Avantages
This is a good way to get your minimum customer service experience on your resume so it can open the door for other opportunities.
The work from home aspect is most ideal if you're unable to travel or you want to save on gas money; but it can be a double-edged sword (putting a pin in this).
Most of the people are good to work with, mainly since we're remote so we don't have to take our stress and problems into the same office while everything's going on (again, pin in this).
If you have data entry skills or are Microsoft 365 savvy, you'll adapt to the system used for customers' orders.
Inconvénients
There's been constant internal shifts within management that have left reps scattered and customers increasingly angry.
The customers are always a downside in CS to some extent, as they default to thinking you are personally responsible for an order not going through when there's multiple factors at play. You could do everything possible to resolve the situation or make up for it, and they'll still treat you terribly to blow off steam.
Except here, the volume of angry, unreasonable customers are a result of the lack of guidance and management. We can't let customers know about internal handling of issues, but we also don't have answers to give them either; so many of the discrepancies boil down to customers could've received an update regarding stock and backorders, or there could've been greater notice on the websites before placing an order.
Because they're focused on getting temps on the line, they're not able to comprehensively go over everything needed to work with CX. I get that, but when things are so scattered we only recently find out we've been calling the wrong outbound line, or we've submitted purchase orders incorrectly, it leaves us feeling as unconfident about what the company's able to do as our customers are.
Because we're all remote and people on various teams are in different time zones, it added to the difficulty in getting in touch with every person a customer requests within a day, let alone getting back with the customers in a timely manner. And with the chaotic workload, the internal responses to a customer inquiry or follow-up ranged from equally confused to stressed and snappy, which conjured some resentment for one another, including on my end.
The managers were fine enough. My last PM did have a clear direction on how to help improve our workload, and for that reason, I rate the experience two stars.
But at that point, it had been months of customers screaming at me for issues I couldn't disclose, feeling like I'm only learning what I need to do in hindsight, and any time they promised we'd have a discussion about possible onboarding opportunities, it had been postponed more than five times while I was there. Had they been honest about this being a contract and nothing more, I would've planned accordingly.
I requested to finish my contract or submit a notice before leaving; they just requested I submit everything without finishing it out. They never brought any issue with attendance up with me or my recruiter, and they unceremoniously requested I leave. I also never received a T-shirt a customer sent for me as a thank you, and they had my address on file.
It's that lack of consideration or communication that leaves people feeling unwilling or undedicated to work. We had no true guidance, once provided it was in hindsight with more emphasis on mistakes rather than our whole performance, they never had OT opportunities available despite saying the opposite, and we were left at the mercy of angry customers with no consideration of either's well-being.
It makes a work from home job even more difficult than just an onsite job, because the stress has to live with you rather than be quarantined to an office.