Its all a mask. A big giant mask that leaves me very skeptical about what I am doing on the job. If its ethical or not.
But this is how the job starts.
The Interview and Training Process
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Some of the managers know how the human mind works and try to manipulate it. Its like 1984 all over again. I great novel I tell you; go read it.
In the beginning a pretty picture of a fantasy vacation is painted into are minds to ensure that our emotions are not affected whilst we solicit these vacations to the public. If our emotions are affected it would only impede with our phone solicitation processes. It would yield unwanted results. Results unwanted for Anthony Donato, the owner of that godforsaken place. In the interview, they do a swell job of convincing us that what they do is completely legit.
"Word of Mouth Advertising"
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It all seems to make sense in the beginning when they say that its for purely marketing purposes. The consumer takes the $698 USD package and goes to Florida, has a great time, and then when they come back they tell all of their friends about it and they feel that they should travel with the same company again. In this case it would be Ramada. So ultimately its a marketing scheme that even I would take advantage of for a cheap trip to Florida. Sure they want you to give word of mouth advertising and use you as a billboard, but in the end its your choice to mouth on about it or not.
Which is when I realized it. None of this makes sense. Realistically its an inane concept to have four people give word of mouth advertising after they are done with the trip. However, why should one think of it as inane? Simple. We are given rebuttals to read to customers we dial up. In one of them it says: "2 out of 10 people who go on this vacation are so pleased that they tell all of their friends about it and go on it again."
Word of mouth advertising works best on the internet where a lot of eyes see the posts in blogs and such. However in the analog world, the concept of one man advertising to all of his friends? The chances of those friends telling their friends about it? Television yields better results. There is the possibility of reaching millions of people at once rather than a few.
Ultimately, it causes one simple question to arise. Why would Ramada hire a call center to do all this? All to keep 20% of its customers? Well I guess its really working considering that if you search up "ramada plaza resorts orlando ft lauderdale vacations" on Google and you find nothing but complaints about how crap it is. I guess thats the 80% of the people who went on the trip and absolutely hated it. That makes for real great advertising.
I doubt that a multi-million dollar corporation made it big working like this.
"Advanced Training" or as I call it "Advanced Brainwashing"
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It works for the first week. Only because it helps you make sales since you think you are doing the customers a big favor. Then it just gets annoying. Anthony Donato and the newly hired Craig Martin (the only good manager there) start the evening shifts off everyday with a decent helping of "advanced training". The concept of advanced training can be simply described by the word "overkill". That is all it is. They just continue beating a dead body until its down to pulp.
How it goes is that they listen to the conversations of the day before and make sweeping generalizations that everybody did the same thing wrong. What a perfect management practice I must say. Then Anthony starts it off just like 2 minutes of hate in 1984, or in this case, the one hour of hate. Anthony Donato starts off by mentioning how easy the job is.
We are told to listen in advanced training and take in everything by Kristina, a manager there. So I took it all in and I thought I would make a list of it:
~Managers call consumers stupid.
~Tries to make the employees feel like the keepers of the Holy Grail
~Then they get onto the criticisms against employees if it was a "bad night" (contradicts with the "holy grail" thought)
~Then they say that the consumers are stupid (has to be done more than once for some odd reason)
~Donato explains credit card laws... AGAIN
~Donato calls the consumers ignorant... AGAIN
~Then they say that the vacation package is ALREADY the consumers
~The fact that they are called consumers/customers contradicts with the supposed "fact" that the package is "already theirs"
~More generalizations of the department and consumers
~Donato says the formulas work. He says it everyday, twice a day ever since this place started in Feb 2007, that would make it well over a 800 times in his life time
~Says he worked at Bell. An anecdote that helps with... pretty much nothing when it comes to training
~Anecdotal evidence is primarily moot in arguments and if trying to make a point
~He says he has been doing this for 27 years. He stated that he was 45 just last week. That means that he was doing this since he was in high school/end of high school. Apparently...
~They say it is a $5500 USD package yet in the script it says $3285 USD. Another contradiction
~They try to make us believe that we aren't telemarketers
~They reiterate the same rebuttals almost every training session. It gets redundant. Redundancy is not so great last time I checked.
The Ethics on the Job
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However, in the end my job is just to put in a list of what goes wrong on this job. Its your decision to choose whether it is great place to work or not.
The Cons of the Job
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~Donato made someone a manager when she rarely got any reservations
~Customers are consistently called stupid and ignorant
~We, the employess are given a false sense of heroism
~They say the package is worth 3285 USD but then they say it is worth 5500 USD
~They say that it is the employees are to blame when the job relies heavily on getting the right person on the phone. Ultimately it is probability yet managers don't see this
~They use the Theory X of management. A management theory that states that employees are generally stupid and need to be guided all the time. Hence advanced training
~Voice quality is blamed when in fact you sit beside the stereo, which makes the customer think that you are a young aspiring scam artist calling from a party.
~Donato screams at you
The Pros
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~Good pay if you don't care about customers getting ripped off
~Your co-workers are usually nice people
In the end, if you are a customer I must say that if you get a call from Ramada Plaza Resorts Orlando Fort Lauderdale Vacations. Just say "Not Interested" right when you hear those words. Don't blame the workers. Ask for a manager andh ave a word with them.
Anonymous
Brampton, Ontario
Canada
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