Pros
Pretty good pay (though part of me thinks it was an attempt at purchasing a retention rate), decent benefits. Get a good computer and home office setup to work with.
Cons
Short answer: Communication was poor, things were often disorganized, leadership spent more time kicking cans than answering questions, the work itself isn't as fulfilling as promised, emotionally and mentally exhausting Long Answer: The amount of people I called on a daily basis only to have them be either extremely confused, annoyed, or just flat out ignore us really took its toll. And you work on strict metrics, so if they don't answer or you go even the tiniest bit off script (and "fail" the call), your numbers get hurt. Everything is numbers here. "Successful" calls sometimes feel counter-productive to the customer's needs. It's really disheartening to hear, regularly, customers asking you "who are you again?", "What exactly are you for?", "What do you actually DO?" Speaking of their needs, 3/5 times there's nothing you really CAN do to help them. They'll need money for treatment that just isn't there, rides to appointments that aren't available for them, access to other resources like Home Care, Specialized Care, FOOD, that you won't be able to find for them, but you still have to act like you can. And even if you DO find something, most of the time you're just sending another phone number for THEM to do the legwork. So really, we just give them more homework (on top of everything else they're already dealing with). It doesn't feel helpful or fulfilling, it feels like leading them to closed doors and being deceptive. And again, you always have to act like there's something you CAN do, because you also have to pester them with assessments and questionnaires, at regular intervals, that they really don't want to do. Toward the end, I really found myself asking "Why am I calling this person? There's nothing I can help them with, and they don't want to rattle off numeric answers to another phone survey about their horrible situation". It really did feel, in the "more-than-you'd-think" amount of times I had customers get outright hostile with me, like I deserved their vitriol. Because I really WAS just bothering them for metrics' sake. Get used to hearing "I'll get back to you on that" if you ever have a question. I get we're human, and we don't always have the answers on hand at all times, but every question or legitimate concern always seemed to have to go up some chain or be addressed later. The disorganization and disconnect between entities got extremely frustrating. This tries to play itself off as "support for those in need", but the reality is this is a call center, collecting data and playing middle man for the insurance companies through and through. You may help a little here and there, but more often than not, you're just an annoyance to people who already have way too many, much worse, things going on. I won't prattle on too much about the Quality assurance side of things. I understand that with these places, being non-face-to-face, calling about health information, you HAVE to make sure certain legal requirements and such are being met. However, certain parts of QA were pretty subjective. It really felt like, at times, they just do not trust your judgement in certain situations. Example: A member just complaining about the weather, probably because things are just tough and they need to complain. I get it, we all need to blow some steam. But QA would dock you for not asking probing questions in regards to their complaints.... about the weather... and offering resources to address their complaints.......... ABOUT THE WEATHER. (This is obviously an exaggerated hypothetical, but there were definitely times where I got docked just for not pretending I can fix everything with a Find Help link and an annoying survey/call transfer)
