Should a customer service rep trainee at least be able to hear one call taken by an experienced rep?
Asked by cannonball
Holy crap. I haven't even heard a call before I have to hit the phones tonight. Every other place I worked at let us sit with an experienced rep before we hit the phones. I have no script, no flow chart, and no clue on to make a decision on credit approval. After 2 days of little training. Should I go into work tonight to handle the first night of actual calls? I am kind of freaking out. It is like I am a stage actor that doesn't know his lines because he wasn't even given a script. You can only improvise so much. You know?

Best Answer:
Good luck, from the sounds of it you are gonna need it. I would talk to your supervisor and tell them how uncomfortable you feel, that you don't feel you've been trained enough. Hope it goes well tongiht for you!

I would mention this to the shift supervisor and tell him/her that you'd like to sit with someone before you get thrown to the wolves. Mention that you don't want to be set up to fail and want to do a good job for them. If they don't listen then you're are the wrong company.
Answered by Kel K

Absolutely! Noone should be expected to perform customer service tasks without better training. I would not want to do business with a company that had such poor training techniques and such lack of respect for their employee and their customers.
Answered by eclairjunkie

Yes, you should be able to hear a few calls with an experienced rep. Don't freak out though, you make it or you don't. The world is not going to end and if you mess up, you can try better on your next call and on your next day. There is only room to go up, you'll only grow and learn, and no way you can go down from here. Just give it your best, that is all you can do and you're only as good as they've trained you to be. You don't know anything more than what you've been trained so they can only expect that much. If you happen to make your own way through it by pulling something out of your a$$ and you do a good job, well then excellent! You'll be fine and there are thousands of jobs out there for you. And just think, if you put in your 8 hours and do horribly, you're still getting paid :)
Answered by Fraffle

Definetly yes. They should sit down and blame each other for the mess. Preferably later they should solve it themselves rather than cause more fuss.
Answered by KCD