A day in the life of a typical overpaid underappreciated reservation sales agent:
1-Walk thru front door and sign in on paper first at a podium.
2-Sign into computer and phone pad within a minute or 2 of shift start time or face occurrence against attendance stats or use up a free late (up to 12 minutes twice a year allotted.)
3- read briefing or socialize, depending on the agent, preferably within 7 minutes of official start time.Hope you can get through and comprehend anywhere from 2 to 12 topics in briefing and the pricing bulletin depending on the day, no avenue to ask questions on vague or unclear info or procedures in the bulletins.No time alloted to read USAIR TODAY or any in house bulletins as most of the time is needed to understand and mentally try to process and remember normal briefing info, therefore any important newsworthy goings on within the company are learned thru rumour, word of mouth , or the typical general grapevine.
4- Take calls, such as sales, reissue ,awards, info ,sched change, agency,etc ,depending on your training. Must rigidly work within the guidleines prescribed Re: fare rules, ticketing policies,inventory of seats or lack thereof especially re: dm awrd tkts... virtually no waivers unless apparent agent error involved. No medical or emergency waivers of any kind including jury or military.Sometimes having to correct prior misperceptions created by misinformation disseminated by agents who don't follow briefings and stay current or who don't take the time to fully explain a policy because of time restraints.. On average, 1/3 to 1/2 of a typical day is spent telling pax NO NO NO/Cant Cant Cant or It's gonna cost ya, which often leads to intense stressful agent/passenger discourse and sometimes elevation to CSD desk or C/A. No sales blitzes, no pep talks, no meetings to discuss or voice concerns that would be heard, analyzed ,and perhaps modified if need be. No time to spend with the passenger selling our product and its benefits if applicable. It's all about quoting schedule, a fare ,ya want ir or not? And get off the phone. It's basically Sit down, shut up, and take calls. Nothing varies day to day, not a thing. No initiatives, no postive reinforcements, just cracking whips.Like a bandaid over a gushing wound.No one will initiate change. Bad business model and bad management overall. And cutting labor is not the answer.
From what I understand in the American businesss model, this is not how many sales oriented companies operate, is it?? Or am I wrong? Am I thinking of the 80s and 90's too much, and the new century of sales is now patterned different in order to succeed?
5-Hope that if necessary through the course of a day, that who you call in rates desk or customer service help desk is skilled, qualified, and sympathetic enough to handle unusual situations,questions and the like. Recently, both departments have been flooded with newly trained rookies lacking these 3 important qualities.
So one might ask, who would endure this both company and self inflicted torture professionally and courteously longterm for 7 bucks an hour? Joe BigMac? I don't think so.
The company will never survive BK with the modus operandi I described above , which is quite a true reflection of a typical day at US res.