telesales jobs

emertoff

Anyone got any perspectives on telesales jobs?

They seem to have the image of the lowest of the low but I went to an interview with a company today in my locality more out of curiosity than anything and they were offering €8.50 per hour for a 25-hour week with bonuses of between €50-€100 pw if targets were met. I have 2 years+ experience in Tech Support so am familiar enough with Call Centres. I was made an offer and asked to think about it and in all probability will say no. What concerned me was that they seemed to have some kind of hotdesking policy whereby if you did not meet your weekly target, you were out the door in a flash (one week's notice of termination I was told). In fact, the interviewer seemed to suggest that someone was about to be pushed out literally to make way for me.

Would welcome your views on the whole telesales thing.

Ancient1

2+years of Tech Support should get you something infinitely better than a telesales call center !

And at the rates they're offering - stay away. Believe me it's a nightmare job.
I've been in that mess for 2.5 years and it's just not worth it. You'd be taking a step down instead of up.

jank

the interviewer seemed to suggest that someone was about to be pushed out literally to make way for me.

€8.50 per hour

hotdesking policy whereby if you did not meet your weekly target, you were out the door in a flash

And you want to work for them because.....

Ancient1

8.50 an hour.....i cant get over that. That's minimum wage! Do you know what it's like making 150 calls a day? You dont want to !

seamus

Originally posted by Ancient1
8.50 an hour.....i cant get over that. That's minimum wage!

No it's not. Minimum wage is €7 an hour.

Telesales is a good job if you're good at it. Although €50-€100 pw bonuses sounds crap. Most places work on commission, whereby you can easily triple or quadruple your take-home if you happen to do well. I worked Tech Support in a place where the sales guys got paid €8.50 an hour. One guy was regularly coming home with €800-€1000 per week. I remember him getting really stressed cause he wasn't meeting his personal targets and he was in the middle of buying an aprtment with his gf! Madness.

To do telesales, and be good at it, you need to have, inside you, the cold heart of a complete bastard. If you got any satisfaction whatsoever from Tech Support, then telesales is not for you.

Ancient1

True, Seamus, but most call centers have a tenner an hour as a starting salary. As far as i know, that's currently the going rate for MOST call centers.

regularly coming home with €800-€1000 per week.

Damn that's good - was he doing IT telesales?

you need to have, inside you, the cold heart of a complete bastard

That's true as well If you think people hanging up on you all the time and giving you hell on the phone is going to get to you personally - then dont take the job. You become a professional pest - and you do need that cold heart.

BuffyBot

I was made an offer and asked to think about it and in all probability will say no.

If that's what your gut is telling you, then you've probably made the right desicion

secret_squirrel

Originally posted by seamus
To do telesales, and be good at it, you need to have, inside you, the cold heart of a complete bastard.

And thats just to deal with your employer nevermind your customers.

Only way I know of to get ahead in telesales is to play the jobs merry go round. Basically agressively change jobs regularly coz what tended to happen when I was working with telesales people was that a company would offer slightly higher rates, and people would start leaving for them, until the original company pay caught up. Multiply this by a good few telesales company and you could get quite good work playing the merry-go-round your way.

But unfortunately you still ended up getting shafted sooner or later.

emertoff

Thanks for all the advice lads:cool:

In all honesty I was not going to take it but your posts have certainly succeeded in removing any microscopic crumbs of uncertainty I had earlier. If it is really as bad as this I might not even call the wan.kers back.:D

beardedchicken

i was about to start a new thread about this until i saw this one, so i might as well resurrect it. actually reading this thread has completely changed my mind on what i was going to ask!

i'm (fingers crossed) about to finish my arts degree and i can't decide what to do next, so i'm taking the next year to look into postgad courses and think about the next step and most of all, to travel a bit. i was hoping to go away in about november, so i wanted to get a job for the summer to tide me over - something that pays well, but doesn't involve a huge amount of intellectual output. i've done data entry before, and i know a trained hamster could manage it.
so, i thought call centre work would be ideal, as i've also worked in retail before (customer service, sales) and i've covered switchboards before, so i have a good manner with the public and a good telephone voice. the only problem is that i had heard before that call centre work, while good money, is tedious and pressurised, which is not what i want for a nixer to give me travelling money, but having read the other posts on this, i never realised how horrible it was. i also didn't realise how crap the money is!

i was going to ask if the rumours i had heard are true, but it seems obvious now that they were mild by comparison! i seem totally un-suited to that kind of job - i am in no way a cold hearted b1tch, but neither am i someone who is willing to lick ass just to get ahead, especially in a field that for me is just a means to an end. so i suppose what i'm asking is advice on a good money summer job! i basically need a short term, well paid, fun job, but coming straight out of college, i only have part-time experience. am i asking too much, or will i have to make some compromises? i've looked at job sites, and the adverts all seem to be either for recruitment agencies or for people who are "driven" and "target-orientated" basically, as you say, b@stards! i suppose there'a always working i a pub....

BuffyBot

so, i thought call centre work would be ideal

Probably unfair to lump all call-centre work in with Telesales. Soem call centre jobs are fine, and not all that bad. Sales can be a dog though.

pebble

Originally posted by Ancient1
True, Seamus, but most call centers have a tenner an hour as a starting salary. As far as i know, that's currently the going rate for MOST call centers.

That is a gross assumption on your behalf there.

Depending on your 'description of a call centre', one would normal think along the lines of technical support or customer service.
Telesales is completely different, and n'er the twain shall meet.

I think it would be more useful if the person involved look at the package and weighed up what is offered from either side, rather than on the base hourly wage. Only then can you make a useful and valid assumption and compare like for like.

I have worked in a call centre, and I enjoyed it. I wouldn't touch telesales with a bargepole. I simply don't have the stomach for constant cold calling.

Ancient1

Well - yes, it's an assumption, but i dont think it's a gross one, or an exaggeration.
I cant offer an industry salary breakdown, but , in my personal experience, call centers (tech support / inbound / outbound / telesales / telemarketing) in general pay a tenner an hour. Of course this varies, but i havent come across any call centers that offer less. The work isnt appealing for less i suppose. Unless you take a telesales job for a company like the Prime Forestry Group - that's a serious salary with several grand in bonuses.

seamus

From what I've seen, anything that doesn't involve commission - Tech Support, Customer Service, certain types of inbound sales, marketing (ugh) - pay around €10 an hour.

If you're getting commission, most places will pay 50c - €1.50 less, although most half decent reps will come out with more than their skilled, nice, Tech support colleagues.