call center representative

customer support representative

account specialist

technical support specialist

customer service account representative

Focus Services

I have had positive and negative experiences with Focus, but mostly negative.

Pay - The compensation is relatively low for the work field.  You could find a similar job, with less stress, and make at least 50% more hourly.  Minimum wage company wide starts at $8 / hour and ranges up to $10 / hour depending on hours worked, and floor you work on.

Work / Life Balance - I am barely able to get my yearly vacation (I would quit this job before I skipped this particular family vacation).  The more you're liked / the more calls you take, the more hours you will work.  This is abused, because once you show you're a hard worker, it's much harder to get time off, and you are given a guilt trip if you call in sick ... ever.  The employees that are always here are exploited and used for their good attendance, the ones who have poor attendance don't ever get fired or punished (on my floor), because we are too short staffed to lose them.  Every new-hire is told they will "occasionally" be required to work weekends to help with another project (on my floor), but we have worked every Saturday for the past 4 months, and are threatened if we call in that we may get fired (even if we work a 40+ hour workweek).

Management - Management essentially is on a power-trip (most of them).  They are seated at higher desks, and given red lanyards to show they are management.  If it's a high call-volume campaign, don't ever expect to your manager to jump on the phones and help out.  They are given a much easier job, and paid more for it (I've been a manager at Focus).  On my team, my manager passes their dirty work down to me to do, and takes credit for most of it, I am not compensated for my management duties, I am paid on an agent hourly wage.  Also, my manager's excuse for not helping with calls (as we are extremely short staff), is that she "needs to do this", and then will either play on her phone, or go on a break.

Lunches / Breaks - Unless you are a manager, you get (2) 10-minute breaks, and (1) 30-minute lunch.  If you are a manager, expect between 5-10 breaks per day (time will vary), and anywhere from a 30-minute to 3 hour lunch.

Environment - Overall, depending on the floor, morale can be "okay" to "very low".  Overall management style, consistent threats to be fired if you do something wrong, and the lack of communication between management causes a lot of confusion.  Policies randomly change without prior warning if your manager doesn't like something you do.

Dress Code - Very laid back, you can just about wear whatever you want. (Best part about this job)

Overall - The break room is nice, there are 2 TVs, an X-Box 360, Foosball Table, and a "convenience store".  Management lacks back-bone, favoritism is terrible at this company, HR does not care about any situation, the owner doesn't care about anyone's feedback.  They cannot afford to pay their agents a decent hourly wage or give them a proper bonus, but they can afford hundreds on decorations per month, and thousands on renovating a break room.  This place is honestly a joke.

I hope this helps in your decision; I would only recommend this job if no one else will hire you (Focus will hire anyone), or if you temporarily need a job.

This company is awful . It's not unlimited overtime; it's you will work overtime until your kids forget your face and you baaically live here. And the verbal berating is awful. And not just from customers like you'd think. Oh no. Management likes to verbally berate you too. Seriously. I've seen the director make people cry. They have zero empathy if you or a family member is seriously ill. People would have doctors notes and be expected to call in on the day they have a note for every 2 to 3 hours and continue to justify why they need that day off. Oh. And don't ever bother taking a break. You have to make them up at the end of your shift. They actually track and berate you if you take a any break and don't make up that time on the phone when you're supposed to be clocking out.
In that vein as well, they treat you like a little kid. They make you ask for bathroom breaks even if you just have to go quuckly. And if they see you trying to leave they will flag you down and check your times for the day. Except the systems never work so it's always behind and always looks like you are leaving early even if you're not. I'm pretty sure that's a ploy to get more man hours out of you. And they have drawings for awful prizes. Typically legit toys like squirty things and basketballs. Sometimes a 10$ gift card. But really, it'd be better if they just paid out more bonus or offered some benefits.
And your bonus? Forget about it. They keep the pay structure confusing seemingly on purpose. Different pay for different shifts on different days. Sometimes promising extra bonus for extra overtime. And ever changing sale bonus structure was next to impossible to stay on top of. You have to make sure you're paid correctly - it's not uncommon for them to short checks, but that's pretty tough when you're not sure how much you should be paid. And the hoops you have to jump through to get your pay? Barely worth it.
And on top of all of this, even if you work hard and try and deal with it, you won't get promoted. Only favorite people do. The whole thing feels like your high school cliques and if you're not in the popular clique there is no upward motion.
Not only would I not recommend this job even to my worst enemy; I would argue that it is the moral imperative of all working people to refuse to work for Focus Services.

This job is completely unorganized. It’s a good job when you really need something to pass time to get the bills paid. The job has no structure . The management and coaches that are there for help hate to even help you. You have to constantly keep customers on hold while you look around for somebody that possibly don’t mind helping . You learn things in the class setting that is not beneficial once you reach the floor. You learn mainly prices in the classrooms which are always subject to change, then when you get on the floor you’re completely lost. The people who are hired to help you just like to sit down all day. You’re constantly stressing yourself out trying to figure out what to do because upper management isn’t helping. They currently just moved majority of retention side to sales leaving us with 7 agents or less on retention struggling answering calls back to back because we no longer get breaks in between calls. If the structure was better the job would be better, there’s no structure and not many people taking the job seriously. I would not recommend this job, however if you need something to pass time by it will do. I honestly leave work with a headache ever day , this job is starting to affect my mental . One thing I love about this job is that they understand life happens , if you can’t make it just try to communicate they will understand . They understand that real life issues happen and it’s easy to make up hours by staying over or coming in on off days. Overtime doesn’t really kick in unless you work over 80 hours and also they constantly inform you that you will get commission off of mobile but don’t tell you that it’s other requirements you have to meet as well . I sold a couple of mobiles and have not received any commission yet . They also threaten agents about write ups for not selling mobile or by not reaching certain incentives when they’re the reason why . They’re not helping their agents enough and agents should not be penalized for TRYING ! 

I was a agent then a coach then demoted back down to an agent eventually ended up quitting. I enjoyed it at first because I was pretty much left alone when I was an agent the first round truthfully I felt like I was actually pretty good was doing my best to help any customers I got. I got promoted and enjoyed being able to help agents with figuring things out or even just giving them pointers on how to better execute greatness. I didn't like that coaches do not get any form of training it's pretty much learning it yourself. I got sick and was told to take a Covid test and not to return till I get my results the person I was keeping informed wasn't informing anyone else which led to my demotion. I was informed by my agents and then discussed it with the director when I got back. I then was an agent again. The atmosphere of the job changed for me completely I felt as though it was a racial/favoritism thing. I made good friends with some co workers and what used to be my agents but couldn't find any joy in going to this job. I kept pushing through though because adulting what are you gonna do. Finally I just decided to quit because why am I going to leave myself somewhere where I'm unhappy and they can honestly careless to resolve any of it even tried to question if maybe it wasn't the job maybe it was a home thing. I knew it wasn't a home thing because I felt fine till I got to that building everyday. To end it I worked Retention and kept getting threatened with termination if I didn't get a mobile sale. Look up retention it getting someone to keep what they currently have. 

I recently decided to take a step back , management was poor and the supervisors  hardly wanted to take sup calls most of the time they where very negligent and reluctant to help and lets not forget rude . Working at the call center was not all bad you get unlimited ot once you hit production but you dont make double the pay like they tell you unless you hit over 80 hrs. Than again if you think about it they cant seem to keep anyone there so thats probably why they offer it. However they do cheat you of your time. Iv'e seen good employee's and team leads get ran off/quit. If you need a place to work no lie it will pay the bills however you need to have a strong mindset to tolerate the level of unprofessional and rodents you might come across, but  as I mentioned if you need a job give it a chance you might like it and you can come across some good people I think they just need better management and to treat their workers better you are often threatened to be written up if you dont make a mobile or something simple over time it becomes unbearable some people really are just trying to do their best, you never know what people are dealing with so the last thing a good employee wants is to be threatened everyday to be written up for simplicity. Certainly ran me off... Good luck to anyone who gets on or goes back try to stay away from the ice machine its always got  food stuck at the bottom of it, hope this review makes a difference and will help not only future employees but the companies perceptive also 10.50 Is not enough you do more in sales than just sale by the way I liked the hours 5:30pm-2am although the company should offer morning shifts. 

When I started here I literally started with nothing no home no car no job no life. I live in the end homeless shelter and told nobody because I was so embarrassed. This place literally gave me a job friends and family and a foundation to build my life upon. They made me feel at home I was provided adequate training for what I was expected to do. I had never worked in a call center in my entire life and everyone here was so knowledgeable and forthcoming with any and all information necessary to do my job and Excel at it. You are praised when you do well you were compensated in so many ways the French benefits alone are worth the job itself. My teammates coworkers coaches and bosses are some of the most genuine people I've ever met. Not only do they care about you as a person they care about your success and they fully encourage it and promote it. This is the longest I've ever had in my life a lot of the other places I've worked I left because of confliction and confrontation on a consistent basis in the in capability I've effectively working with others. This place makes it easy in every form you can buy them too maintain a life here you can flourish if you want it I am so grateful for this place. I now have a car that I bought by saving up several Paychex, I have a place of my own and I have Reese tabish my relationships with my kids and can financially provide for them. I have nothing but good things to say about this place. No matter what company you look on there's always going to be a bad review or even too but there's going to be great reviews no one and no where is perfect there's going to be good experience is going to be bad experiences in my experience it has been an absolute blessing this place has truly changed my life

The worst company ever. Pay rate sucks unless you can get shift differential and over time but it's hard to meet the requirements because if you have to transfer a call your efficiency drops, the computers are super slow and a 5 minute call turns into a 30 min call. And I swear the rig your time on the computers. Bonuses are hard to get because they rip you off on them. Management is always on some kind of power trips. Constantly hearing yelling and screaming by management on the calling floor, sound quality on phones suck, management has favoritism. Who gets or doesn't get balloons on their desk for bdays. They hog the popcorn for themselves!!! And management is on time clock and not even there , doing community service while on the time clock at Focus all the while upper management knows but sure HR doesn't know, upper management stays clocked in after their shift is over & goes home. The bonus structure sucks. You will hardly see your bonus unless the person in charge of payroll likes  you. Then you'll probably get more. They chase you down if your in the bathroom, telling you that you need to hurry. or if your sick with something contagious they still want you to come in to work, just as long as they get their hours in. This place is a joke. They have such a high turnover rate. The quality of the people they hire is beyond me. They drug test agents but not upper management which I think they should cause they get high too.The list goes on and on. I wouldn't recommend this place to my worst enemy. But unless your desperate, go for it. It's not Focus that's so bad it's the management that is the worst. I think they should get rid of all of them & bring in some professional people to run the show.

What is the best part of working at the company?
A feeling of camaraderie. It’s really the retention agents as a collective group that stand as ‘defenders of the business’ against the mass of customers who are calling in to disconnect or downgrade services or simply complain about their bill and why does it keep going up. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The back to back, non stop calls. Being hounded by management to SELL MOBILE!!!  (Or you will be held accountable - ‘fired’) ….and then the MANY MANY ways that Focus Mgmt finds to take your bonus away. They get paid for the mobile sales. If you don’t jump through every hoop and hit your metrics just right (or God forbid, get an ECAF) you will NOT get your bonus. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Work environment can be fun at times. Culture dept does a great job of relieving stress with BBQs and fun activities. It can also be very stressful when they are shorthanded or there are too many new agents just out of training and not enough coaches or floor support. It’s a LOT. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Log in. Pull up systems. Pull up various support sites with information about Spectrum’s many many services and policies. Go READY within 5 mins of clocking. Back to back calls for 4 hours. (With one 15 min break on the clock). Log out. Hour lunch break. Log back in. 4 more hours with a paid 15 min break. Log out. Go home.

A typical day at Focus you spend the majority of your time on the phone dealing with customers calling in to disconnect their services or adding discounts to their account. You also schedule technicians when customers are having internet issues and when they get new speed upgrades. There is some research at times to help identify issues. Provide bill credits for connectivity issues. I learned all coaching aspects and how to resolve system errors. I was in management until 3 weeks ago but due to headcount, I did have to go back to being an agent. The hardest part of the job is honestly having to sit all day and management is grumpy a lot as they have so many demands on performance. It is a stat based company and saving the customer is the #1 goal but sometimes there isn't a choice in the matter. Homeless people cannot keep HSI, someone determined will not keep their HSI, there are many variables but sometimes you just cannot save a customer. The most enjoyable part of Focus is they are like family. People understand. Our director is one of the most amazing people you can work for. But when you get back to back to back calls, you cannot have any kind of fun even though they create games and competitions. I feel like a workhorse more than anything.

I applied at Focus after reading all the terrible reviews, thinking that every job sucks, and it wouldn't be that bad. It was worse than what I thought. I was in training for three weeks, and I learned nothing from it. It wasn't our trainers fault, it was the time. They just expected us to learn everything without ever going on the call floor. We started out with 23 people in our class, and after two weeks, there were only three. You would think after losing everyone they'd change a few things. I scored high on all our tests, but as soon as we took our "mock calls" no one knew what to do. I was fired today because of my "depression and anxiety." Because I was nervous for my mock call like anyone else would be. In their description, on their website. It clearly states, "we try to build confidence of our employees," but all they did was make people feel bad about themselves. I have never felt so terrible about myself in my whole life, I'm eighteen years old, and now I feel like I have something wrong with me. Because when letting me go, that's how they made it be. Everyone is really rude, and immature there. I wouldn't advise anyone to apply here, especially if most people are gonna be fired, you're just wasting your time.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Call center representative 1 salary reported	$10.00 per hour
Customer support representative 4 salaries reported	$14.00 per hour
Account specialist 6 salaries reported	$13.33 per hour
Technical support specialist 2 salaries reported	$15.00 per hour
Customer service account representative 19 salaries reported	$12.89 per hour

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