But even though Concentrix has at least four sites in the Philippines on the Amazon account, handling the sheer number of calls is still a daily struggle, especially on special events like Amazon’s annual Prime Day, a two-day sale in mid-July.
Clients typically send a daily call volume forecast so that a call center can ensure it has enough personnel to handle the workload. Managers across the industry said the contractual penalty is standard among customer service accounts. Former managers told Vox that Amazon fines the call center $2.85 per failed call, an incentive for managers to push overloaded agents.Īgents have less than 10 minutes to resolve customer concerns
That average handling time is based on Concentrix and Amazon’s contract, according to interviews with two dozen agents. Regardless of a customer’s mood, the agents have less than 10 minutes to resolve their concerns (reports on the allotted time vary employees claim to be limited to seven minutes, while Amazon has given answers ranging from eight and a half to 10 minutes). How may I help you today?” Often a pleasant customer will be on the line, but sometimes, an angry one might berate an unsuspecting agent. They repeatedly say, “Thank you for calling Amazon. Call center agents say they work long hours and adhere to strict turnaround times for AmazonĪ call center in northern Manila operated by Concentrix, an Amazon contractor based in California, hosts 500 agents working exclusively on the Amazon account. After welcoming call centers with lax regulation and a 0 percent corporate tax holiday, the Philippine government is now playing catch-up to protect workers from excessive overtime, job insecurity, and the deadly consequences of an industry that largely escaped oversight for more than 20 years. Long hours are standard in the call center industry, which has generated $23.8 billion for the Philippine economy since the 1990s. But in order to meet Amazon’s 24/7 customer service demands, some agents say shifts as long as 16 to 24 hours are sometimes the norm. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, credits the company’s growth and retention to “customer obsession,” part of which is speedy and painless customer service. If you’re one of Amazon Prime’s 100 million subscribers in the United States, you may have spoken with them as they worked the graveyard shift, during which an agent can field up to 100 customer service and technical support calls and text chats. As the sun sets in the Philippines, more than a million Filipinos are just beginning to wake up for work.
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