Foreign Language Career Exploration
By Julio César Lloyd
Call Center Operator
Call Center Operator
Have you ever called customer service? Your cell provider's 24-hour help line? An online retailer, or even the home shopping network? You likely have. Well, who is the hard-to-understand-and-rather-frustrating person on the other end of the line?
That person is a Call Center Operator! These people deal with the complaints and needs of unruly and sometimes aggravated customers. This career, however simple, requires knowledge of multiple languages and accents to enable communication between the caller and the Operator.
Pros-and-Cons of Call Center Operator
As a Call Center Operator, there are a few negatives to your job.
- From angry customers to tedious work shifts, including sitting on a chair all day.
- This is a job for patient, content people who are an odd bit lazy.
The good aspects of this career include:
- Minimal physical input for easy pay.
- A knowledge of phones and computers.
- Etc.
Workplace
This is a typical call center for a medium-large company.
An Old Timey call center
This is a 1970's call center in England.
Call Center Operator's desk
The Op's desk consists of a desktop computer for accessing files.
Entry Level
A year's earnings for a Call Center Op is, on average, 43,000 Dollars per year.
This is an unexperienced, entry-level position annual earnings.
Education, or the Lack Thereof.
- As a Call Center Op, the Education- or rather I should say experience -needed for the Career vary mainly by employer.
- Most ask for a High School Diploma, at least a year of experience in the field, and a few years of sales service experience.
- Though, things do change from company to company.
- For Example, a Healthcare provider/administrator may ask for an Operator that has a healthcare knowledge or background.
- There is a long list of the possible specializations needed to perform the career correctly for the employer's line of work.
- These include being Bilingual, something that is highly requested on Indeed.com, a career advertisement website.
Where to Learn
- Along with this rather strange school, much more training for Call Center Ops. is available in online brochures, including printable packets full of how to answer the phone and talk to a customer.
(Now am I the only one who gets humor in that?)