https://www.propublica.org/article/meet-the-customer-service-reps-for-disney-and-airbnb-who-have-to-pay-to-talk-to-you A look at Arise Virtual Solutions, part of the secretive world of work-at-home customer service that helps large corporations shed costs at the expense of workers. Now the pandemic is creating a boom in the industry.
We should also get contractors for Google from this innovative company.
Great read. Damn shame.
Tldr: there's an "Uber for customer support." Like uber, you have to buy your own equipment. Unlike uber, these agents: - have a ton of requirements on their work hours and shift times, despite being flexible contractors. - have to pay monthly "platform fees" to use the service - have to pay to attend the mandatory training required in order to answer calls for each client. Ie if you wanna answer airbnb calls, you gotta pay to take the training for airbnb. Training is unpaid time. One lady had to dedicate 54 days of training just for at&t. Another spent 8 months and $1k to get trained on like 10 companies.
Disgusting
This is how half of the contact center industry works. The agents that work at AIRSE are fully aware of the upfront cost. The other half of contact centers are in an office and no cost to set up. If you’re an engineer for a tech or startup and haven’t set side by side with your support team how it operates well then that’s on you. Everything in that article is fair and necessary, EXECPT for the predatory marketing practices done by AIRSE. The only way to stop BPOs like AIRSE is to have their agents quit and work for a normal call center like 24/7 Intouch.
This seems like a smart business model, tainted by the sometimes crazy training requirements and instability of the gig It’s like Uber, but the driver needs to train for much longer and might be only to drive for a few days after days and days of training for one specific customer
Probably explains why airbnb customer service takes a month to respond.....
Can we have a tldr?