How Call Center Work Destroyed My Mental Health — but Still Helped Me
The pay was decent, the hours were plentiful, the work itself didn’t seem too bad. All I had to do was help customers from the comfort of my creaky office chair. The following is my grueling 7-month stint with Arise, a virtual call center.
As a college student, the appeal of choosing my own hours and being my own boss was all I had to hear. I had to pay for my training, but it wasn’t a lot of money. For an average of around 50 dollars per course, I could finally start working in a safe, remote way. They even promised I’d make my investment back (and more) during training!
SIGNING UP
First, I had to express interest in one of several of Arise’s opportunities (they have a LOT of terms to avoid saying words such as job, pay, employee, hours, etc.) and I went with a well-known bookseller chain.
After a short questionnaire to show basic English proficiency, spoken and written, they asked me questions about my employment history, my familiarity with their company, and other expected interview questions. I received an email shortly after stating that I did not qualify, so I repeated the same process with a nation-wide home improvement store and was approved.
I excitedly forked over the $49.99 for training and background check, bought the equipment I needed for servicing (i.e, Arise’s weird, legalese way of saying “working”), which was a cheap, used, second monitor and an equally cheap headset, and waited for classes to start.
The company I worked with will be referred to from here on as The Client, just as they do in their endless piles of legal documents. I ran into a small authorization issue with the background check which almost prevented me from going to class on time, but this is my own and the background check company’s fault, not Arise. Luckily, I sorted that out and was able to get my documents in order.
THE CLASSROOM
My instructor was a wonderful, upbeat lady with purple hair who truly seemed to enjoy her work with Arise and the Client. Every evening before class, which was from 6 to 9 p.m. EST, she’d hype the class up with music. We’d review the values of the company we’d be representing and get started with the instructor-led classwork for the day. This part was easy.
The classroom time was mostly just to review the self-paced work we were assigned, up to three hours of unpaid studying each day. None of it was super difficult, just tedious and repetitive. This amounted to five to six hours, every weekday, and I’d yet to see a single cent. I kept this up for two weeks.
Each day, the total number of people in the class would steadily drop (which was concerning) but I needed the money. It’s not like I could just go get a real job, like brick-and-mortar, as I couldn’t risk getting my older loved ones sick amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.
Finally, it was time to dip our toes in the murky, murky waters of customer service. For two hours during class time, we’d take real, live calls. Finally, the “earn while you learn” they promised! The first few days we took calls for general merchandise, then for appliances. The people we spoke to on the phones were mostly very cordial and respectful.
After taking live calls, we’d meet in the virtual classroom to discuss what interesting and sometimes difficult customers we’d encountered. It was always a good time, even when someone was being aggressive, they were outliers. After two more weeks of taking calls, we did a (very easy) final assessment and were free to start working the hours we had selected two weeks before.
HOW HOURS WORK
On the Arise platform, you choose your hours two weeks in advance. Each client is different, but there is an initial hour cap of around 15 hours to be fair to everyone. YMMV. Of course, as mentioned earlier, you don’t choose hours. You choose intervals, which are 30-minute shifts. You get paid your “service revenue” every two weeks, and Arise takes a $19.95 cut from your paycheck as a “platform usage fee”. If you are under an IBO (Independent Business Owner), in other words, a virtual call center, they may take a significant cut from your paycheck.
They used to require agents to incorporate before they could work, but this was changed and here in Texas I could work as a Sole Proprietor. Please consult with your state’s laws to make sure you don’t have to incorporate, as that’s extra money that could be in your pocket!
THE ANXIETY INDUCING DAILY GRIND
Day in and day out, I handled the same types of calls. Either someone needs to do something simple, such as placing or canceling an order, or the Client messed up and I was tasked with cleaning up the mess (this was the majority of the calls). As soon as I completed certification and could service throughout the day, the customers grew increasingly more irritated, ignorant, or both. I looked forward to the rare kind soul that wouldn’t trample me with their words, which usually ended up being the calls from the store employees.
Anytime I heard the beeps indicating customer calls, I’d get strong feelings of anxiety, knowing that they’d likely be taking their grievances out on me, even if I could resolve their issue civilly and easily. I would lie awake late at night hoping I’d find work elsewhere, dreaming of excuses to end my contract. Some nights it would be so bad that I’d barely get any sleep, leaving me on edge for the rest of the day. This made me irritable, affecting those I love. Having to fake a smile on the phone every day was ruining my life.
Arise claims they are “ranked #1 in security for a major Travel and Leisure Brand”. This is absolutely the case, given that it takes about half an hour to log in to every single one of their systems (varies by client). I had two separate authentications that used my smartphone, a VPN (Virtual Private Network), a Virtual Desktop with 7 systems I had to log into every single shift, and a software phone that didn’t work an infuriating part of the time.
This may just sound like the equivalent of getting ready and driving to work, but its far, far worse. Any time spent sorting out tech issues is unpaid, and the complexity of the sign in process nullifies the simple joy of scheduling breaks as often as you like. When comparing paid time and unpaid time, it works out so that longer, more draining shifts are more lucrative.
If I were to run into a tech issue that was not fixed by just clearing my cookies and cache and running the tech checklist, the next step would be to use their LogMeIn support, which usually had a queue of about 10–20 agents in it. Then, I’d sit there trying to sort out the issue myself while an agent was on their way. Once I would finally talk to someone, they’d usually fix the issue and give me an incident number. This is an automatic waiver that ensures any time spent ardently fighting tech gremlins won’t hurt your Commitment Adherence (time scheduled vs. time worked).
That’s great and all, but when issues are so rampant, these unpaid bits of time add up very fast!
WRINGED AND DRAINED
Most of the time I felt like this job was sucking the joy of work-from-home away, even when I wasn’t working. I would spend my day dreading the few hours a day I would take calls, and when I did work, I felt very micro-managed. Our QAPF (Quality Assurance Performance Facilitator) would listen to our calls in real time and give feedback, which was combined with customer surveys.
The problem with the surveys is that the customer could opt out of the survey before we even had a chance to interact with them, which would hurt our average! Only scores of 5/5 were positive, a score of 4 would be the same as a score of 1. These dreadful surveys, coupled with handling time averages, were not holistic at all. We needed an average handling time of 7 minutes per call, but with the nature of our calls this seemed impossible.
Some complicated interactions would end up being an hour long, and it would take a lot of very short calls to fix the average, which meant being less thorough with some customers for the sake of not getting fired or having our pay reduced. I was subject to racist, disrespectful, and insensitive remarks day in and day out. Hanging up on a customer was not allowed, we were held to a three-strikes policy, after which we would escalate the call to the Resolutions team, all while keeping the customer’s line open while we transferred them.
SILVER LINING
As I mentioned at the start of this piece, the pay wasn’t bad at all for this type of job, even with taxes factored in. I won’t get into specifics, but as a dependent with minimal expenses, it was perfect! The work culture was lovely, and we had plenty of resources both from management and CSRs like me! Everyone had a “can-do” attitude that worked wonders on morale, and the mandatory training sessions were actually fun. Of course, much of this largely depended on the company I was working for, and each client is different.
I don’t regret my time there, as I learned valuable lessons about customer service and managing stress. Although burn-out is something I had to face, I would still recommend trying them out and seeing if the industry is a good fit for you, as it is not for everyone!
SOME VERY IMPORTANT TIPS
If you’re looking to work through Arise or any similar CSR outsourcing client, I cannot stress enough how important it is to do your due diligence and read about others’ experiences before diving in. Make sure to choose a company you actually like and believe in, because you need to live and breathe as an embodiment of said company in order to be successful and happy.
Startup costs are negligible if you already have a desktop setup! As a gamer and digital freelancer, I had most of the equipment already. The only reason I bought a new headset was due to it being single-ear. And if you have questions about the job, don’t be afraid to ask! Arise is very secretive about their operations, and you don’t want to be finding something out once it’s too late and you’re already invested. If you love helping people and know how to defuse an angry customer, this may be the industry for you!
Please comment questions you have, and I will answer them as quickly as I can. Had a similar or totally different experience with Arise? Share it! Link your stories down below, or comment how it went for you.
