Since it opened in June of 2005, the Ready Call Center has become known publicly as little more than a hotbed of constant agitation between management and staff. There have been complaints of workers not being paid on time, workers being terminated for frivolous reasons, and management denying workers the right to form a union.
Indeed it seemed Ready Call was the post modern electronic sweatshop. Well now the ready call workers have a union, they have their own bus, and to boot they have left their old problems behind on New Road and moved to a new location. And so while you've heard the bad news about Ready Call, yesterday 7NEWS found out the company has transformed the landscape in one part of town. Keith Swift reports.
Keith Swift Reporting,
This is normally how Newton Barracks normally looks on Friday and Saturday night: bumper-to-bumper parking, a line of food vendors and add to that an extended bicycle rack with simply too many bikes to count. But this isn't the weekend; it's the middle of a weekday afternoon - and its not because of a special occasion. All this is out here because of what's inside the two upper floors of this building - the Ready Call Center. Construction continues on the outside but inside it is a bustling center of activity. On any given day - 600 employees enter and exit the Ready Call Center.
This is inside one of Ready Call's 20 operation rooms. There are 37 customer care representatives, or CCRs in here and there is a buzz of activity because all of these are fielding complaints from Trac Phone users in the United States.
John Malic, Quality Assurance Manager
"We basically do customer service, which is for an outsource company
located in Miami, Florida and that is a prepaid wireless service over there and we just do customer service for their customers from here in Belize."
Keith Swift,
So somebody in Miami who bought a prepaid phone and has a problem with it, they would call a 1-800 number in the States and who will answer it?
John Malic,
"Our agents here will answer the phone."
All new Ready Call employees are required to undergo 34 days of computer training, but more importantly phone etiquette, because at all times they have to play nice on the phone which is where this script comes in.
John Malic,
"First of all everything that your mom taught you at home; table manners, being nice, please and thank you, you're welcome. It is expected because you are doing customer service and because you are doing customer service, you want to be polite and courteous with every customer, every call you get. There are certain standard procedures. We train certain techniques that you can apply when dealing with an irate customer and once you master the technique, there are four steps you have to follow with every customer."
Keith Swift,
Do you have to talk like an American?
John Malic,
"Not really. As long as you speak standard English, the English they taught you at school. For example, the word 'battery,' with a strong accent it is actually 'battery.' For example there is 'three;' the same English that you are taught in primary school, you are expected to talk here at the call center."
Ready Call opened in 2005 on New Road - and they moved their 400 computer terminals and cubicles to Newtown Barracks in one night last month. The average age of an employee at Ready Call is between 18 and 24. Most are fresh out of high school or sixth form. John Malic - who is the Quality Assurance Manager - says that is not by accident.
John Malic,
"The way the company is set up, it is to give young people an opportunity.
If you look at the faces of the people who work here, most of them are young people and it's happy to see so many success stories coming from young men and young women who would otherwise, other companies in Belize would not give them an opportunity because they didn't have qualifications, because they don't have any job experience."
But could it also be because of cheap labor? Well Malic says no. A customer care representative, CCR, starts out with $4.12 an hour. He claims that with all things considered, that rate is one of the highest in the region.
Keith Swift,
There is the perception that the reason why Ready Call came to Belize, and the reason why you hire young people, is because you can get cheap labor. Is that so?
John Malic,
"The lease it costs to run a building like this, the money you are spending in training people and developing them to be professionals in the field, it is a lot of cost the company is incurring and it is cheaper because if you compare putting up a call center in the U.S. and putting one here in Belize, there is a big difference in numbers. But as far as Belize being the cheapest, not true."
Malic concedes that ready call has a high turnover rate of staff which he says has already cost the company one million dollars. New employees are being hired daily and trained weekly. Michelle Whyte left her job at the Central Statistical Office a year ago and joined Ready Call. She is now a supervisor.
Michelle Whyte, Employee
"Since I've been working at Ready Call there are some great changes in my life. I've been living better, being that I am making more money. I heard a lot of rumors about working at Ready Call but ever since I started working here I haven't had any bad experience, especially with pay and so forth that the agents are always complaining of."
21-year-old Kurt Coleman is a CCR. He joined ready call two months ago after being unemployed for a couple months.
Kurt Coleman, Employee
"I was working at a restaurant first. I was a supervisor there and I
left that four months ago so I was out of a job for like three months and then I decided to start a career at Ready Call."
And while Kurt found a job inside Ready Call - there are the industrious few who've found employment on the outside. Call them entrepreneurs or food vendors like Austin Rubio who was out of a job until Ready Call moved to Newtown Barracks.
Austin Rubio, Food Vendor
"Man I just laid off and I have to survive so I had to do what I had to do and at least this is honest and there is no reason to be shame about this. If they didn't move here well I definitely wouldn't have come here because it is only at night they would have dances and stuff like that because of Ready Call, we can now sell in the day."
John Malic says Ready Call isn't content with changing the lifestyle on Newtown Barracks. The company has plans for rapid and aggressive expansion to one thousand CCRs within the next few months.
John Malic,
"Ready Call Center can only bring good things to Belize and it is a company that gives opportunity to many young people and this industry will eventually begin to boom in Belize. Ready Call is setting the precedent for all the call centers in this country so come and get your experience, come and work for us, and you will have a brighter future when call centers start to come."
Ready Call receives about 4,000 calls per day. If you do the math, that's 28 thousand calls a week.
