Pros

1. It's a job. It pays money which pays the bills... like my DTE bill.
2. The people there are probably the only reason I've stuck around as long as I have.
3. When it was $14 an hour with paid vacation and holidays, working afternoons was worth it.

Cons

1. NCO- If you don’t work at DTE, you probably don’t know this, but they contract out to an organization called NCO. NCO’s only purpose, as far as can be determined, is to take your calls as quickly as possible. They’ll tell you what you want to hear and get you off the line to take the next call. Not to say they’re all incompetent, but I’d say most of the time when you’re calling back, it’s because NCO either misinformed you or didn’t place the right order to do the job you need done.
2. CSB- The wonderful program DTE uses to schedule events. It likes to go down at random intervals and, whenever they do maintenance, rather than scheduling it for sometime during a midnight shift (when calls are typically at their lowest), they’ll schedule them during morning or afternoons (granted, mainly on the weekend when calls are TYPICALLY lower, but not always the case). During this time, no order information or account information can be viewed.
3. Downtime Forms- When the above program, CSB, is down, all Gas leaks and Outage calls have to be done on “downtime forms.” These forms are Microsoft Word programs that need to be typed in manually and, for the outage forms, DO NOT LIST the questions you need pertinent to servicing the customer (such as, if there’s a down wire, is it within reach, is it sparking, etc). Those questions have to be REMEMBERED by the reps doing the forms. Also, there are no safety precautions listed on the downtime forms, which are required to be stated for customer safety.
4. Being a Contractor: As per previous reviews, DTE treats their contractors poorly. When cuts came around with pay, contractors lost about $2 on average from their hourly pay (doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s almost the equivalent of working a four day week instead of five… which of course, wasn’t an option). They also took away the paid vacations and holidays. Granted, we’re contract, it’s actually our company who did so, but that was ONLY because DTE would have fired us all last year around Christmas time had the changes not been made. After most of us had worked a year for them and gone through 3 WEEKS of training in a classroom and a week in a “pod” setting (btw, they also tested on the material taught during the classroom. If you failed ONE test, you were terminated). This year, they’re eliminating the afternoon shifts and instead only allowing dayshifts. So, afternoon shifts (which handle 90% of the emergency calls) will now be moving to days and be forced to lose their premium and have to work on billing calls.
5. Overtime- If call volume is up and Union doesn’t want to stay, guess who is? Yup. Contract. You can’t say no to it either. Oh, and if there’s a storm and it so happens you’re working the day before you’re off? Guess what, you’re probably coming in on your off day to talk to customers. You had a family event planned two months in advance? Sorry, you’re working. Deal with it.
6. Right Hand vs Left Hand- The system is broken. I might not know how to fix it, but I know something should be done. Customers wait the whole day for their services to be turned on (such as a restore) and are told it’ll be between 8a-4:30p. Don’t believe it. It can be anytime between 8a-10p and they have 24-48hrs once your payment posts. Oh, and if you’re cut at the pole? 24-72hrs (but they’ll tell you either that day or 24-48hrs, because that’s what we’re TOLD to tell you). And that’s BUISNESS HOURS. Don’t EVER get cut on a Friday or you’re out till Monday! Granted, you had 3 months to pay your bill, but that seems harsh. Other things happen too, like a meter restore being sent out when it should be at the pole (BIG DIFFERENCE!!). That’s not the reps fault either, the lovely CSB is suppose to catch that.
7. No career advancement- 2 years of being contract. Haven’t been hired in, haven’t seen anyone else move up. In fact, within the last year, they’ve been demoting contract members (analysts back to customer care representatives). The most you can do is go from being a residential customer care rep to a commercial or escalated call rep.

Advice to Senior Management

1. Change CSB’s Downtime- Do it during Midnight shifts, probably between 2a-6a, rather than random intervals through out the week/weekend for afternoons.
2. Treat your contractors better- Just because we’re not a part of Union doesn’t mean we aren’t people. You like having events for “DTE Workers” such as giving vaccines for the Flu… funny how Union can get them but Contract can’t, even though both are capable of getting sick. You seem more than willing to accept Contract’s assistance for the Blood Drive’s you sponsor, why not permit us other graces as well?
3. GET RID OF NCO OR GET THEM TO DO THEIR JOBS!!- You claim you want first call resolution, right? I GUARANTEE if you look at most of the calls that come back, an NCO rep was the one who helped them first! Funny how a gas leak isn’t taken care of if they put it in as a “High Bill” order…
4. Don’t be so concerned over our “time”- After Call Work, Hold Time, Call Time… As long as we’re doing our jobs, you shouldn’t worry. If you check with the customers, I bet they’ll agree that waiting longer is better than having to go through it AGAIN with another person… or two… or three.
5. Escalated line/Floor Support- The Escalated line is great… if it’s an escalated call where they’re mad or verbally abrasive customers. If we need assistance with the account itself, it would be nice if the analysts did their job and HELPED us rather than sigh over how incompetent we are for having to bother them with a call or get frustrated with us for wanting to do our jobs right.
6. Online Help Source has the WORST search engine!- Either get a more versatile search engine for it or make sure we have the help we need!
7. Overtime- I understand if it’s catastrophic storm and you need us to take care of call volume, really I do. But please understand that you give us two days a week off, we REALLY like to take them. That’s two days to relax after being verbally bashed by customers in regards to why they don’t have power when: “they have five children, an elderly person, someone on a respirator, all their food is going to spoil, they’re going to freeze, it’s all DTE’s fault and why should this happen when we don’t live in a third world country?” Clearly, as management, you don’t understand how frazzling this can get to listen to the same arguments, begging, and whining again, and again, and again. Please, by all means, take calls four days in a row after a catastrophic storm with no estimates (or accurate estimates) for customers then be told that your day off isn’t going to happen. I’d say you wouldn’t last the first eight hours… but those are the easiest. It gets harder each day as power hasn’t been restored. So, please, LET US HAVE THE OPTIONS TO WORK OUR OFF DAY OR NOT! It makes the difference between sanity and wanting to break down into tears.
8. Let Contractors know what they’re getting into before they sign up- Might as well tell them that they’ll be no advancements and they can’t have the same or at least similar decencies that you show to Union. Oh, and that push comes to shove, you’ll cut their pay or fire them to make your ends meet. That, and you really don’t care about customer satisfaction just “Where’s the money?” Don’t worry, most of your customers already know that anyway, no matter how hard we try and tell them otherwise. Actions speak louder than words, you know. And when it’s taken three weeks for new services to be turned on for a first time homeowner because the previous owner had a pole cut, those actions speak pretty loud. The customers are right, you are LUCKY that there’s no other utility competition (excluding Gas Choice/Electric Choice because let’s face it, they’re trying to rip people off and doing things borderline or flat out illegal).
9. Surveys- Get rid of them or only offer them online. It’s asinine for you to expect the CR to be able to remember to transfer the call to the survey line after assisting the customer. That, or spend a little money and make it so if the CR releases the call, the customer is transferred automatically. Plus, it would also help if CTI (the program we use to log in and out of work and also pops up what the call is about) actually reflected who has and has not selected to do a survey. Because it doesn’t.
10. STOP HAVING AFTERNOONS DO RESTORES!!- Is it a gas leak? No. Is it an electrical emergency based on storm or damaged equipment? No. Did we give them 3 months to pay their bill, make several phone calls to the home, and even put on the bill several payment programs we offer? YES! Do you know how mad customers get when we tell them it can’t be restored the same day, it’s going to be the next business day (again, if on Friday, not till Monday)? Why would you have us process the restores when we could be taking actual emergency calls? Oh wait, I remember… It’s all about the money, isn’t it?