Todd Stadler's blog

i agree

I can't say I understand the whole 14 settings concept either, but I do remember being a kid and just absolutely having to push every single button on my way to frape' just so I could hear the thing rev up from its slowest setting.

I am sitting at my desk, and no one is around. I am scribbling this on a notepad as I wait for other departments, I'll type it when I get home. I am surrounded by motivational posters with smiling co workers, charts showing who is selling more than whom, and occasionally interrupted by the liars and thieves who spin their evil magic around me. My email box is full of company propaganda detailing contests, drawings, statistics and top sellers in the office, trying to motivate me into selling more in a competitive spirit. My desk is cluttered with color flyers also inviting me into the madness while regulatory updates, price changes, and everything else is done on the black and white printer or just emailed and nearly impossible to find amongst all the other rubbish inundating me. I have worked as a sales and service agent for Qwest for a few years now. I have smiled and nodded, but kept my scruples, as my direct manager has told me to do a lot of illegal and immoral things. Examples would be saying things that would make customers think that there was only measured service or the bloated and over expensive Custom Choice package. For those who somehow got service without a package I was encouraged to compare services with them in a way that would make the package look less expensive by saying something to the effect of "your service is 22 per month now (includes tax) and custom choice is only 32! (doesn't include tax, will actually be about 45 with tax.) I was told to try to sell every customer a new home phone when they get service by saying it would only be $12 a month. Later they decided it was best to tell customers it would be 45 (custom choice plus phone payment, quote only before tax, after tax it will be 60.) When someone said they already had a phone, I was to tell them it was included with their service for 45, fraudulently insinuating that their bill wouldn't be lower if they declined the phone. If they were lucky enough to get their bill in time to return it they would spend hours getting transferred around before someone would promise a return packet, which of course would never be sent by the under trained and underpaid outsource reps. I smiled, nodded, and pigeonholed this idea because I knew that it would mean preying on the slow witted who didn't realize they were paying $144 for a phone they could get at wal mart for $40. Its the EXACT SAME PHONE, only it says Uniden instead of Qwest. I was encouraged to make customers think a repair would be hundreds, perhaps thousands, when in fact millions pay 4.75 per month for years in the hopes of someday saving 18-85 in the event that they need repair services, which most never do. Many more pay an extra 1.25 to 4.50 per month in case they need to get their $20 phone replaced. Most don't know they actually have this, they think its part of their wire maintenance. Others pay lockdown for their cell phone, duped into thinking its good to pay 3.95 per month so if they loose their $50 phone they can save $15 (there is a 35 deductible that is never mentioned during the pitch) I was scolded for "wasting my time," by telling a sweet old woman making arrangements on her $18 phone bill about the telephone assistance plan. It just took less than 30 seconds for her to get the number from me. Another customer mentioned that she was only using the line for her computer, nothing else ever. I pointed out that she had a feature package that was costing her an extra $20 a month over what a basic line (what she would need for a computer,) would cost. She told me she thought that she needed it to get unlimited phone service and the person told her she would have to pay by the minute to dial up if she didn't get custom choice. My manager listened to that call and told me it was my job to protect the sales efforts of my co workers and do what is right for the company and its shareholders. Once I was observed selling a cell phone to a customer. Before it was legally required, I went over EVERYTHING. I explained that we have very limited coverage in 14 states and explained possible roaming fees. I explained overages and how expensive they could be. I am a good salesman, so she was still excited about the cell phone she was contemplating when I put her on hold to estimate her first bill, next two with equipment payments, and regular bill. My manager came busting out of her cubicle to tell me I had a sale and had to stop trying to talk her out of it. That was definitely not what I was trying to do, I needed the revenue to meet my quota, remain employed, and keep my wife and children fed. I was just trying to keep my karma intact. Another time a woman called in asking for cell phone information. I asked her what it was for and she said it was for her husband, who was a cross country truck driver. I explained that Qwest wireless would not work out for her because we have coverage in only selected areas of 14 western states, not including California and Nevada. My boss came flying out of the woodwork again, and this time she told me that I shouldn't discourage her from buying things. When I tried to argue that the customer would end up paying hundreds, possibly thousands, in roaming fees he told me it was up to her to read the information in the box with the phone and reminded me that I have a sales job. I found out at the beginning of the year that all of the cell phone plans I had been selling included a free 3 month trial of browse now, the positively worthless internet service for cell phone users. I was not told the customers were getting this, so there was no way I could possibly tell them to watch for the charge to suddenly show up on their bill in a few months. After paying equipment charges for the three month free trial, they probably didn't notice the 9.95 because their bills had gone down over the previous month. There has been massive downsizing of the outsourced departments, where sales reps get almost no training for some very complicated issues for wireless and dsl. After a 1 day course I’m supposed to replace an outsource rep that went through months of training. The numbers for those departments now just transfer right back to the sales queue, meaning that customers get transferred again and again back to the same department when representatives understandably forget that the function of that department was merged into their already insanely overcomplicated job description. One of the only outsource departments not to be dismantled are the pushy liars in the “save the sale” department. We have one for packages, high speed internet, and cell phones. They are the ones who you talk to after you realize you’ve been duped and want to just cancel the service. These reps are under high pressure to talk people out of making changes. Its not uncommon that they outright lie about how much a customer would save by removing services or tell wireless and dsl customers that they are in contract when in fact they are not. If the customer persists that they want the package removed there’s a good chance the person over there will just note that they agreed to keep it to avoid being fired for not saving enough products. Last to go was the special payment arrangement department for cell phone users, they needed a whole new department to talk to people who were lied to about how much a cell phone would cost and cant pay it on time. The telemarketing department tells customers that the calls are recorded, but those recordings are no where to be found when they lie, which they do routinely. They use the how much is your bill now (customer quotes with tax,) and then quote the package without tax. There is a convenient delay in processing equipment orders, especially from telemarketers, which means very few customers will see anything saying how much the phone will actually cost before they can return it. One by one, pretty much every state we offer service in sued us. My peers groaned as we were suddenly required to disclose basic service and that packages were not a requirement to avoid measured service. A script was introduced that clearly told every potential wireless customer what they were getting into. My peers were not used to the intricacies of actually telling the truth and still selling something while I had been mastering this skill the whole time. Now that we have to be honest, the new way Qwest is showing its greed is with the interview offer close campaign. Vastly ignored by us lowly cogs but very hyped by the management, it encourages us to interview EVERY customer to see if they are a good candidate for our wireless, long distance, internet service, or packages. Regardless of what answers they give, they are considered a good candidate and we must continue pitching until they hang up. If someone should be transferred to repair because of a line outage or to the credit management department because they have been disconnected for nonpayment, we need only let them know that we will eventually transfer them to have "handled," their original request. We are then to drag them through a 20 minute sales pitch. It doesn't matter if they are on their cell phones using minutes, outside using a payphone in inclement weather, or in a hurry. We are not to consider that they are already angry that the service they have already doesn't work. We shouldn't be stopped from our pitches by the fact that they obviously can't afford what they already have, we press onward by forcing them into the indignity of admitting they can't afford what we are telling them about. Of course that won't help, management tells us that it just means we have to tell them more about the product so they will see more value and want to buy it. The middle managers, making six figures, don't understand that some people actually don't have $200 a month to spare. If a customer tells me they can't afford something, I am not to stop there. I am supposed to continue with my pitch until they either hang up or decide that they do need a cell phone more than they need to buy formula and diapers. The worst is when a customer is calling in to make arrangements. They can't afford what they have, but I am to sell them more. I can't agree to the arrangements before dragging them through my pitches. Customers are terrified that if they explain that they just need to make arrangements that they will offend me and I will refuse to extend their payment. Even if the customer is calling in because they can't pay their $4 monthly fee for low income service, I am to try to sell them things that will make the bill $200. No one is spared. I am not supposed to use my own judgment to determine if someone is able to understand the complex products I am obliged to offer to them. The mentally disabled, extremely elderly, and customers with too little English to understand a the complicated implications of their order are not exempted from Qwest's spirit of greed. My manager says I should not make judgments about what products someone might want just because they are disabled/elderly/new to English but I know right from wrong. If they can't really understand what they are getting into it is just as if I had lied to them. Moral objections aside, I don't see how any sober person could think that this would actually improve revenue generation. Do you really think that someone is going to buy anything after we drag them through wireless and dsl pitches? Can any human keep up the momentum and enthusiasm required to sell when they have been forced to drain their energy on people everyone knows will not buy anything? A few months ago they started requiring that the bill address be verified on every call. The people who thought of getting two alternate contact numbers for every order never thought about how it would sound to customers making very simple changes. And now can I get two numbers to reach you at in case we have questions about removing these products you didn’t order? At the end of every call, even if we're transferring, we're required to say "I'd like to let you know that Qwest appreciates your business and its my goal to provide you with excellent customer service. Have I provided you with excellent service today?" I'm laughing as I comply with these requirements, I see the closing script as my opportunity to tell my customers what a bunch of silly bastards the people on the top really are. Tired of high pressure sales every time they make a phone payment, I see customers flocking in droves to companies that really do appreciate their business, not just want to sell more things to them. It never occurred to the idiots on top how this would feel for a customer dragged through the billing address and closing sarcasm every single time they get transferred, and again when they call back because their problem wasn't solved. When it became clear that requiring every customer be interviewed (grilled with questions about the services they have now) and offered (pressured into switching to Qwest or starting service they don't need or want) wasn't scaring everyone into compliance they rolled out the new call flow. Its a massive flowchart about 10 pages long. It starts with "Now that we've gotten that taken care of, do you mind if I take a minute to update our records?" then has lines going to yes and no telling us what to say. "Are you sure? This just takes a minute.." or "Ok, great, do you have a cell phone." We are supposed to read the words in the bubbles verbatim. My manager, and the people above him I'm sure, think that customers will not be able to tell we are reading or recognize those exact same words from when they called in last time. After mechanizing almost every part of the call they launch the "personal touch," campaign, telling everyone in Qwest Today, the daily propaganda newsletter, how we're working to add the personal touch to our customer interactions. Its like one arm doesn't even know there is another arm, let alone that its pointing the other way and threatening unemployment to those who don't follow. Looking across the centers I see sales revenues plummeting, this is because others are terrified of loosing their jobs and are actually trying to follow the call flow, which results in selling nothing but burnout for the salesman. It is literally impossible to show enthusiasm about every product, on every call, even when you are forced to do so needlessly or against your own better judgment and ethics. The script can be read, but by the third time it is obviously a script. Customers can smell a script a mile away and it doesn't pique their interest. The state decrees for all say that we must handle the customers original concern before moving forward with a sales pitch. We must ask for permission to interview for sales and get cpni (permission to use information from your phone bill to push other services) clearance, not just say we are going to "update our records." A few decrees also admit that selling to those who cannot understand the obligation is considered cramming. I've filed an anonymous PUC complaint in every state where Qwest has service. Its a drop in the bucket and worth my time. It was a small army of them that forced the various state Attorney Generals, (mostly fat and docile from too many bribes) to finally sue Qwest and bring the decrees. These decrees, though only partially compiled with, have forced the company to stop pressuring me to make customers think they can only have a package or measured service, made sure most of the customers knew at least a little about their cell plans, and a choice of dsl isps. That’s a big improvement for customers, and has helped the handful of honest sales reps. There is less pressure on the honest among us to be dishonest, more pressure on the dishonest to meet those minimal standards of integrity. Speaking of PUCs, the statistics they get are all wrong. In sonar, the primary order writing tool, we are to enter "so" in one field whenever an order's completion date is changed. In training I was told simply to put SO in that field. SO says the customer requested their service on another day, and prevents there from being any record that the reason something didn't happen on as planned was because we messed it up. On every order, we have to put an x next to where we type in the completion date. I found out the x is used to generate reports that customers satisfied with our turnaround times, like waiting 5 days for a new number. Its never mentioned in training that there is any other option for those fields, most people just use macros. These fields generate audits for the PUCs and are used to calculate the statistics that Qwest brags about, like 98% of new service requests going in on time. In our new system, consulting plus, there is no reason code necessary when we are delaying an order. I wonder if the PUCs think we don't need to track anymore after so many years of such good statistics, or are those reports just completely fabricated now? Up until recently, we had to input a certain code as part of writing any bill credit. I found out that code tells the computer it is an adjustment for basic service. They were having us do this because it took the money off the books of the dial tone part of the business, so that it could make it look like we were making less money for basic service and help to justify raising rates to the PUCs. About the time competition started taking our customers and it became clear that they couldn’t raise the rates again without loosing more business they showed us how to use the code to bill the adjustment to the wireless, dsl, and optional features part of the business. It was NEVER mentioned in initial training that there was any other way to issue a credit. I think it was about a year ago when we had that massive "billing error" that caused a lot of our customers to be billed literally 10X the actual amount they owed. A few months later, this happened again with many of the cell phone accounts. Everyone made estimated payments and it was cleared up on the next bill. This was on the news in little sound bytes, with the reporters chuckling that someone hit a wrong key somewhere. I think, but am not sure, that the billing from the last month in the quarter is used to estimate revenue for the next quarter. Investors look at that estimated revenue to decide what stocks to buy. Isn't it funny that this happened twice, and each time right at the end of the quarter, when Joe nacho was selling off all of his stock right before he left us? As disgruntled as I am, its also important to point out that up until this point I have been very successful. I have not come in at less than 150 percent of my sales objective with less than 2 percent turnover in a looong time, but I will now. Like many of my co workers I have decided its not worthwhile for me to sell things for this company anymore. With the kickers being restructured where I must follow the aforementioned insanity on every call to get my hard earned kicker money. If I am caught sparing a developmentally delayed or extremely elderly customer a high pressure pitch for a cell phone, or forget to start talking about high speed internet after that leads nowhere, my kickers, which account for over half my income, are gone. Since I won't violate my ethics, I won't get my kickers so there's no point in selling anything other than the minimum 60% to avoid progressive discipline. I take pride in knowing that everyone I talk to will not be misled, cheated, or drug through unnecessary grief. Every customer who I talk to is one that is saved from the wolves that surround me. I will not look for another job. I really don't think I will get fired for this and solar haven’t even seen the beginning of the two month process of write up and termination. I suspect the process may not begin until after next month's numbers come in anyway, so I have three months to fight. Though they insist that it is a job requirement to have a 100 percent offer rate, they are offering us stupid incentives if we get the office level to 50 percent. Obviously I'm not the only dissident here. I'll just do what I know is right, and with my good karma and basic dignity intact I have nothing to fear. If anyone wants to talk to me directly, I set up a new email address at spiritofinsanegreed@hotmail.com .

amen brother. i worked for qwest as sales and service nazi for 1 year before they decided to clost my center down in helena montana and screw ne one that cant move to another state.

i have a wife and 2 kids, and i didnt even get the time off of work once or twice a week even a few hours a day to find a job. i guess im just expected to go apply for jobs on the weekends when everyone is closed.
so what do i do, i quit...it was the only way that i could go arround town and shotgun my resume to as many jobsites a possible.

speaking about time off. i had a traffic ticket in another city in my state, the "mission control" raz desk didnt even give me half a day off on the day i had to be in court 200 miles away, (the cop was graceous enough to set the date out far enough for me to ask time off for travel; i even asked for half the day off 2 weeks before the date.) they said "we need a subpoena to give you time off for court" (i had used all my vacation time on none other than vacation, and my sick time was used up when my wife was in the er for a week) i said "if i miss the court date, im gonna get a warrant for my arrest!" and guess what happened. they told me that a copy of the warrant would suffice; they didnt even want the ticket i was issued in the cop's handwrighting (which IS legally a subpoena) so they scheduled the DAY AFTER MY COURT DATE as a half day off just so i would get a warrant for my arrest issued so i could bring it in and not get written up. in the promise that i would bring back the copy of the warrant. all i have to say is oh my god.... not only is qwest shotty to it's customers but to their employees as well.

im glad im done with them.

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