technical support advisor

customer service representative

enrollment advisor

recruiter

regional sales manager

Anthology Inc.

I worked in customer/technical support but there are other departments like Financial Aid and ESL, etc which I know little of.

This place truly is great, as far as my department. I hear the other departments are pretty great, too. A typical day at work is coming in about 10 min. early to load your computer, your systems, etc. If its busy, you may go 'available' for your shift and get a call right away. If its slow, you might chill anywhere between 5-15 minutes in between calls. If its really slow you might only have a handful of calls a day (thats usually weekends though). Usually its fast, or steady at the beginning of the week, and slow near the end (Thursday, Friday). Sometimes, if it is too fast, your regular hour lunches will become thirty minute lunches. You will hear a bout rude customers, but for the most part rude customers don't happen, and when they do happen, they're usually not really frustrating, mostly just annoying. In tech support, you wont really get angry customers, because they're see you as more knowledgeable. In customer support, you'll get angry customers because... its customer support. People are annoyed with something already, or just want a quick answer (but you have to go through the motions of 'verifying' them first) or the person calling isnt even on the account (maybe a grandparent or uncle or younger child) but demands you answer their question. Go for tech support. They paid-train you, even if you think you cant do it, you can just go back to customer support, you've got nothing to lose. Besides, its far more helpful/useful for the company as a whole. You'll still get CS calls but they'll be less frequent because they'll be mixed in with tech calls. There is quite a lot of documentation, so excellent typing is not required, but is beneficial - for you, the customer, and the company. Most people type at about 40 wpm, so anything faster than that is pretty good.

Management doesn't bother you unless you're doing badly at your job (not sounding professional, being late, giving callers wrong information, etc), and even then, they don't really hassle you they're just trying to improve the way you are on calls. At first you may take a little too long on calls, but after that, calls should typically be 8 minutes if you're just customer support or 30 minutes if you're tech support. Although sometimes tech support calls could take up to an hour. They will train you for this, so even if you're not computer savy, you can be in tech. The job is really is. The hardest part of the job is the rules. They are strict about language because customers can hear it in the background even if you're not on a call. They're strict about times, since everything is done electronically. There isnt much room for cheating the system, because everything you do is tracked on the computer. However if you are a late person, their system will teach you to be on time more because you can keep a record of when you were late, you will know how and where to improve. Same with your calls, as they are graded and critiqued and you can review these grades. If youre even remotely smart, and even remotely responsible, you will succeed at this job. Depending on your department, this job can range from super easy to a little hard.

The job doesn't really care about non-violent crimes.... so no, they dont care about possession/drug related crimes. Just don't bring it to work, don't talk about it at work, and don't do it at work. The HR department is awesome. They really care about you - No, really. They ACTUALLY do their job. The benefits are pretty amazing, and even gay friendly - some (or all, I can't remember correctly) of the benefits can apply to same sex domestic partners. If you're seasonal you wont get anything but if you're selected for a regular worker, the benefits are pretty good, more so for people with children than people who are single - but still good! As far as work vs. reward, this job is very fair. If anything, its unfair but in YOUR favor!

This job is very rewarding because there's a lot of opportunity to move up, improve, take on more responsibility and get a raise. There's a certain amount of criteria, and if you do well in that criteria (in your grades for your calls, your times/attendance, etc) over a period of 3 months, you get a raise. So every 3 months if you do well, you could get a raise of 1.00. And the job starts off at $9! Blackboard/K12 knows how to do it. They reward their workers well, and therefore their workers do well and you'll almost never really see a lazy worker at blackboard... for long. That doesn't mean the job isn't easy, because it is. You have to be at jerk level lazy, jerk level rude, or Homer Simpson level dumb to not do well.

Their dress code is business casual, but they have been leaning more towards casual lately. They allow piercings and tattoos, but not so much on unnatural hair. They'll allow it on parts of your hair (streaks, tips, etc) just not on all of your hair. So that's still pretty good for the alt people out their. You may not have your whole head pastel pink, but you can at least do the tips, or some streaks, or just a section of your hair. Just use common sense. Don't have every strand of hair green except for ONE.... obviously. Its a small price to pay for this awesome job.

In conclusion, I high recommend this job to almost anyone (not just "techy" people, because like I said, they have other departments). This job is really for anyone. There's a lot of young people because its a good job for young people - high pay, for not that many hours, and leniency on dress code, etc. We do have older people in the department, but I"m assuming their spouse works as well. Its still pretty good money just for 1 person. I LOVE this job. The *only* reason I'm leaving is because I'm moving. Now that I know what a good job is, I know what to look for at my next job.

$12 an hour is a laughably low wage compared to all other remote call center work currently available, even compared to Walmart or McD’s. It’s even worse when you take into account they cut your hours every week without notifying or asking you, so 40 hours turns into 20-30. They also don’t offer good benefits and are clear that, despite being told on hire it was a full time permanent position, that all positions with Anthology are on a temporary/seasonal basis and hours will be reduced regularly. 

Combine that with the excessive work load of being expected to handle multiple (5-10) colleges phone calls (all of which have very different processes, security guidelines, greetings, etc) after 2 weeks of ineffective training, it just makes the job genuinely not worth it. The calls are the most back to back I’ve ever experienced in this industry and all the callers are upset as their higher education institutions have opted to outsource nearly every department on campus and, as such, there is not much we could directly or meaningfully assist with. You’d essentially have to create a help ticket to the actual on-campus office every call and rarely got adequate or timely response which led to a lot of frustration from students directed at us and all we could do was tell them to wait X amount of business days to receive a response from a specialist (which frequently still didn’t resolve the matter) or to go to campus (which wasn’t always possible given that some colleges were online only/some students were online only). Many times these were pressing and time sensitive issues, some even related to life and death, and the students were left out in the cold regarding matters such as admissions and financial aid. I understand and empathize with the callers but I would not recommend subjecting yourself to the level of abuse that occurs from callers here. I won’t even get into the calls with parents of the student… 

Beyond that, management was condescending and unhelpful across the board. The systems we worked on were outdated and there were consistent tech issues across the team that were reported and monitored and determined to be an internal issue with the company’s systems, but management continued to not believe, gaslight, and reprimand any employee any time they had a single system issue. Even after verifying through their IT once again that the issues had nothing to do with employee equipment and instead was an active system issue being worked on on the back end, they still threatened job security on a regular basis. Horrible treatment of employees overall and I cannot recommend steering clear of this toxic work environment enough. 
You are worth more than this company. Value yourself and apply elsewhere. 

If you don't mind the bedbug infestation, that they have been spraying biweekly for(for over 3 years), and still haven't been proactive enough to remove the carpet and cubicle dividers or offer employees any help to offset the expenses they've suffered as a result(some losing everything); or, if you don't mind the no drug testing policy, which would have you working next to someone nodding off, after shooting up in the parking lot on break; or the incentive pay which is advertised, but rarely achieved due to the training model which requires the tenured agents to facilitate most of the training...but if they want to maintain or focus on their metrics, as a new hire you would pretty much be screwed for your first year. At present they are understaffed and over stacking skills on an already disgusted workforce, that is rumored to be unionizing, to prevent any further jobs from being outsourced to the Philippines. Also to combat alot of the internal Management issues that have turned Blackboard into a sweatshop. Your best bet, if you are looking for a full-time job that you will still have 6 months from now, not having to worry about bedbug infestation in your home, and not having to deal with all that comes with the loose hiring policy, steer clear. Things were different a few years ago, but now, it a skeleton crew, that can barely keep the ship from sinking here in Somerset. They refused to take care of their key and vital employees, so they are fleeing to anywhere that will actually allow them to work and grow with their company. It's sad how many jobs were lost under the current Management, for our community, and sent overseas. Maybe getting the CWA to help the remaining folks out is the best thing. Unions suck, but they do keep jobs here, and ensure that Management is held to a higher standard, especially when, at present, the day you are hired, you are setup to fail and financially trapped.

Honestly, if you are desperate, have a criminal record, don't care about being treated like a number and have no intentions of providing yourself a decent living in the future or care about whether you'll have a job that day, that week or that month. This is the place for you. I've been here almost 3 years and have worked at several call centers before that were FAR superior than this. From the benefits being laughable, management not having any idea what's going on daily to the life/work balance. Overtime is appreciated like anywhere else but the problem that they have is that you can go one week where they will cut your hours by 8-10 hours a week, to the next week you're obligated to half hour lunches and you get hammered about working additional OT to the point where you feel obligated to. The pay is a mess in the sense that they moved from a program called Pay differential which looked and sounded like a raise, but in reality it's taxed almost as if it's a bonus so it doesn't really get considered as actual pay and, you could lose it at the end of every quarter. The new system is a more standardized system, but as others have complained, you have some workers who've worked there for several years making the base pay of 11/HR to 11.50/HR and others who worked only a few months making 12-13/HR. Depending on what department you work in, your day consists of, waiting 10-15 minutes for their outdated systems to load (oh, did I mention that if you get here on time, but your system takes 15-20 minutes to load, that it's YOUR fault that YOU didn't make sure to show up an hour before work? Yeah...right.), clock in, immediately get a call from either an absolutely incompetent instructor or student and getting yelled at for an issue that's not of your control, and eventually ending your day. That's basically the daily routine. The benefits are as I stated before, a joke. You get health insurance, but only after a year of working there, and they're not the most consumer friendly rates. You do get a 401K, but only if you're a salaried member of management, so basically as an lower employee you can't invest into the company at all.

Worked here from Dec to Mar. Was let go cause of lousy training. Took calls back to back. Had to raise hand to get help when u didn't know the answer. When u had to transfer to the next level of support they were extremely rude. Supervisor's were inconsistent. I didn't have a set supervisor until the last two weeks of employment. And then she didn't even know anything about the job. So if I had a question she would always tell me to ask support line or another  supervisor. Then I got  another supervisor and he was the same way. And leadership is  horrible, one  incident I had a lady on the  phone and had my supervisor shadowing my call telling me one thing then also support on the line telling me another thing, neither matched up, then the lady talking all at the same time, the supervisor was clueless but talked over me and made sure everyone knew to show that he "knew what he was talking about".If u didn't come into this job with someone from training then everyone is pretty rude to u. U get graded on calls daily but get counted off for the dumbest reasons then u have these "coaches" give u advice which is contradicting and ends up getting u confused, but it's ur fault not theirs. I was told many times by higher ups that something was right then another higher up tell me it's wrong. No one really knows. Alot of favoritism is involved at this job. The turnover rate is extremely high. U won't make it full time as they fool u into about. They hire way too many ppl and start getting rid of ppl little by little. U deal with alot of rude callers which I totally understand cause blackboard isn't helpful at all for them. They give all the students some kind of runaround. Every call I got they complained about blackboard and I see why now. The biggest joke I've ever come across in Somerset. Yeah the pay was good for the work. Schedule was good for me cause I got lucky. But the co-workers and management is horrible. The training process and trainers are horrible. Dont waste ur time at this place. Better off at Burger King or something. Also they have bedbugs like crazy. No joke.

Blackboard has so much potential to be a good workplace but there is so much that needs to change. First, the chance of you getting a promotion or raise is slim to none. Raises are only offered on a company wide level. If you get promoted to trainer you will still be making the same amount hourly (sometimes less) as the people you are training which is ridiculous considering what is expected of you. The building in the Killeen location is absolutely horrendous. Bed bugs will creep on you while you are working, for some reason most of the bathroom stalls don't have locks on them, and the "maternity" room is just a dusty storage closet. As for the actual work, the call volume is to be expected since Blackboard deals with many schools. The main issue is the lack of consistency of how should handle each call. You can get auto fails for something that was never explained to you or something that was perfectly fine for you to do a few days prior. Blackboard is really good at informing employees of things they can't tell students but not good at giving alternatives. Which can lead to getting cussed out A LOT and a lot of confusion. There are only a couple supervisors that are genuinely helpful, most have a serious superiority problem where they are talking down on you for asking questions. You will definitely see this in the VCCS department. When Blackboard moved to working from home, it was probably the biggest downfall I have ever seen with a company. There was absolutely NO support. Trying to get in touch with a supervisor was impossible. Asking questions in the chat just for them to get ignored, not knowing how to deal with any of the calls, and Blackboard adding a "Tier 0 Technical Support" where no one knew what they were doing. This company only cares about giving the client what they want. They do not care about the needs of their employees which is a huge problem. Employees are what make companies great!

Starting with the hiring process: It is manipulative and extremely misleading. You apply for one job on the website that says they are still hiring, however, when you get a call they tell you they have two positions you would be good for. You go for your interview and your told they already filled the other position that you are interested in, but they have a seasonal position that you'd be really good for. They tell you you'll be working for 6 months and then you have a really good chance of getting on full-time with benefits. THIS is a LIE!!!! Once you get through training for about a week and a half, you realize that there are far too many people for them to keep even half of them. Talking to your co-workers you realize that they were given the same song and dance as you. 
Slowly they start getting rid of people for one reason or another. If you don't take a lot of overtime and agree to trade shifts with those who need off, forget about working the entire season. 
If you need off and tell them well advance, you still will not get off. They will tell you it is fine and no problem, but again, it is a LIE!! They will make up some excuse about the call volume being up, and they don't have enough people working, which again, is a LIE! 
However, if you become a favorite of a supervisor, then none of this applies to you. 
If you are looking for some quick money, it pays decent for the 3 months to 4 months of your employment. 
If you are looking for a long lasting employment opportunity,with benefits, and a great work environment, this is most certainly not the place for you.

First,  I will start by saying the hiring process was misleading. It was a temp to hire position when I started but the interview never mentioned that. Luckily, this position wasn't permanent for me as I had always intended on relocating and pretty much my entire training class quit after getting on the call floor, if not for these factors I don't know if I would still be employed which would have been devastating considering I quit another permanent full time position for this "job".. You get no paid time off, benefits I heard are not worth the bother based on high deductibles. They will not work with you during emergencies, but rather work you like a slave, especially during times of where the center is understaffed. Lunches get cut at short notice for example but if you come in after a certain its not. Fairness is a topic not worth discussing, however the training was not efficient as to we were thrown into the job extremely unprepared. There was unprofessional conduct during the ENTIRE training class that was a prelude to the horror waiting to come. The Quality Assurance team I found to be sketchy to say the least.  
Part2- PAY AND WORK CULTURE 
The pay is extremely low for such a high paced, intense data entry job, My manager does nothing and never wants to be involved in anything ans was even quoted as saying" I'm trying to stay away from the calls" Although he is a call center supervisor. How disturbing and iroric, which is why I dont recommend this company. I could go on but its not worth my time. Its served the temporary purpose for my needs at the time.

● Work-life balance
Terrible

● Pay & benefits
Pay is extremely low.
As a seasonal worker you get no time off,  are given until your ‘bucket’ runs out.
You will be written up if you exceed this, disregarding the reasonings for it.

● Job security and advancement
No advancement or security. everyday was a gamble if rush positions will be terminated

● Management
Bullying and favoritism was obvious and prevalent.

● Culture
Poorly structured around a decent educational system. Managers are not qualified nor do they have any degrees or experience dealing with employees and clients. Fooling students to believe you are on campus is disgusting and classist. Regularly would employers make fun of the ‘uneducated hillbillies’ who call for KCTCS and the overall Texas area. Told to lie to get them off the phone quickest to improve numbers and to escalate issue if you don’t understand. Fake it until you make it was their modo.

● Overall
As an educated student, I was frequently familiar with the name and software........ so I thought working there would be a dream as an educator.
It wasn’t anything of high merit. Call center rules and exploitation by other managers who care more about the call time and hold time rather than to give the callers accurate information. They are also very much racist and classisms was frequently openly communicated.
You are to lie to students, claiming you are actual employees of these colleges, of course they are rude and vague causing students to actively go to the real college to demand to speak to them in person or anyone in that department, something that has lead to breaking into buildings and physical conflict.

A typical day at work would be to arrive in the late morning to check in with the AM prep team and make sure all deliveries were correct and stocked properly.
Then, depending on what the day's priorities were, I would either begin prepping for service/ future menu ideas or complete paperwork (invoice coding, schedules, updating inventory, etc.)
When the PM staff arrived I made sure they were given and understood direction for the evening's service, and helped with production.
Prior to opening the doors I would meet with the FOH managers to make sure all buttons and prices were correct in the POS for special items, and write up any spec sheets that were necessary for the FOH to learn dishes.
During service I expedited, garnished, sauced, etc.
My co-workers were a terrific family unit who worked extremely well together and were very supportive.
The hardest part of this job, in particular, was catering to different demographics day-to-day, as each musical artist drew a different fan base. Also executing service quickly was always a priority since the majority of the 320-seat crowd were seated within 20-30 minutes of the doors opening.
The most enjoyable part of this position was being able to create special menu items on a daily basis. It kept the creative juices flowing while helping to make the menu appealing to whatever group of people were dining on any particular evening.

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