phone operator

implementation specialist

training specialist

staff accountant

software engineer

Continental Message Solutions, Inc

The whole synopsis that the company feeds everyone is not all true. Supervisors are spread out thin and first shift sups get the worst of it. The 3rd shift supervisors are horrible and rude most of the time. They rely on veteran agents to help them because they don't know anything. If you have a problem with a supervisor then you will be pulled into a meeting with them and have everything turned against you. The pay is not worth  the stress of all the calls you have to take back to back. Training is ok for the basics but training is not really offered when new clients come on board. There is a high turn over rate because people are not treated fairly. Agents that have been there for over 11 years have been fired for no reason. Attendance is based off points. If you get 6 points your fired. If you go over two points you lose your attendance $1 and your quarterly bonus. The points only fall off after 6 months and nothing sooner. Holidays are required and will let you have only one off if you request it fast enough.  PTO is a joke because you can never use it. If someone else asks for the same day off before you then your out of luck. Sometimes you have to wait months to even get to use PTO. They do not let people move up that much. If they do they move less skilled people into them positions. If you clock in for your shift one minute late then you will get an attendance occurrence. Some of the supervisors are lazy and wont help out when agents have questions they will have to ask someone else that has been there longer. There is no such thing as communication in the company and with most people being remote that should be key. There is tons of clients calling in to cancel accounts because they are not training agents to the clients standards that they was promised. There is no job security with this company. I have seen some great workers lose their job over jealousy issues within the company or because they made to much money from being with the company for so long. They have QA listen to your calls and they will grade you and will leave petty remarks. They will give you write ups because they want to and wont let you dispute anything. There is a serious case of reoccurring bed bug issues within the office. They replaced all the chairs to plastic ones and gave clear plastic mats to each station. It is to try to keep people from taking them home. It did not help and the issue still occurs. If your ok with being micromanaged but not for the right reason then this job is for you. I do not recommend this job to anyone who wants a stress free work place.

You take calls for medical, property management, employee calls from other companies, and more. It's laid out simply like a form you would complete on a website. 
QA scoring is easy, due to HIPPA, you are required to confirm spellings and more, so they require this on every call you take until a client/company has requested otherwise.
Four weeks of training to set you at the level of Intermediate Medical. 90 days of full support with a Subject Matter Expert and no metrics count against you until after. 
PTO earning after 6 months, three choices for medical benefits and 401K after 1 year.
You're allowed a 15 min tardy without reprimand 6 times per year. If you call off for a full shift, you get 1 pt. If you have perfect attendance for 30 days (1 full month), then half of that pt. is removed. 
You can work from home and set your own schedule that is locked for 6 months. There are several supervisors online at any time available to help with any issues. 
There's not that many angry callers, most who call in already understand how it all works.
All that said, there is obvious favoritism in the company. You can advance through what they call "levels", to take more complex calls beyond medical which typically come with a small raise. However, if you want to be anything beyond Advanced/Dispatch level, then it's up to them if THEY deem you a good fit. Even if you are just as good as another employee, if they like that employee more than they like you, they will choose them and not post the position for anyone else to apply. 
Some agents are promoted to Supervisors even though they lack a lot of experience with the company, including how specific clients are handled and Policies in the handbook, which is really not justified to the agents they oversee.
If you can level to at least Advanced and stay in that level, and keep your stats up, you'll be fine and have job security because they're always needing inbound agents. They also pay out a nice bonus based on your stats and hours worked, every quarter.

Training is about 2 weeks before they put you on the phones. You'll do some practice calls as a team, but there's definitely not enough hands-on training. They claim they "can't train you for everything", but they hardly train you for anything more than call off lines and very basic medical. So when they do make you go take live calls you're super stressed and anxious.

Once my class leveled up to take more complex accounts, we were hit with so many scenarios we were not trained for, which made us write in the group chat for help while the caller waited on hold on the line, which made it awkward. It's very hard to remember all the scripts and policies for each account since they're all different.

All my coworkers and sups were very nice, but a lot of them don't seem to be very knowledgeable, almost like they were promoted way too early.

For the naive, this job sounds so easy! You get to work from home, answering the phone and just follow a script!? Yep, but what they don't tell you about is all the angry old people, impatient nurses, holier-than-thou doctors, and buggy scripts you'll be dealing with, while also trying to work on a dated interface that freezes if you type too fast. Oh, and forget trying to take a breath between each call you get, because you get penalized if you spend too much time on an account after the caller hangs up. You also get penalized for turning "OFF" (not accepting calls), even if it's just to take a drink of water.

Over all, this job destroyed my mental health. If you like high pressure call centers, go for it.

The training here is so fast paced that you barely have time to learn anything before being thrown on the phones.  They expect you to be able to learn way too much in a short amount of time and it causes a lot of stress and anxiety for when you actually have to take calls.  You go from taking attendance call-offs, to someone calling in to let you know their spouse on hospice has died next to them, to having a doctor call in yelling at you for their on-call schedule not being correct when you had nothing to do with it.  It's difficult to remember all the different scripts and often their computer system would glitch and you would just be stuck with nothing on your screen to say to the caller and it would get really awkward.  I didn't even meet my supervisor until weeks after being on their team and asking for help made you feel like a burden to them.  The work itself wasn't that difficult, but you really never get to help the caller and you weren't allowed to tell them that you were an answering service at times which made you look like you work for the actual company they're calling for and you don't know your job.  It's easy to get burnt out just from the amount of angry calls you take each day for a business in an entirely different state that you know nothing about.  

I don’t recommend working here at all. There are so many things you need to learn, but they don’t teach you everything. All calls are answered automatically and you have to follow a script word for word. Don’t follow it, you get pointed. You must also spell out every name, and make sure you are using correct grammar, make no spelling mistakes, and you cannot hang up with people or disagree with them by no means … you will also get pointed. All calls are listened to and if you don’t meet expectations, you get pointed … call out? Pointed … late? Pointed … have to leave early for an emergency? Pointed … if they here something in the background of your call? You automatically fail. they do not care about you. 
The only way to get your points taken off is to provide a doctors note or work it off… and to work it off, it’s like 6 months of perfect attendance just to get one or two points off… 

Calls range from simple calls to strenuous calls and they do not help you. You cannot transfer calls, even if the person doesn’t speak English, you have to just “do your best” Mind you, some of these calls are emergency dispatch calls, hospice calls, and other medical emergencies… 

I got sick while working here, was coughing up blood, throwing up, ended up in the hospital and they pointed me for everything and didn’t care to check on me, just asked when I would be back and work and was told if I miss more work I would be fired. 

Absolutely terrible 

This is a scripted job through and through and exhausting. The work is honestly mindless, this isn't a challenging job in anyway which can make the employees bored and not want to be there. Having to deal with nasty callers 95% of the day is a reminder that you're just an answering service and you're not much help to the caller most of the time. Most of the callers anger is with being put off to an overly scripted, QA compliant, parrot like call center and not the actual company that they're trying to reach. There are no real tasks at this company, I'm not even sure why we're encouraged to use two monitors when we have one duty. The pay wasn't great starting off and it took a pandemic to actually notice the raise that I was given. If you enjoy problem solving and not to just pass it off onto someone else in the form of a message that sometimes isn't seen then this isn't the company for you. To prevent from losing clients during peek hours please allow your supervisors to help out more instead of only reminding their agents to breath, no one should need a reminder to do that. The employees are pleasant. This is in no way a smear campaign on the company, just an honest review.

Just like my title states run and don't look back. The lack of communication is astounding from any leadership is honestly the worse I have come across. I can count on both hands the amount of times that I have worked with a supervisor since I started with the company. Your work is constantly micromanaged and you're penalized for the smallest error. The thought of the job is simple. You just answer calls and take a message, but what they don't tell you is that you are going to be constantly yelled at by rude and aggressive callers because I can't tell them why the office is not picking up the phone or returning their call.  I'm tough but I have been brought to tears behind this job by how poorly I have been treated by callers and clients. It's clear that they don't care about their employees. If you value your mental health I would NOT recommend working for this company.  The callers are terrible, the clients are just as bad, they lack communication, management is a joke and the pay is insulting.  I am just biding my time until I can find something better and leave this living h*ll. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
This company appreciates and recognizes their employees! The people I work for and work with make it feel like a close family work atmosphere! The supervisors will do anything they can for you, to help you to succeed!!!

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Sometimes you are answering calls from very ill people.  Sometimes it is stressful to not engage in deep conversations, when they just want someone to speak with. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Family close friendly and caring environment.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
I answer phones from callers who need to leave a message for companies and doctors offices. Some times throughout the day, I stay busy.

The calls can be hard to handle at times, but keeping in mind that you are helping people really helps pass the day.  There is so much variety in the calls that you will be taking that you don't get bored, like you do at some call centers, where you take the same calls for 8 straight hours.  It's hard to get bored with such nice, awesoming coworkers. The environment is relaxed, casual dress code which is nice not having to dress up every day.  The starting pay is $12.00 per hour with the possibility of making even more with good attendance and with good performance (I heard a potential of $2.00+ is what my coworkers have been saying) and you can even get overtime any time you want it.

I enjoy working with the company. There is plenty of room for growth and development. The management seems like they really care about the people. I wish they would add to 401k and not make as many policy updates when they aren’t seemingly necessary. The training is awesome. They work with you a lot. It’s nice being able to work from home as well. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Phone operator 26 salaries reported	$14.93 per hour
Implementation specialist 2 salaries reported	$60,000 per year
Training specialist 1 salary reported	$18.50 per hour
Staff accountant 1 salary reported	$77,500 per year
Software engineer 1 salary reported	$90,000 per year

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