Progress Energy – “Educationally a very good job right out of high school - like Taco Bell, Burger King or ditch-digging.”

Pros

At first taste, the company was providing very good training. As time progresses for each rep they are continually saddled with more and more fluff to complete, such as selling value-added services. The pay was good to begin with but the raises are below average and high performer or not, the raises don't differ much between employees. The "bonus" is like opening a large present to find a worthless, small I.O.U. inside. Benefits are extensive and flexible. 401K access to various investments is a nice feature, controlled by the employee.

Cons

If you have a degree, ambition of any kind, previous call center experience or have high moral standards, forget customer service. I agree with previous posts - the company certainly "pigeon holes" everyone within customer service. There are limited lateral positions within the company, fewer if you made the mistake of becoming associated with customer service/call center operations. Supervisors and managers don't know the technicalities and nuances of using the proprietary software systems required to execute the job. Said persons are forever in "rotation" indicating the company's loosey-goosey lack-of-future plan sharing with the rank and file employees makes the company an environment you can't count on for a "career" unless, of course you were lucky AND smart enough to be in its unionized operations. If you like unnecessary stress and a too-rigid scheduling system and indeed being owned by a mega corporation and being forced to make unethical decisions versus keeping your job on a regular basis, then go ahead and apply. This is NOT a transparent sunshine law compliant organization. Nepotism and asskissery abound.

Advice to Senior Management

Either make customer service like it was before the "buyout" era (2005) and keep your quality employees, giving them REAL opportunities to move on THROUGH and UPWARD within the company. Customer service is an entry level operation and it should be a place where you can screen and cultivate future leaders based on performance and loyalty, instead, the company has simply turned its call centers into "Rep Mills" like the telemarketing industry. Stop hiring leadership outsiders in the customer service arena who really haven't done their penance on the phones. Reps REALLY resent this. "Streamlining" everything from the customer's point of view isn't a real cost savings. You better hope the green revolution doesn't leverage a change in the rules, tariffs and other ridiculous impediments in Florida and allow entrepreneurs to compete as billing companies like the telecom debacle of the late 90's to present and/or cause the enabling of actual end-user customers to feed power back into the grid, effectively selling power back to the utility. Allow all the employees to unionize without penalty and pay all the "hourly" pee-on folks with the most difficult jobs like customer services a fair wage with more flexible hours and lower stress environments.