While passing through Santiago and Santo Domingo I’m sure you have seen signs say something like “If you can read this you can work here”. If so, in all likelihood you just passed by a call center. Maybe you’ve wondered if that might be a good way to get some supplementary income while you stay in the Dominican Republic. While most of my experience is on the public side of the phone call and not the calling side I do have enough experience on the calling side to know that not everyone is cut out for the call center life.

You however, may be one of the exceptions to the rule so let’s talk about what you might be able to expect and what some of the better possibilities are. Most of my experience comes in two forms; Outgoing calls or sales calls, mostly with insurance sales and incoming calls as a technical service representative. Both of these jobs have their pros and cons.  There are also other categories that may be more of a blend between these two like inbound presales which is often done with chat software and a computer terminal instead of a phone. There is also Social Site interaction where your job is more in the line of going to sites mentioning your product (either social sites like Facebook and twitter or even personal blogs), and answering questions and handling complaints.

Call Center Reviews

Before deciding on working for a call center it would be a good idea to search for online reviews of the company you are thinking of working for. There is a huge difference in companies! While most reviews are going to be negative read through them anyway to see what the complaint was. Unfortunately, people usually done write a call center review unless they are upset with the company, however reading what they were upset about will help you determine if this might be a problem for you.

Types of call Centers

Call centers can be broke up into several different types.

• Small 2-150 chair centers: Yes, even a couple people sitting at desks with phones is often considered a call center here. These are almost always very low paying and higher than average stress. You can expect between 8,000 – 10.000 pesos a month for full time work with little or no benefits. These will usually promise much higher pay because there will be some commission involved. Most of the time they are pushing low quality products that are hard to sell so very few people if anyone will make the high wages they promise.
• Company owned Customer Service Centers: These will usually be the better jobs. The pay is higher, training is better and there are usually good benefits. Your job will usually entail interpreting a customer’s problem (or soothing a complaint), doing a quick computer search for the answer and reading it to them. Difficult problems are then passed on to the next level of tech. While there can be some stress because everyone you talk to has a problem and just endured the dreaded automated answering machine, once you get started they often calm down and you can have a friendly session.
• Third Party Call Centers: These are large call centers that have thousands of employees and contract with other companies. Some of these are pretty good and offer good benefits. Benefits may include health insurance, paid vacations, sick pay, incentive programs discounts and bonuses, and a host of personal “quality of living” benefits and services. The pay is often less than the company owned call centers but is not bad for this area.

Call Center Contact info

I won’t bother listing any of the small call centers, there are tons of them, they often don’t last long and you probably don’t want to work there.

Here is a list of some of the larger Third party call centers. Most will be located in Santiago or Santo Domingo. (more…)