call center representative

bilingual call center representative

project manager

account manager

lead supervisor

Dynata

Dynata has its goals and requirements, and they work to fulfill those requirements and reach those goals. However, the disorganization of this company creates dysfunction and it’s the telephone Interviewers who suffer. 

First, let me state that I did not take the time to apply to Dynata for the telephone interviewer position to slack off or intentionally perform insufficiently. Second, this is a virtual job. Other than video chats, you do not know who you are speaking with and what is their title at Dynata. 

-Now, there are too many “managers” or “supervisors” who do not state their titles when addressing you. There are random employers of Dynata that will address you to discuss your scores for random days of calling. When this happens, you are expected to adhere to their advice, if you can call it that, and attempt to do better the next day of calling. 
-They will penalize you for mistakes you make during calling and never give you any relevant feedback. When I state  ‘relevant’ feedback, I mean feedback that is helpful and of use and not the basic, cookie-cutter response of how to perform better. 
-I truly believe that Dynata failed me, and allowed me to fail with no regard for helping me. You reading this can think that telephone interviewing is as simple as dialing the number and reading verbatim, but at Dynata it is not. I had to deal with a lot of technical issues at Dynata that I am almost certain contributed to my performance and scoring. The system they use to conduct the surveys is inefficient to say the very least. Honestly, you will spend half of your employment troubleshooting their system and waiting for them to figure out the problem, and the other half of your employment dialing and conducting interviews. 
-This job is truly, truly part-time. When you’re newly hired, expect your shift to be canceled for at least the first month of your employment. I’m not sure if that is due to insufficient workload or the fact that you’re new and they’re trying to test your commitment to the company. Either way, it is disappointing. 

My overall feeling about my experience at Dynata as a telephone Interviewer is disappointing. Expect no real and relevant support from higher-ups at the company. The managers do not manage unless it specifically relates to the calls you make, and even then it is after you made (and because of their response time, possibly messed up) the call. I did not EVER expect to have my hand held during my time at Dynata, or anywhere for that matter. However, because of the lack of managerial support, I truly feel let down by Dynata. 

I took the time to write this review, not to bash Dynata or discourage your job application at Dynata, but to allow you to stop and reflect. Reflect on your current work and life situation and ask yourself if you have time to waste. Ask yourself if you have at least four hours of the day to gamble if you’re working or not and if you do end up working, what problems relating to Dynata you will have to face alone. Do this before you make the mistake that I did and spend the majority of the year receiving uneven paychecks due to disorganized and canceled shifts.

The ONLY thing I can take from my experience at Dynata is the experience as a telephone interviewer.

This is not at all a stable position. I will tell you my personal experience, Their point system is ridiculous, they choose to take away or give you points based on favoritism. I have only been on the job for a month in a half. Ive gotten 100's and 95's minimum on all my QA scores they are stating I am doing everything correctly! I get a call stating my PR was low . I said how can that be when my scores are so high ? They say its because I haven't been " doing surveys". Now the way there point system works is , if you get to 13 you are fired. The first convo i had with a supervisor they stated they were giving me a warning and I only got "0.4" I get a message a couple days ago stating I had 10 POINTS and I needed to sign off on the next sign off so I am close to being fired. I said what?!?! can I speak to someone about it? They then called me and told me that they never told me 0.4 that it was actually 4 points and now I'm getting 6 for getting no surveys. After me explaining to her that I'm probably gonna be fired because that's something I cant control and then how am I suppose to keep them on the phone? I can't yell " HEY DONT HANG UP OR ILL BE FIRED ", she then messaged me after the call saying " Nevermind ill remove all the points" huh ???? you guys are extremely organized down to the point system, you can pick and choose how you want to discipline someone??? There is no by the book ? SO after 3 bad weeks in a row someone can get fired ? they score by PAY PERIOD TO. SO if I get introuble 3 times in a row 6  points each by the 3rd time I'm fired because we can only get 13 ? omg.... this is instance. They even approved my scheduled and then I check today and they removed me off, idk why or how but its just super unorganized, and I work REMOTELY.  But the problem is, its OUT OF OUR CONTROL if someone hangs up on us or not !!! Especially when we are instructed to call them until 9 pm. MY schedule is linked to work very late hours when these people are in bed you really think reading a paragraph long script at 10 pm isn't gonna make someone hang up on you ?!!? I just don't understand, so basically don't work here, because you are going to get fired no matter WHAT you do, this isn't a stable job, I even saw another review on here after shortly getting the job that they are allegedly also being investigated for fraud, the point is set up for you to only be employed for a certain amount of time until you get circulated out for new people to come in only to realize they are also in some deep mess!

I have to say, my experience working here is greatly different than what other people have described. I've never been told that you have to dial 100 numbers in an hour, and I've never been given a target number of surveys that need to be completed. The supervisors are understanding and encouraging. They have realistic expectations and remind me that not every day is going to be a productive day. I'm guessing your experience varies depending on what team you are on (the teams are divided based on location). 

The topics of the surveys vary depending on client needs, but there are going to be mostly political surveys, so if you can't keep your own biases in check, or if these kinds of discussions make you uncomfortable, you might not make it here. But that goes without saying for most workplaces; you need to keep your cool and figure out where you're comfortable.  It's considerably easier if you have experience with outbound calls and cold-calling, because you already know what to expect. There will be some irate people, obviously, so I would advise caution if you've never dealt with this before.

One piece of advice I can give you is, don't just give up after only a few weeks. It really pays off to keep going! Even if you can't get through a full survey, try your best to sound professional, stick to the script, listen to the feedback from the Quality Assurance team, and pay attention to the briefing and pronunciation guides. If you're one of the top agents, you will be moved to one of their other projects where there is consistent, stable work, and shorter and easier surveys (no politics)! They don't tell you this during the training, but they reserve the better projects for the top performers. It doesn't matter how long you've worked there either; even if you're a newbie, as long as you're performing well on the surveys, they will put you on one of their lead projects. So the key really is to just "smile and dial". Keep a positive attitude and pay attention to any and all feedback you receive and you may get to move up.

Work is based on client need; sometimes you'll get sent home early, sometimes you won't get to work at all. Admittedly, this happened to me on my first two days. But as I stated before, if you perform well, you will be moved to a considerably easier project with consistent work. There's also an internal job board as well where you can apply for a different position within the company. If you give up at the first con, you will never get the chance to see the pros.

The interviewer job itself is not hard, BUT, you will be required to meet certain goals that are mostly out of your control. If you are lucky, in a 4-6 hour shift you might get 3 or 4 completed surveys. You may get none, and that’s really out of your control. The surveys are long, about 15-20 minutes. It’s difficult to get a stranger to stay on the phone that long answering questions, especially when it’s political and they don’t like the questions. It’s mostly political, by the way.

You will have to read the script word for word and are penalized for any reading mistake, no matter how small. I was penalized once just for skipping the word “the” while reading a question. You also will be penalized for going off script in any way but this can be hard when actually speaking to a person for 20 minutes. It takes adjusting and there’s no training for this. It’s rare to actually speak to someone and not be hung up on, so not being able to interact even a tiny bit takes all the fun out of this job. The biggest challenge for me has been being a “robot” because I am a people person. A caller once made a joke while completing a survey that was really funny, I was penalized for laughing. There is no joy in this job. Quality Assurance supervisors are always polite and helpful but they will take off points for every little thing that doesn’t go according to script and that makes the job way harder than it should be and way too stressful for the pay. 

The best thing about this job is the flexibility and the ability to work from home. You can change your schedule weekly if needed and getting days off is fairly easy. 

More training would make this job better and easier. You get a one day training class that is very general and then are just thrown in to making calls. You are forced to learn as you go while being docked for mistakes you were not even aware of. You basically learn by getting told what your doing wrong daily. Since this is scored and you need a certain score to preform well and keep your job, it’s stressful. 

Overall, this can be a good part time job but it’s up to each person how well they can adapt and how long they can tolerate the job. 

As you can imagine how difficult it'd be to work at a telemarketing firm; it's not much easier doing surveys by phone either. The days can often be mind-numbing, monotonous,  and/or frustrating; but you'll find that there are good people out there, with your calls, that'll brighten up your day quite a bit. 

It takes a positive attitude and making the best of certain aggravating situations (like dealing with irate or slow-to-respond respondent(s)) in order to have a good experience at SSI. My experience wasn't bad; but I would classify it as a good first job. It can build a resume a bit better: especially if you speak Spanish.

They do offer multiple bonuses for quality and high PR (Production Rate). Essentially, if you have an average of 85% quality for your surveys, you get a $0.50 pay raise to your paycheck. (It's really easy to get the quality pay raise.) Meaning that--if you normally get paid $9 an hour--your next paycheck will instead be calculated at a rate of $9.50/hr. This bonus can stack if you can manage to get a lot of surveys and meet certain goals. With each goal met, you get an extra $0.50 added to your rate for the current paycheck. Though the base rate, at least in Utah, is $9/hr, most workers were averaging around $10.50 roughly.

There is a high turnover rate for employees due to it not being a job that most people want, as such there is usually a very high chance that applicants will get a job. This is a job that, essentially, can help you get by during the school year and/or help you open some doors to other opportunities.

Keep in mind that in a standard 5-hour shift, you will be making anywhere from 250-600 calls depending on the survey. Of those hundreds of calls, depending again on the survey, you may only get anywhere from 1-30 surveys.

The job isn't so bad once you get used to it. You'll learn that it's a lot better if you make friends with your neighbor. So keep that in mind.

You can schedule your own hours and basically work whenever you want to, and you can maintain the job if you have to move or temporarily relocate. It was great for COVID in that aspect. The interview is very easy. A 401k is offered, and there are benefits if you work enough hours, but this job is meant to be part time, really. This is NOT a good job if you're looking for a dependable source of income. They offer a reasonable amount of breaks, with a paid 15 minute break if you work 4 to 5 hours and a 30 minute unpaid break if you work 6 hours or more. You can work a shift as short as 3 hours if you want. 

Usually you can only work between the hours of 5pm to 12am EST, and in the winter your hours get cut significantly. At one point I had to take extended time off because I went to the hospital for a week and then my computer broke and I had to get a new one. They were understanding and patient with me, which was nice. 

I personally don't get yelled at too much, but I definitely get hung up on a LOT. I got put on lots of political survey projects in the beginning, but after a few months I got put on a project that has been giving me consistent hours, and some people are actually willing to take the survey. I'm getting $10 an hour, not really happy with it for the amount of stress there is to meet the quota of how many surveys you need.

Management offers tips on how to bring up my production rate and the quality of surveys, but is bad at giving me specific feedback on what I need to be doing better. There isn't really any communication or interaction between coworkers, it's very much an independent job.
 While working here for 6 months, I haven't once felt satisfied with it, I constantly wish I had a different job. 

The majority of the job is just typing in numbers and waiting for no one to pick up, with the call either going to voicemail or just ringing until I hang up. Theres also frequent technical difficulties, so I end up sitting at my desk chilling for an hour sometimes, which is probably my favorite part of the job. 

This job seemed nice.  The employees are nice.  They tell you that you will be required to work a minimum of 20 hours, and a max of 29 hours.  However they frequently only have enough work to fill a couple of hours in a shift, and they send everyone home.  Mind you, you are REQUIRED to schedule 20 hours during the week, but they are absolutely not able to provide that kind of work consistently.  This week they cut 3 out of 5 of my shifts.  Other people have been laid off for a couple of weeks and they won't communicate to you how long the work shortages will last.  They will say shifts are cancelled, but allow a select amount of people to work.  This is not based on performance, I have 100% ratings on my quality and often get far more surveys done than they estimate they need.  I am in the top of agents, but they still only let a few people work with no explanation or info to keep you in the loop.  You will have no idea whether you should hang on or just quit because you can't make ends meet here.  Communication is absolutely terrible with management.  Their operating systems are considerably buggy.  It is an okay place to work as long as there is work, but DO NOT get a job here if you actually need to make money.  This is a job better suited for those who have partners who are already covering all bills, which is not many people's situations these days.  I wish I had something better to say.  I had high hopes they were not like so many other "research" companies that simply can't keep work going consistently for it's employees.  The fact that this company requires a set schedule from you that they can't fulfill will make this job not worth it for most people.  

I was hired October 2018 because they were in dire need of employees even after the election season was over and was pretty much hired on the spot. I didn't start training until after election day, I worked the first week then after that our shifts were cancelled almost everyday. In the interview they tell us that we can pick the weekend day that we want to work and that the company works around our schedule and will work with us. WRONG!! They don't work around schedules, they choose our schedules and it's the same schedule for a year and can't be changed, only part-time work, no benefits, if you have another job unless you work outside the hours they don't care which would be fine if they would have gone over all that in the interview instead of saying they work around schedules. There was no work from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving til the 2nd week of January, one or 2 days there was a shift that was running on time in between there but it was never my shift. We were told in the interview and training that if there is pickup hours then we can come in and make up hours, NOT TRUE!! When they first started cancelling shifts I tried to pick up a few times, apparently because my schedule was Weds-Sat I couldn't pick up hours for shifts missed because I would have to do it before the shifts was missed and no hours can be made up the following week. If you are calling in or taking off it has to be before that week is over and pickup times are specified daily. One time my shift for Wednesday was cancelled and on Friday we got text messages saying pickup... They don't do pickup no more so I wasted time going all the way out there for nothing. Typical day when I was there was receiving a text saying shift was cancelled. I hardly remember making calls but yeah we did that too, not much, but we did!!!

What is the best part of working at the company?
They are very supportive and encouraging. I get more one on one training and coaching with this remote job than I ever got in a call center job.  It is a friendly environment and my hours are flexible and supervisors are understanding with time off requests. I love this job.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Going too long without getting someone to agree to do a survey. I stress myself out. My supervisors are encouraging and helpful with coaching.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Friendly and upbeat. Everyone is happy when one of us gets a survey. We chat kudos and gif's to each other. When I am having no luck and mention it in chat my teammates encourage me. I have worked in many call centers and this is by far the best experience I've ever had.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
I clock in. Then check to see if there are any announcements. I check in in chat and my supervisor assigns me to a project with an uplifting quote of the day. I sign on to my project and smile and dial. If I have any questions or need help with something I ask in chat or direct message my supervisor and they respond quickly.  I have a 15 minute break (company paid) after 2 hours and a half hour lunch if I work 6 hours (not paid) I can take a min or two for a restroom break and coffee refill at anytime. They are very lenient with that as long as you don't abuse it. I check in chat during the day to see how my teammates are doing and respond with a happy gif if they get surveys. I respond with an encouraging word if they chat that they haven't gotten any. At the end of my shift I let my supervisors know I am leaving and they wish me a good night. Its awesome.

The work itself is incredibly boring; you call people and either get cussed out or talk successfully talk someone through a survey. I'd say the bigger issues come with management and how they go about trying to improve employee performance. They manage to blame the interviewer for having a low score that's largely based on things that are out of their control, then tell the interviewer to do the same three steps because they'll surely increase your score. I have maintained an average 100% quality score for the majority of my time working for this company, yet they've tried to put me on probation because of having a low production score on a survey that required us to double-check with supervisors (who were sluggish in their response) about how to end the call. I pointed this out to my manager and they were incredibly unhelpful and condescending in their response. 
Also, during the onboarding day (your first full day before dialing) the person who trained me said that we would be briefed on how to conduct surveys before being placed on each project since rules vary across projects. Yeah, that's not at all true. I've been put into at least 6 different projects and only been briefed on 4 of them.
As I said, the work itself isn't difficult or interesting, but the hardest part of the job is dealing with repetitive "help" from management despite your best efforts.

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