Comment by LocalH

Call center metrics are all about average call length. However, the slowness of the software is largely ignored, in my experience. I worked at a call center once where logging in to the network would take approximately fifteen minutes, depending on workstation, before you could actually start working. They just didn't care. At this particular call center, average handle time was expected to be kept under 6 minutes. One day I had a very good average of under 5 minutes per call, and I received a single inbound call that required use of their translation service (which was a number with which you would dial and initiate a three-way call, and that would translate between you and the caller, with all the requisite delay between communications that one would imagine). That call ballooned into a 45-60 minute ordeal that totally screwed my handle time for the day. The shit cherry on top? The next day, I got bitched at because my handle time for the previous day was too high. When I said "well, that one call was a translator and took like an hour" the only response was "your handle time is too high, don't let it happen again". By the time another week had passed, I had already left the position.

Call center jobs are largely exploitative and demeaning. Outsourcing customer service should be illegal, period.