Planet Money report on Disney Dining "call center" CMs

[robinb]

Planet Money is a podcast from NPR. They did a podcast on 10/2/2020 about employees who work at "call centers" from home and spoke to a woman who was a Disney Dining CM. She worked, not for Disney, but as an "independent contractor" for Arise Virtual Solutions. Disney hired Arise to provide people to answer our phone calls to make dining reservations and Arise charged the people they hired for equipment and training. So, when you call Disney to make a reservation you are probably talking to someone who works for Arise. The podcast features a woman who worked as a dining reservationist for 7 years before she finally quit.

Here is the podcast:
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/918195277/call-center-call-out

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

When I worked at the insurance company (in the call center) there were a few contracted out companies used. The documents sent (things like grade cards for good student discount, etc) were screened by a contracted company located in the Dominican Republic (this has been 8 or so years by now), another contracted company was used for billing and they were located in Austin, TX. For a long time medical offices have used contracted out employees who act as a message service. I have a friend that works in that and has for close to 10 years now.

Touched on in the linked article in the article posted was the aspect that you're not supposed to know that the person doesn't work for the company you are calling. Sometimes that's not an issue whatsoever other times it is. The company I mentioned located in the Dominican Republic was not on the phones and we could never contact them. There was a high rate of inaccuracies when the company I worked for moved the work from people located in Idaho to the DR. Things like a document for good student would be rejected because it didn't list the GPA but it would, or a receipt for contractor work on a roof replacement would be rejected because it wouldn't say "Paid in Full" but it would actually say that. It caused double work for me and double work for the agent who would call to get it fixed. It wasn't that mistakes didn't happen before but when it was moved out of house the rate at which the mistakes were occurring was much much higher. Couldn't tell you how many times agents would rightfully complain about a document being rejected and me not being able to explain that it wasn't a person I could get a hold of, it wasn't even employees that worked for us, because in the end all the agent was supposed to know was that they were a representative of our company..just made us look incompetent at times.

 

[Eeyore daily]

That's what Facebook does for its policy content moderating. A lot of big companies do it to cut costs however if you don't know how the parent company operates or wants to be done it hurts the end-user in the long run since they get the misinformation. I wouldn't be surprised if other departments in Disney are run the same way.

 

[beavismom]

Virtual call centers have been in use for more than 20 years. I worked for a company called Alpine Access taking calls for The Discovery Channel Store way back in the late 90s. We did it from our personal computers, which I probably wouldn't do now, but it stinks that they have to buy special equipment. Pretty much any holiday flower order you have done in the last 20 years probably went through a virtual call center that was subcontracted.

 

[_19disnA]

I would imagine many companies outsource their call center/help desk activity to cut costs. I don't really care who signs their paycheck as long as they have enough training/knowledge to be of assistance. Too many of these seemed staffed by poorly trained, inept or lazy entry level people who only know how to answer your question if it is one of the items on a list of commonly asked questions they seem to be reading from. Usually if they don't know or don't care if they can help you, they either try to transfer you somewhere else or you mysteriously get cut off in the process....LOL.

Even before the days of covid, it seems that anyone working from home with PC access to the appropriate systems can perform this function. Some companies do a great job with customer service, but some are just awful. If I get answer that makes no sense or clearly someone who has zero interest in being helpful, I usually call back a few minutes later and get a different person on the phone who can actually answer my question.

When planning our Disney trip last year, we had occasion to call the Disney help desk a few times for things we weren't able to do on our own online. Many were very helpful, but a few seemed like they had NO idea how to be of assistance. There are a number of older threads about people's help desk experience.

 

[skeeter31]

The Disney call center here in Tampa is very large, and pre COVID they did outsource some of the dining calls. But that was it. All other calls are handled at the call center. They made that change when they moved away from calling for dining reservations. They reassigned the dining phone staff to other areas of the call center.

 

[NotUrsula]

The key takeaway is that NO call center job should charge home workers for their training and the use of company-specific telecommunications equipment; those things should be provided by the company at company expense as part of overhead.

Charging unskilled employees for training or for the use of the tools that they need to do their jobs is a morally reprehensible practice, and if Disney has failed to vet their subcontractors in this way, then yes, they deserve a thrashing in the court of public opinion.

Hiring 3rd party staffing companies isn't an issue for me, but requiring those staffing companies to comply with certain fair wage and training quality standards should be expected.

 

[robinb]

The key takeaway is that NO call center job should charge home workers for their training and the use of company-specific telecommunications equipment; those things should be provided by the company at company expense as part of overhead.

Charging unskilled employees for training or for the use of the tools that they need to do their jobs is a morally reprehensible practice, and if Disney has failed to vet their subcontractors in this way, then yes, they deserve a thrashing in the court of public opinion.

Hiring 3rd party staffing companies isn't an issue for me, but requiring those staffing companies to comply with certain fair wage and training quality standards should be expected.

Yes, that is exactly it. The CM in question was required to purchase her own equipment and to pay for her own training. She failed her first test (non Disney) and was required to pay more money to take more training to qualify for a position with Disney. The company is currently being sued for unfair labor practices.

 

[spiders]

I would imagine many companies outsource their call center/help desk activity to cut costs. I don't really care who signs their paycheck as long as they have enough training/knowledge to be of assistance. Too many of these seemed staffed by poorly trained, inept or lazy entry level people who only know how to answer your question if it is one of the items on a list of commonly asked questions they seem to be reading from. Usually if they don't know or don't care if they can help you, they either try to transfer you somewhere else or you mysteriously get cut off in the process....LOL.

Well, honestly the who signs their check is part of the problem. When you get people who are contractors, my experience has been that they are reminded everyday that they are contractors and are treated as second class citizens. That type of things generally spills over to the customer side. You might actually be a fantastic customer and one that generates a ton of revenue for the actual company but nobody cares because they are just a contractor waiting until a new contractor underbids them. And of course, longevity comes with higher costs so you'll always be at a disadvantage.

 

[aggiedog]

I posted a similar article (published in a different website) about the same thing in a different part of the forums here. It made me wonder if that's why some CM's seem to be less than helpful and why you can get such different answers sometimes for the same question.

Yes, the gist of the article was the unfair business practice of this particular company.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

It made me wonder if that's why some CM's seem to be less than helpful and why you can get such different answers sometimes for the same question.

You'd get that regardless of in-house or not. 4 1/2 years of call center experience has for sure taught me that lol

 

[tex1989]

Totally not on topic but all this talk of call centers makes me think of something I learned many years ago. Back in the days well before internet and do not call lists many of the tele marketing companies were as I understood located in Omaha, Nebraska., The reason was they had tremendous communication availability because that was the home of the Strategic Air Command (our nuclear reaction wing of the armed forces) and therefore more phone lines than most other places in the country.

Sorry for the interruption, continue.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

They make them pay for their own training and equipment? What's next. The company store and being paid in script?

 

[robinb]

They make them pay for their own training and equipment? What's next. The company store and being paid in script?

 

[mom2rtk]

Maybe they should just pay them in Disney dollars.

 

[robinb]

I posted a similar article (published in a different website) about the same thing in a different part of the forums here. It made me wonder if that's why some CM's seem to be less than helpful and why you can get such different answers sometimes for the same question.

Yes, the gist of the article was the unfair business practice of this particular company.

The Planet Money podcast was done in concert with the publisher of article you posted. The podcast goes more in depth into the story of the Disney "CM".

 

[Heather07438]

too many of these seemed staffed by poorly trained, inept or lazy entry level people who only know how to answer your question if it is one of the items on a list of commonly asked questions they seem to be reading from.

It's no surprise because anybody with improved skills will seek a better paying job. Capable people aren't going to stick around for very low wages.