All leads had different answers which makes it hard to pass a corporate call. Pay attention to customers and employees which helps stay in business.

Pros

Advancement opportunities with in the company

Cons

Upper management does not care about their employees there's no communication at all

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate with your team leads

Pros

Flex hours, ability to advance, bonuses available at some sites. Tend to give center managers plenty of leeway in how center is run--although management styles are largely dictated below that position.

Cons

Rote positions, not a lot of leeway in management styles. Tend to locate centers where cost-of-living is low and thus wages are lower than that of competitors. High turnover leads to over-spending of resources on hiring and training.