[Closed] The Call Centre - BBC3

bearnecessities - STW
Go on, lose an hour of your life

😉

I seen the trailers for it, looks far too annoying I'd hate to work in a place like that.

Whose call centre is it?

I seen the trailers for it, looks far too annoying I'd hate to work in a place like that.

I watched an episode a few week back - (sounds like I wath a lot of telly now!).

It was mush, but actually quite heartening to see a workplace where people were enjoying themselves.

...but ultimately mush 😀

Aah, got it. It's one that breaks the law.
[url] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22946358 [/url]

Wonder if they'll mention the 225k they had to pay in fines for nuisance calls?

Edit. Beaten to it!

Aah, got it. It's one that breaks the law.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22946358

Oh heck...

There's an interesting analysis of 18th century porcelain on BBC4? 😳

bearnecessities - Member

Right, get the sod off my Christmas card list 👿

There's a guy on Film4 who's gonna hack his arm off with a pen knife

Right, get the sod off my Christmas card list

Like I was ever on it.

*sobs uncontrollably into Marmite on toast (thinly spread)*

Thats inspired! I'm organising a dance competition in the office tomorrow

😆

Her dad owns a brewery.....

Man I am so there!!!!

Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans!!!! 😯

Quite like the attitude of Nev, the boss, a complete antidote to angry, bullying tossers like Alan Sugar.

Absolutely! He seems to actually genuinely care if his staff are happy. I've worked in plenty places where the bosses couldn't give a toss if every single staff member was depressed to the point of being suicidal!

There's a guy on Film4 who's gonna hack his arm off with a pen knife

Is he watching the Apprentice? I think I know how he feels.

My wife was watching this when I returned home from walking the dog. I genuinely thought it was a mockumentary that BBC3 had commissioned, hoping that their target audience had never seen The Office.

Until I read this thread I didn't know it was actually real...

It came in second on the Sunday Times best places to work list for this year - ahead of the likes of BMW. Great result for a small company and that Nev guy is a real character - the energy level and engagement in the weekly "s**t sandwich" meeting made a refreshing change from the usual dull corporate "town hall" meetings.

I wouldn't mind working there, looks like quite a laugh. get on the tea trolley with that nutter! The "team leaders" look like right arrogant c***s though. I'd be the worst telesales person ever though.

"Hi.. Do you need some unnessecary shit?... No, ok then,sorry - feel a bit guily for bothering you actually, Byeee!"

and I'd pester the **** out of Nev
"HI Nev, I'm skint, sub us £20 quid for some beer, cheers Nev..matey matey Nev *big hug* you're my mate aren't you Nev?!" Totally reverse that matey bollocks on him! Good luck to those lot that are ****ed off with it and don't take disciplinaries seriously lol! How can you care much about a job like that?

That Sunday Times list is a load of corporate cack BTW.

A call centre is the worst place I ever worked. The team leaders in the one I worked in were thick, power hungry scum. Example,I come back from break to find my seat missing. Told by team leader that he didn't need to stand while "a monkey like me" sat down.

The irony of a programme making "lovable" characters out of the owner and workers at a cold call centre - universally hated by the vast majority of the UK populous. Lets all have a good laugh as we watch a bunch of nobbers break the law and illegally phone people who have specifically expressed that they don't want disturbing or ringing little old ladies and harassing them into a product or service they don't need and can't afford - what fun. I wonder how many people have got a cold call from them whilst watching the programme and told them to go swivel. And I wonder if they made the connection as they giggled at the programme after putting the phone down.

That's it. Next time I get cold called by a welsh telesalesist I'm going to ask them to put Nev on so he can try to sell me some useless shit I don't want.

Man I am so there!!!!

Is this in English?

We don't get calls from Nev 😕 . We opted out

I really like the programme and find Nev refreshing

Intresting to see how next wek goes. Looks like he is going to get heavy

Lol that bit with reading the hymn for the competition and the girl asking if it was in Welsh as she didn't understand the words, comedy gold. Not that I watch it or anything...

+1 thought it was a mockumentry

it is isn't it?

You're bang on convert! I bet those people in that call centre are absolutely snowed under with glamorous and fulfilling alternative career opportunities. With unemployment being non-existent in Wales. But they just love annoying people, cos its a laugh! 🙄

The irony of a programme making "lovable" characters out of the owner and workers at a cold call centre - universally hated by the vast majority of the UK populous.

60% of the time, it works every time. 😉

I'd find it hard to hate someone on the basis they would rather work in a call centre, receiving abuse constantly for a relatively low salary than go on the dole. As Binners said, do you honestly think they turned down a career in teaching because trying to sell PPI claims is the better career option? I get quite a few cold calls for products I don't want and they usually call just as the kids are falling asleep! A polite but firm No Thanks is the best method of dealing with them. Hating on them and calling them names doesn't help anyone.

Step daughter worked briefly in a call centre, cold calling people to see if they wanted to buy gold as an 'investment opportunity'.
Her first assignment consisted of ringing people in the South Wales valleys area. On a Saturday afternoon. During a Wales v England match.
Apparently some of the responses were less than polite 😀

Reality TV eh. Take away the cameras and the reality is very different.

Hmmmm. It is mildly amusing, nothing else.

That Hayley girl really does have a head as empty as a hermit's address book (ref Blackadder).

One way to strike back is to lead the cold callers on a bit, string it out for a good few minutes, make them think they've potentially got a sale and then tell them you've been yanking their chain and they could have made another five calls in the time they've wasted on you.

This, at least, will sting a bit in the world of 'leads', calls made and sales generated - if you just hang up, they just call someone else and haven't lost anything as a result.

One way to strike back is to lead the cold callers on a bit, string it out for a good few minutes, make them think they've potentially got a sale and then tell them you've been yanking their chain and they could have made another five calls in the time they've wasted on you.

This, at least, will sting a bit in the world of 'leads', calls made and sales generated - if you just hang up, they just call someone else and haven't lost anything as a result.

That's a really sh*tty thing to do - someone's just trying to make a living and you knowingly and deliberately take that from them. Not cool.

That's a really sh*tty thing to do - someone's just trying to make a living and you knowingly and deliberately take that from them. Not cool.

I know(as pointed out to me above) no one voluntarily chooses cold call working as a career of choice if there is better on offer and whilst I have to agree to some extent- if you choose to work for a company that gives you a list full of people that have registered their wish for you not to call them and are therefore doing so illegally, it's a pretty shitty living and I don't have much sympathy if the people you ring deliberately waste your time.

What other illegal activities are we going to accept as ok as a way to make a crust cos there is nothing else available? I accept that getting cold called when you have requested not to be is not the worst crime to be a victim of (far from it) but you've got to draw a line somewhere and for me it's there.

Tough.

You waste my time, interrupt me in my home then you can deal with the consequences. If you don't like it, put me on a list of numbers to avoid calling and don't bother me in future.

What other illegal activities are we going to accept as ok as a way to make a crust cos there is nothing else available?

Well as illegal activities go, its not very rapey or stabby, is it? Unless you start getting really Daily Mail about it. Oh... you already have

I'd say that when you've got a mortgage, a family to feed, or just fancy a bit of cash in your arse pocket, and there's pretty much no other work in the area, then being an [s]evil master criminal[/s] minor irritant to a few people is probably a price worth paying.

You are aware that large call centres deliberately locate to areas of high unemployment? For obvious reasons.

If you work in a call centre and the employer gives you a number to call that has requested no calls, is it you that has comitted the crime?

Also... how long would you keep your job if you decided to take a high-minded and virtuous moral stand for the poor, oppressed phone-answerers of the country?

I'd say that when you've got a mortgage, a family to feed, or just fancy a bit of cash in your arse pocket, and there's pretty much no other work in the area, then being an evil master criminal minor irritant to a few people is probably a price worth paying.

But just be prepared for those for whom you are a minor irritant to return the favour and not think particularly highly of you. Which was my original point that you objected to.

You are aware that large call centres deliberately locate to areas of high unemployment? For obvious reasons.

Yes, because the owners are such caring, happy chaps who do it just to help another brother human to a much needed income. And absolutely nothing to do with getting the employees prepared to work for as close to minimum wage as possible doing a horrible job and maximise his profit margins and the nice big tax break/grant that Nev Wiltshire gets from the Welsh Assembly for locating there.... 🙄

You waste my time, interrupt me in my home then you can deal with the consequences.

There are no consequences other than the ones you create out of a desire for revenge. On someone who probably doesn't want to be doing it in the first place.

Not nice at all, get over yourself. If your time is that valuable why do you waste it exacting revenge? Just hang up.

Yeah, you're right. I hope Nev lays everyone off, and relocates all the jobs to India, who I believe have the odd call centre.

The minor irritant calls will stop for sure then, eh?

There's a BBC3 ?
😉

A pals wife works there in the admin / HR department.

Apparently Nev is exactly like this - not put on for the cameras at all. By all accounts he is very popular with his workforce.

It's not personal. They're trying to make money. I'd never be rude to these people, I just hang up.
Having said that, if people have taken the time to enrol in some "no telecanvassing" scheme, then they are entitled to not get any tele canvassing. Same as a "no cold calling" sign outside your front door.

A proper bit of investigative journalism would have been better. Journalists take a job and work with hidden cameras. People suffering harassment are confronted with the directors of companies that phone people living in flats about fitting solar panels. The journalists cold call the directors with fictitious products and record the phone conversations... .

Now that would be worth watching.

Investigative journalism? Are you familiar with any of the other examples of BBC3's rather high brow content?

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Call centres that deliberately flout the regs and still cold call TPS registered numbers deserve everything they get. Sure I'd prefer it if the building collapsed when no one wass in it or the owner was jailed and it closed but neither of those is likely to happen so if they call me I'll do my own little bit to make it less profitable for them to continue doing it, if that means an under-privileged valleys girl doesn't get her £20 bonus then so be it, she's still not the victim in the equation.

I'm not really familiar with any BBC content, I deleted BBC1 and BBC2 from my sat box as untrustworthy propaganda. Snog, Marry, Avoid might be worth a look though, what's the frequency on Astra 2?

I'm loving the terminology. Harrassment? Victims? Criminals? Revenge?

Christ in a balaclava! Either you're in Louis Spence territory when it comes to overstated Victorian-esque melodrama, or you truly do have absolutely **** all to worry about. If this is your reaction to the odd unwanted phone call. 😆

When in business I considered it a serious issue - answering unwanted calls while working was unacceptable but leaving the phone off the hook cost me business. Hiring a secretary just to filter the unwanted stuff would have cost more than I was prepared to pay. Cold calling may be a major business sector that contributes to the economy but in doing so it stops small business people working.

Try running a business around a phone number, it's not just "the odd unwanted call". It's a business killer.

I have done and it isn't

[img] [/img]

I've had 3 cold calls in 5 years on my business line. I can't say it's impacted the bottom line in a measurable way.

Try running a business around a phone number, it's not just "the odd unwanted call". It's a business killer.

No it's not.

It's a "bit of a pain"

But let's not get melodramatic and say its a "business killer"

Because that's just balls really.

I run a small business, and have cold calls most days I would have thought, but I just Hang up and get on with whatever I was doing.

Browsing the Internet steals far more time than cold calls ffs.

I caught this last week and was convinced it was a bad re-hash of The Office. When I heard that it was a real company and that it was fined this week, I (stupidly) watched a bit more last night. It really is a bad re-hash of The Office.

The office was to me much more painful. It showed really awful management.

Where as I think Nev actually has something to say about how to manage people

Yes I know we are seeing what they want us to see. But I also think that the its based a round a vague truth.

To a point - but blimey, does this really make a complete series?

The Office didn't show awful management though - it was deliberate comedy.

The HR dept were not exactly visible in recruitment or this week's disciplinary from what I saw!

Browsing the Internet steals far more time than cold calls ffs.

Browsing the Internet cost my business no time at all. A computer can't interrupt teaching someone, drilling someone's teeth, giving someone a massage. There are a whole group of professionals that work phone off the hook and mobile off because of unsolicited calls. I used to answer two calls per hour class then take the phone off the hook as people weren't paying me to answer the phone. That meant real customers couldn't get through as well as the cold callers.

The bu€€ers stopped my one a ride the other day to ask about PPI. Now that IS unforgivable!

I used to answer two calls per hour class then take the phone off the hook as [b]people weren't paying me to answer the phone. [/B]That meant real customers couldn't get through as well as the cold callers.

Your phone should have been switched off anyway then ?

If people aren't paying you to answer the phone, then you shouldn't be answering it to anyone.

And hanging up on a cold caller takes a lot less time than talking to a real customer would, so a cold
Caller would actually be taking less time from the person who wasn't paying you to talk on the phone.

Customers are quite happy if the phone rings once, twice and it gets embarrassing and by three they're irritated. Customers know you answered the phone to them when they booked the appointment in the first place so they know you answer the phone. What they won't put up with is listening to you getting rid of a succession of cold callers. Cold callers kill business.