AT&T Employee Reviews for Customer Assistant

"I've worked at ATT since May 2010. I loved the people that I worked with and established many friendships during my tenure."

What do you like about working at AT&T?

"1) The hourly pay rate is okay. Depending on your experience, you'll make between $10 and $14 per hour. You will receive a pay raise every six months. Keep in mind that the hourly rate mentioned may be different now. 2) You will receive paid training. The training period will be for 6 or 8 weeks. 3) During your training, you will be placed on the phone to interact and troubleshoot directly with a customer, so that you will know what to expect once you complete training. However, you will have the assistance of a more experienced technical support agent, who will be sitting right next to you in case you have any issues. This will happen in the last week of your training. 4) The health benefits are great. You will receive dental, vision and health care insurance, and it will be available right after you are hired. 5) You will be eligible for two weeks of vacation time after working there for six months. 6) You are allowed to take personal days off with pay, although I do not recall how many days you are allowed to take."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"Your interviewer will ask behavioral-based customer service questions. Use Google to find examples of behavioral-based customer service questions."

What don't you like about working at AT&T?

"1) Some of their policies and procedures do not make much sense or is just plain unfair, which can make certain calls difficult for the technical support agent and/or customer. For example, AT&T became aware that some of their Motorola modems were defective. Instead of replacing the modems for free, they decided that the customer should be charged for a replacement modem, although it was not the customers fault that he/she received a bad modem. When the customer found out that they would be charged for a replacement modem, who do you think got chewed out over it? The agent. Although the agents don't make the rules, they get flack from the customer due to unfair policies. After receiving complaints from agents and customers, the customers were able to get the defective modems replaced for free. 2) In my opinion, the opening and closing statements are too long, which irritated the customer. If you did not say it, they will threaten to fire you because it was a zero-tolerance rule. To my knowledge, no one was ever fired for NOT saying it at my particular call center. 3) Some of the customers were very rude, although some did refrain from actually cursing you out. I will admit I was never cursed out by a customer while I was employed there, but I did have a few rude customers. Some of the customers called in acting as if they were know-it-alls. If you knew so much, then you would be not on the other end of my phone asking for help, especially if it is an issue you could have fixed yourself, and it was not on AT&Ts part. Ex: I had a guy who called in and as I was giving him instructions on how to get to the command prompt, and he says I'm a computer programmer; I know what I'm doing. I wanted to say, I don't care about you being a programmer. If you knew how to fix your own problem you wouldn't be asking me for help, so you are not as smart as you think. Of course, I didn't say this to him, but definitely wanted to. 4) Although I would not consider this to be a con, it is part of company policy which is understandable. You are NOT ALLOWED to just randomly surf the Internet while you are on a call with a customer. If you are assisting a customer and it becomes necessary to research an issue via the Internet, then that would be acceptable. If you are caught casually visiting websites as if you are surfing the Internet at your home, you can and will be fired, especially if you are warned about it multiple times. 5) Attendance is important, and I do not consider this to be a con. Come to work when scheduled, and take your 15-minute breaks and 1-hour lunch break when scheduled, unless you are stuck on a call with a customer. You will have 2 15-minute breaks. When you miss days or are late/tardy from breaks/lunch, you will have a scheduled attendance meeting to discuss your tardiness or absence from work. There are a certain number of days you can miss before you actually get fired. 6) Holiday time is pretty crappy due to all the extra calls with little or no break time between calls. The calls would come in back-to-back. I remember when I had to work 12 days straight, WITH NO DAYS OFF WHATSOEVER. Sometimes the company will add an extra hour or more to your schedule without giving you advanced notice. However, this occurred when we were very busy, which is typically from December to January. Sometimes it would be done when you are 1-2 hours away from completing your shift which caught many employees off guard. 7) Sometimes you are forced to work overtime if enough people do not volunteer to work overtime. At my call center, you would be randomly chosen. 8) The job will become quite boring and routine, because you are pretty much doing the same thing everyday. You will troubleshoot a customer's Internet connection (slow speed, intermittent connectivity, no connectivity), configure email clients and gaming consoles. You will also setup and troubleshoot home networks. You will troubleshoot and remove viruses and spyware, ONLY if the customer has the AT&T Internet Security Suite installed on their PC. You will not support or troubleshoot any third-party anti-virus/spyware programs, or at least you're not supposed to. I assisted customers with 3rd-party programs and never had an issue with management, but AT&T does not support 3rd-party software and hardware."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"I do not have any suggestions for management. My manager was OK."

"You're required to meet a minimum goal each month."

What do you like about working at AT&T?

"The environment is very welcoming."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"If you're always on time and don't have a personal life, this job is for you."

What don't you like about working at AT&T?

"Management implies that you will lose your job if you don't make monthly goals. Also, there are too many trainings you have to complete."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"Treat your employees with decency. They matter just as much as your customers do."