AT&T – “Until they used me up....”

Pros

The pay and the benefits. AT&T pays their Sales Associates (SA) about $4000/month (before tax) when you add up the hours, the overtime, and the bonuses. You start getting overtime after 37.5 hours per week and it is always available.

It is a union job, which means the health benefits are superb. AT&T covers the cost of your health insurance for FREE. Unfortunately, you do have to wait 6 months to become eligible.

Cons

Where to begin? Inbound Call Center @ AT&T is not the ideal place to work.

THIS IS A HARDCORE SALES JOB (without the commission)

You begin your career in a classroom for 8 weeks where you will spend time learning their outdated systems and how they would like you to converse with the customer. In addition, you will be taught time discipline. You will have one 15 min break in the morning and the afternoon and 30 minutes to eat lunch. Tardiness (more than 120 seconds) returning from breaks or lunch will result in formal action against you.

After the 8 weeks, you will spend the next 2 months in "incubation" on the Call Center floor. Here you will have limited assistance from managers and team leads to assist you on your calls. At this point, they are keeping score and your goals / quotas are active.

IMPORTANT: In week 10, your work hours will be put on a split. This means you will work from 8am-11am and then from 2:30pm until 7pm. You will have a 3.5 hours long break each day.

AT&T only cares about the numbers and you are judge solely on the numbers. If you produce, you keep your job. You have to sell over $5000 a month in addition to a certain number of units. AT&T holds you accountable for selling Cell Phones, DSL Internet, and Direct TV. You are tracked HOURLY. Those who are not on target are singled out regularly by management.

You will have to SELL on every call. Managers remotely listen to several of your calls EACH DAY. Failure to offer AT&T products will lead to disciplinary action. 95% of your calls will be of a billing nature and you must transition the call into sales. Your customers are often upset and distrustful, usually due to poor customer service by an AT&T rep in the past.

THIS IS NOT AN EASY JOB. Almost all new people wash out and are terminated by the end of their 4th month. Only 1 out of 9 new hires will make it to their 6 month anniversary (Seriously).

Advice to Senior Management

Stop the madness. When customers call in for questions about their bills, they should not talk to a sales agent working toward a quota.