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I hope this doesn't come off as a "dumb" thread as I am just looking for some honest opion's as what you may do if you were in my situation.
I work as a Teir 1 Internet/Phone Tech Support for a major cable company. I work in an office taking calls from customers who have internet and/or phone problems. I make "above average" pay for my area, but does not compare to the money I used to make as a IT Professional before being laid off but as I live in a small beach community, IT positions are very few and far between so I simply had to take what I could get. I have been with this company for 5 months now and have actually been "on the floor" for 4 months. I have worked other "tech support" jobs in the past without any problems and often enjoyed them at times so I figured this would be a "piece of cake". The interview went good and I was hired, however, during my first few day's of training I learned that my position actually had sales requirements which involves "pitching" to customers as needed in order to meet those requirements. I went out to lunch with coworkers from my class several times and we have all talked about how none of us were told about the sales requirements during the interview or on the job offer letter. This is the first "tech support" job that I have ever heard of requiring sales as all the other "tech support" jobs I've had actually didn't even allow us to sale products as the company wanted to focus on solving the customers problem before trying to sale more services in order to avoid giving the customer the impression that the company is more interested in selling than providing support, which has always made sense to me as every company I have called for "tech support" never tried selling me additional services.
In all fairness, the sales requirements are pretty light, it's only one sale a day, so 10 sales a pay period and you actually only have to meet 50% of that goal, so roughly 5 sales every 10 days. It doesn't sound bad right? Well, it has to be a completely new service. I could add a $149 home networking package and wouldn't count as a sale, or add digital cable and wouldn't count as a sale. It has to be a new product they don't already have like Cable, Internet, Phone, etc. The company has a lot of service outages so most of the customers I have are already angry or already have "triple play" service which makes selling more service impossible. My problem is, I am not a sales person and never have been and never want to be. I couldn't sell free candy to a child, even if I tried. I am a very reserved/quite/shy person and have been my entire life. I'm not the type of person that can "pitch" a sale to a customer by simply saying "So, who do you have as your home phone" or "Did you know we offer phone service"? I'm just not that type of person. In addition to that, I am horrible with billing, so when a customer asks me how much their bill will increase, I get very lost looking at the numbers. In fact, I don't even look at my own bills as I just simply find them confusing to look at and try to figure out.
However, since being "on the floor", I have been approached by several supervisors and managers about my low sales performance and I actually got a "unfriendly" e-mail from my supervisors boss, the "big" manager simply saying that my sales performance is unacceptable and that they expect an immedient improvement on my sales numbers. I recently had my evaluation and on the review, I scored great on everything and was even given comments about how friendly I am with the customers on the phone and how knowledgble I am with technical issues (which is to be expected as I have a background in IT) but was told that my sales was unacceptable and she simply said to me "I will have to start writing people up soon and if I am writing everyone else up, I can't just not write you up and write everyone else up".... so that was a red flag for me that I've got to do something. My supervisor is very nice and has offered to have people train me on how to start selling, but honestly, I have no interest in selling and I simply don't have the personallity for it. I also would never want to sell products that I don't believe in. You wouldn't believe how many customers I've had cuss me out because their elderly parents in poor health phone isn't working and we can't get a tech out for 10 day's. I would never want my own parents/grandparent's to have their service, nor would I want anyone else. Suppose that someone has a heart attack or some other medical emergency and they need to call 911 only to pick up their phone to a dead line and they had no other communication source... without medicial attention, that person could die, which pretty much makes me responsible for their death simply because I sold them phone service which was $10 cheaper a month than what they had before. I don't want that thought in the back of my mind everyday if "pitched" a sale to a elderly person (which is the majority of the calls I get) and they took the bite. It's as if the company is taking advantage of them being on a limited income trying to save money while selling them unstable phone service which could mean death in a life and death situation.
You see, this is the first stable job I have had in nearly two years after being laid off from IT. I live in a small beach community, not near any large city, so job options are very limited and now with the oil spill hitting the area, the job's are about to become even more limited. So, here I am... I've been warned that write-up's are starting soon and have already been warned several time about my sales performance. I'm now wondering if I should start job hunting or even think about moving before I start being written up?
I'm sorry if that comes off as a dumb/silly question, but I'd really like your input. Thanks in advance.
I can empathize that you want to provide support and not worry about sales, but it's not your company. They have decided that picking up extra sales through service calls is worth their while. It's not likely to change so if you are not going to play along, then you should definitely be looking for something else.
You can toss around opinions about how this was handled by your employers (coulda, woulda, shoulda...).
The bottom line though - is that your current role has expanded to include something that you don't believe you like. So you can either accept that, and figure out how to take on that challenge - or seek options.
The main thing is that you want to be in control of your options. You want to be able to make the decision (stay or go) as oppose to having it made for you. Just my .02 of course.
I'm sorry if you were hired to do tech support and they are expecting you to now do sales I would tell them to shove it. I know if I got hired to do the support and they tried to tell me to do sales afterwards I would be out and should have a good reason to get Unemployment again as they didn't state that you were required to do sales when you were hired. Im not a salesmen and they should not expect you to be one after the fact either.
sounds like an it guy here, got hired, and was told to clean up the trash in the kitchen on fridays... LoL..he got in a big argument with the boss about it, and was like I didn't go to college to be a damn janitor.
I have similar... I do programming, but now do all kinds of internal IT support as well because they will not hire anybody for it, which every time I have to do this crap, takes away from my real work load then get dinged on it. They have not updated work requirements however. I took this job because I really didn't want to deal with people...
I have meticulous notes about every circumstance though. I document EVERYTHING.
You are in the right here. Seriously, if they wanted someone in sales they should have interviewed for that along with the tech support. Reminds me of a job I took once which turned out to be 100 percent computer programming. I had zero experience in this. I didn't mention a whiff of this on my resume. They said, well you have excellent grades in your math classes, I'm sure you'll pick it up... math is harder than programming. The first few months of my new job my entire obligation was to just learn programming by myself through books and online tutorials. I found I couldn't stand it, and I asked them if they could give me anything else to do. So my next assignment was to document other people's coding. I just walked out a couple of weeks later. I did have another job lined up but it didn't start for several months.
The point is, you shouldn't be expected to do something you never claimed to be able to do, and which you had no idea you'd be doing. You really shouldn't feel even slightly guilty about your situation.
The point is, you shouldn't be expected to do something you never claimed to be able to do, and which you had no idea you'd be doing. You really shouldn't feel even slightly guilty about your situation.
Yeah ...that is the problem...
I explicity stated in my interview for doing this job... that I did not want to do support. I also explicity stated that I did php/mysql and linux administration, but now I do .NET and Adobe forms programming along with windows desktop Admin and support and graphics...its b.s. I never get to touch php or linux anymore. Kind of annoying, and also a huge waste of talent. Why they have me wasting my time on the phone all day b/c they are too lazy to hire somebody else to do it is beyond me. There is no level 1, level 2...or any kind of support system...they have the programmers/developers here, and even the IT director handling **** like setting up a user outlook account, or clearing cache on internet explorer.
It sounds like you work for Comcast and they stink. I'd start looking for better matching IT jobs around the nation and you'd have to move. Keep working and trying to sell stuff though. If they lay you off for not making sales goals I think you still can get unemployment benefits.
I hope this doesn't come off as a "dumb" thread as I am just looking for some honest opion's as what you may do if you were in my situation.
I work as a Teir 1 Internet/Phone Tech Support for a major cable company. I work in an office taking calls from customers who have internet and/or phone problems. I make "above average" pay for my area, but does not compare to the money I used to make as a IT Professional before being laid off but as I live in a small beach community, IT positions are very few and far between so I simply had to take what I could get. I have been with this company for 5 months now and have actually been "on the floor" for 4 months. I have worked other "tech support" jobs in the past without any problems and often enjoyed them at times so I figured this would be a "piece of cake". The interview went good and I was hired, however, during my first few day's of training I learned that my position actually had sales requirements which involves "pitching" to customers as needed in order to meet those requirements. I went out to lunch with coworkers from my class several times and we have all talked about how none of us were told about the sales requirements during the interview or on the job offer letter. This is the first "tech support" job that I have ever heard of requiring sales as all the other "tech support" jobs I've had actually didn't even allow us to sale products as the company wanted to focus on solving the customers problem before trying to sale more services in order to avoid giving the customer the impression that the company is more interested in selling than providing support, which has always made sense to me as every company I have called for "tech support" never tried selling me additional services.
In all fairness, the sales requirements are pretty light, it's only one sale a day, so 10 sales a pay period and you actually only have to meet 50% of that goal, so roughly 5 sales every 10 days. It doesn't sound bad right? Well, it has to be a completely new service. I could add a $149 home networking package and wouldn't count as a sale, or add digital cable and wouldn't count as a sale. It has to be a new product they don't already have like Cable, Internet, Phone, etc. The company has a lot of service outages so most of the customers I have are already angry or already have "triple play" service which makes selling more service impossible. My problem is, I am not a sales person and never have been and never want to be. I couldn't sell free candy to a child, even if I tried. I am a very reserved/quite/shy person and have been my entire life. I'm not the type of person that can "pitch" a sale to a customer by simply saying "So, who do you have as your home phone" or "Did you know we offer phone service"? I'm just not that type of person. In addition to that, I am horrible with billing, so when a customer asks me how much their bill will increase, I get very lost looking at the numbers. In fact, I don't even look at my own bills as I just simply find them confusing to look at and try to figure out.
However, since being "on the floor", I have been approached by several supervisors and managers about my low sales performance and I actually got a "unfriendly" e-mail from my supervisors boss, the "big" manager simply saying that my sales performance is unacceptable and that they expect an immedient improvement on my sales numbers. I recently had my evaluation and on the review, I scored great on everything and was even given comments about how friendly I am with the customers on the phone and how knowledgble I am with technical issues (which is to be expected as I have a background in IT) but was told that my sales was unacceptable and she simply said to me "I will have to start writing people up soon and if I am writing everyone else up, I can't just not write you up and write everyone else up".... so that was a red flag for me that I've got to do something. My supervisor is very nice and has offered to have people train me on how to start selling, but honestly, I have no interest in selling and I simply don't have the personallity for it. I also would never want to sell products that I don't believe in. You wouldn't believe how many customers I've had cuss me out because their elderly parents in poor health phone isn't working and we can't get a tech out for 10 day's. I would never want my own parents/grandparent's to have their service, nor would I want anyone else. Suppose that someone has a heart attack or some other medical emergency and they need to call 911 only to pick up their phone to a dead line and they had no other communication source... without medicial attention, that person could die, which pretty much makes me responsible for their death simply because I sold them phone service which was $10 cheaper a month than what they had before. I don't want that thought in the back of my mind everyday if "pitched" a sale to a elderly person (which is the majority of the calls I get) and they took the bite. It's as if the company is taking advantage of them being on a limited income trying to save money while selling them unstable phone service which could mean death in a life and death situation.
You see, this is the first stable job I have had in nearly two years after being laid off from IT. I live in a small beach community, not near any large city, so job options are very limited and now with the oil spill hitting the area, the job's are about to become even more limited. So, here I am... I've been warned that write-up's are starting soon and have already been warned several time about my sales performance. I'm now wondering if I should start job hunting or even think about moving before I start being written up?
I'm sorry if that comes off as a dumb/silly question, but I'd really like your input. Thanks in advance.
I am a technician with one of your main competitors and I can tell you it's the same in our call center and tech support groups. These outfits are all the same nowdays. Even the techs in the field have "sales quotas" now and are reviewed for sales. The call center and tech support people get written up and terminated, but so far (thank god) they just threaten and browbeat the techs. The sales manager had the gall to come into the tech room and blame us for not having any install work because we weren't selling enough. When asked "what about your account execs?" she snapped back and said "don't you worry about them" I'm talking to you guys! Like you, I am not a salesman and this doesn't fly with me.
If you don't have a lot of time invested my advice is don't walk, run like hell. Also, don't apply at Verizon, Sprint, AT&T or Century Link because you are in for more of the same or worse. As you say, it is above average pay, but they expect you to sell, and it isn't getting anything but worse. Just my .02 worth.
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