I honestly have not seen this movie.

Alright! To eliminate misconceptions:

1. Call centers use the one-name-for-all strategy. In my experience, it’s false. BUT! A lot of call centers don’t mind if their agents use a different name. When I was an agent, I used the name Giselle and Erin when I was taking calls. Some call centers will even suggest to change the name that you use so that the customer understands it right away and address you properly (Ex: Luzviminda=Lucy, Ananya=Anna). When I was using my nickname, LJ, my supervisor advised me to use my middle name, Jane, since most of my customers clarify what my name was.

Now, some of you may ask: How will I know what name to give if I wanted to complain about an agent? This is not really going to be a problem because they can still identify the representative through the date and time of the call, the names of the people who accessed the accounts, and call recordings with the dialler pins unique to each agent. Also, in my previous call center, we were asked by quality assurance to send them the names that they use on the call.

Despite this, more and more call centers require their CSRs to use their real name. Someone actually told me a story that in JP Morgan, you would hear the name Maria a lot in their call recordings. This is not surprising as the name Maria is a very common first name in the Philippines (Ex. Maria Cristina, Maria Rosario, Maria Anna, etc).

2.) They’ll tell you you’ll get a supervisor position initially then later on inform you that you have to spend six months tking calls before you get interviewed. Of course, before you start you’ll be told what position you’ll be getting. But here’s the thing, call centers have different names for their supervisors: Team Leader, Team Captain, Team Manager, Assistant Manager, Performance Coach, etc. They’ll tell you the name of the position they’ll give you but you have to clarify what position level it is. Some Team Captains are CSR level employees who still reports to a Team Manager who only handles one team, but there are some Team Managers that handle 5 teams, which is more of a manager’s position instead of a supervisor’s. With regard to the amount of time spent on the phones, usually call centers do require someone to have a tenure of six months before they can apply for the supervisor position.

3.) Call center employees curse their customers while on mute. Mark Twain said, “When angry, count to four. When very angry, swear.” It happens, especially a customer is disrespectful. Next question: Do call center employees curse their customers while NOT on mute? Refer to this old post.

4.) Call center employees are buddied up with a tenured rep when they start with a manual that they skim through when assisting customers. Absolutely false. All call center representatives will undergo communication and systems training before they enter production. After training, their manual is used as a reference though it rarely happens. If it seems like the rep you handled didn’t even go to training… Well, I guess some people are just less competent than others.

5.) Callers will tell you details of their lives that you wouldn’t want to know. Oh boy, VERY TRUE!

6.) Some mute buttons in call centers are broken. Inconveniently true!