I recently realized that February 13th, 2007 was the 17th anniversary of my first day on the job as an outbound telemarketer. That means I’ve officially been in contact centers for more than half my life. Scary, I know. What’s even scarier is that some people reading this blog probably remember that shy, scrawny kid with the high pitched voice trying to sell Cititravel (a consumer travel service provided by CUC International as a private label to Citibank Credit Card holders for $49 a year :-)
Needless to say I’ve changed a bit since then, and so has our beloved industry. When I started this gig, all outbound campaigns we’re manually dialed and managed from color coded labels that were stuck on “sales sheets” and “callback cards”. And things like VOIP, WFM, CRM, Business Intelligence, Performance Management and Analytics weren’t even glimmers in our eyes yet.
Ironically enough, some things haven’t changed much. In February 1991, a Bush was in the White House, we were at War in Iraq, and the U.S. was in a recession…
On that note, “Smile and Dial”
-Chris
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2 Responses to The More Things Change…
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Wow.
Thats really funny. When I was 16 (in 1991) I also worked in an outbound call center. We did the same thing (although I may have been a bit more irritating – selling replacement windows). Dialed numbers manually, and having a supervisor perform a manual callback. I really didn’t stay in call centers (although I went to one of the first florist 800 numbers for a while doing inbound customer service) – but I’m back now.
It was a heck of a way to earn some extra money. Funny how things come full circle.
Mike
Cititravel, CitiShopper and Safecard. Unfortunately I remember it all too well. What a long way our industry has come. Yet, in the end, it all comes back to the same thing, the connection (no pun intended) with the customer.
Remember the “tickle” call back cards?