On the Other Side of the Phone

So you know those annoying people who call you all the time asking for donations? Please be nice to them, as I could be one of them (well, at least if you happen to be in Australia at the moment…). The girl in my first hostel room, Kayleigh, works at this call centre and told me that I could easily get a job there if I wanted. I wasn’t too interested, but when I found out how flexible the hours were (you work 3-4 hour shifts and you can do from 20 up to 60 hours a week, if you want) I decided I might as well apply since I wasn’t having much luck elsewhere.

It’s not the most fun in the world, and the time moves pretty slowly (though not as slowly as flyering) but I get paid and it actually is for a charity cause, which makes me feel a little better than if I was just trying to change someone’s phone plan or sell them insurance. I was assigned to The Kids’ Cancer Project, which funds children’s cancer research (don’t worry, I won’t do the whole spiel right now). They’ve just started trials for Gene Therapy, which is a treatment that could save 200 children’s lives a year, and is a major breakthrough for Australia (okay I lied that was a bit of the spiel) which is pretty cool and makes it easier to sell, I think, than if it was just a vague charity without a solid accomplishment.

Still pretty annoying though. We call a range of people, but I feel like I’ve mostly got pensioners, who can be really nice (one lady was telling me about giving teddy bears to kids) or kind of cranky, and they are hard to convince to donate because they don’t have a lot (and I’m really bad about trying to push people, since I hate that on the other end). The morning and evening shifts are the best because that’s when we catch the working people who have more money to spare.

If you’ve never done call centre calling before (lucky you) there’s actually quite a complicated system set up. We have two different scripts, one for the “Cold” calls (they haven’t donated before) and another one for “Warm” calls (we thank them for their past donation and ask for another one). But there are actually 4 tiers of calling, which makes it even more confusing. It ranges from “Frosty,” which are randomly generated numbers (I hate this one because you get angry people who don’t want to be called, as well as businesses and fax numbers which make a horrible loud beeping noise), “Cold,” “Tepid,”  which is for people who promised to make a donation, but it didn’t go through (might be their fault or it might have been a mistake, but you have to pretend you got the money and thank them anyway), and “Warm,” which is the best one but you usually have to suffer through colds or frostys before they’ll put you on the warm calling list, although sometimes you get lucky and do a whole shift of warms.

Sometimes it is interesting talking to the people, especially with their accents or if you get a little kid, and I’m trying to learn the differences between the states, because we call all over Oz. The Queenslanders are a lot more chilled out (one guy was saying “mate” to me over and over again, and lots of the women call me “luv”) but I seem to have more trouble with South Australia, although that’s probably just a coincidence so far. I’ve been working on my “customer rapport” so I’ve been asking everyone about the weather, which is universally pretty hot, but sometimes people will expound about how they had a storm recently, or how the sun is going down, or that fortunately they have the air-conditioner running so they’re okay.

It is kind of cool to see how much money I’ve raised, right now I’m averaging about $100 an hour, although sometimes that’s much lower (if only I could make that much for myself) and I also stay entertained by keeping track of some of the funnier calls. Once I overheard “Under the Sea” playing in the background, and a few times people have thought I was someone else and have said random things on the phone, like “Hiiiiiiiiiiii Mum!” or “How’s my darling girl?” Then I have to try not to laugh as I say, “Hello this is Annie calling on behalf of the Kids Cancer Project” or whatever.

One weird and creepy sidenote (which I’m counting as good luck) is that I’ve made exactly 13 pledges on 6 out of the 11 shifts that I’ve worked since I started keeping track. I think this bodes well for my birthday this year...