Home-Based Call Center Jobs Through Contract World

30 thoughts on “Home-Based Call Center Jobs Through Contract World”

1. contract works is already being investigated for violations of the Employment Standards Act. What the government needs is more people to submit their claim documentation under their CRA login account. You are not independent contractors when you work for this company – you are employees! Here is a link to a government link if you would like to see the checklist that is used to determine if you an independent contractor or employee. You can not sign away these rights even though their employment contracts imply that you did. You could be entitled to back pay as well as a settlement for coming forward! Feel free to contact me at+16133019938 or tammylynn86@hotmail.com if you would like any assistance in getting started with your claim. No I don’t want compensation nor do I need your personal info.

   You deserve better. Stand up for your rights!

2. This place is awful and I tried to really like it. I looked to pick up a part time job to work from home for supplemental income. At first I really enjoyed it but quickly realized just how awful it is. I got hired in August. The training is unpaid & usually 3 days for 7 hours, the trainer while 1 out of the 2 was very nice they are truly all over the place without properly training you, a lot of the time their connections get lost or they get upset when you ask questions. The training modules that you go through includes a lot of out of date info and prices – so after you think you know something or a policy you get later told once you’ve already messed up that that is no longer the policy and you get told a new one. Once out of training you get paid $7 an hour for a week to two weeks that you are in incubation. I was on the calls the last day of training and out of incubation like 2 days later. I graduated before anyone else in my training class. The training class is $24.95 and you only have some weekends to choose from for a date of the class. The training class is non refundable if you do not pass. You must also do a computer check, internet speed test and you need a USB head set. They pay for your VOIP, which I thought was kind of cool.

   The pay is LOW. They say target earnings of like $7-15 or something like that and I have never made more than $8 an hour, even on a busy night. The lowest I’ve made is $2 and some change an hour and I usually average about $4-7 an hour. You get paid 55 cents PER ORDER, nothing else. There are incentives – which I excited about when I first started but they made it seem like it would be 60 cents an order when you work from say, 6pm-12am but what they told tell you until you are already hired there are far more rules to yet. Yes you must work during that time to get 60 cents per order but you also have to hold a certain percentage of in chair occupancy and have to work 20+ hours a week (the 15 min hourly week was meant to be apart of these incentives.) I joined FF only wanting to be part time at a min of 15 hours so I could never actually get any of those “incentives”.

   • I’m a good agent, don’t get me wrong with this review. I’m fast, efficient and I know how to properly use the software. All my calls have come back and passed quality assurance – I am constantly on the hall of a fame board – I’ve only ever had one complaint against me and that was because I was told something different from a chat monitor and later scolded. From what everyone says about how to be an agent I should definitely be averaging about $10-12 an hour. But I cannot get there no matter what. Chat Monitors say take control of your calls, but how on earth can you when you are not getting paid to deal with complaint calls, prank calls, or question calls? Sometimes employees from the store, people asking about a job, family of the employees, police, vendors and telemarketers call you and you have to transfer, listen to them speak on and on and in the end never get paid for it. But you still have to be nice. They tell you “you are an order entry agent NOT a customer service rep” Yes, okay – that’s fine but I am still going to be nice to the person I am on the phone with even tho I am not getting paid for it. & I will tell you I have talked to some customers who were IRATE because their orders never arrived, the food was awful, an agent or employee was rude to them and I have calmed them down. I have convinced them that Pizza Hut has good customer service. And while I was on the phone with that person for 6 minutes and didn’t get paid a dime I walked away knowing that I treated her kindly instead of just transferring her to an endless bottomless queue. & I know a lot of agents are NOT like that. They are rude because they know they don’t get paid. Or because the chat monitors are continually convince them to just say “you are transferring and transfer” – which in the end makes the customer mad and even more pissed when they get a different agent after transferring them. YES, Order Entry Agents are customer service reps; and should be paid as such. They are the ones who get your vendors in touch with the store, convince customers to trust Pizza Hut again and to educate future customers in the special, prices and the menu. That is customer service!

     You get paid every 2 weeks via a company called Pay Source Direct. They direct deposit into your account. You do have a fee of $14.50 every 3 invoices and $4.95 every check. You do get paid is CAD and it gets exchanged for USD if you are a US citizen. No taxes get taken out because you are considered an independent contractor. So if you are going to work here make sure you save out a certain percentage each pay check for the end of the year.

     The chat monitors are extremely rude. Some of them are super nice, though. Sky and Angela were the two of my favorites but even they can get a little snippy at the smallest things. One CM (Chat Monitor) will tell you one thing only for you to be told something else the day after. Then they were scold you in chat and make you feel stupid. IE: I was told by a CM that if a CX (customer) calls in with an issue with Pizza Hut Rewards tell them we don’t have anything to with PH Rewards or Online Ordering and to refer them to that particular customer service phone number. I did that and later got told not to do that by a different CM. So, basically a customer is having questions – taking up our time on the phone and instead of just making them happy with a legit answer, as in directing them where they need to go when we KNOW where to go we have to lie and say that we have no idea about any of it and cannot help them. When they ask for a number to call we have to say that we have no idea, even though we do. It just makes the customer more angry and wants to not shop at Pizza Hut – we are literally making customers not want to buy from PH. What kind of company wants that? This is where the unethical practices come into play. But more on that later. The chat monitors will usually ignore your questions in chat even tho they claim to want to help us be successful. A lot of times, especially with chat monitor Destiny Brown she legit sits in chat and doesn’t even respond to half of our questions. So we are sitting on the line waiting for someone to help and no response. Finally a fellow order entry agent in chat is trying to help you. We are more help to each other as agents then we are the chat monitors.

     • One chat monitor will tell you to only read the first 3 sales on the green screen of the software and if they request a certain deal that we did not tell them we can only honor it if it’s in the coupon list in TMS (the software we use) – when you go to the coupons page sometime the coupon isn’t there so you have to politely tell the CX that that location does not honor that coupon. They get upset and hang up. Even though the deal is good, we are told not to honor – then when you mention how frustrating it is not be able to honor deals another CM asks you what deal, you tell them it’s the 2 medium 2 topping pizzas for $5.99 that is all over the TV she gets upset with you that you have not been honoring it. She says of course you can honor it!! When you explain you were told about the coupons list and you cannot honor if it is not there she basically calls you stupid. You can always honor it she says. Okay, well that is not what I was told prior. After awhile I stopped talking in chat and started doing my own thing. Half of the time they were no help to me and I ended up being on the phone longer than I should have costing me a lower pay rate. David Giddings is also an extremely, extremely rude chat monitor. How he gets to berate everyone in chat and get away with it is beyond me.

       Back to the specials. We cannot proactively promote specials. Even if they are online, on the TV or the radio – we can only offer 3 specials that are on the greeting screen (and some stores have NO specials on the greeting screen so when someone asks about a special and you say none because there are none on the screen you look like an idiot.) unless a CX requests a certain special like for example the Large 2 topping pizza for $7.99 – so a customer can be asking “Got any deals on a large pizza?” and we can say the first 3 specials on the greeting screen. And they will say “No, that is too much food for those specials do you have just one for a 1 topping pizza?” We cannot honor the special because they didn’t say “Can I get the $7.99 2 topping large pizza?” So when I answer the customer back with a no they say never mind and not only did I waste 5 minutes but I didn’t get paid for it. We could make ourselves AND Pizza Hut far more money if we could just actively promote the sales that the company advertises on TV, radio, Facebook ETC – it doesn’t make ANY sense that we can’t. We lose money and get the customer upset. HOW does that make sense? It’s a struggle. Sometimes I tried to say things like “Oh, were you talking about the $7.99 LRG 2 topping deal?” and they will say “Yes I was! Sure.” and then I was able to make the order, however I wasn’t just doing it for me 55 cents that I made. I did it because it is absolutely ridiculous not to try to make a customer happy and TO BE HONEST WITH THEM.

       Speaking of honesty – not only do we lie to them about the specials, that they are getting transferred to the store but we also have to lie to each customer about where we are. We are actually SITTING AT HOME – me, I am in my leggings doing my makeup most days when I’m working this job, but when a CX asks where you located at I have to a say “customer care center” and when they ask where exactly I have to say “San Antonio, Texas”. So a CX thinks they are getting someone professional but really just me sitting in my leggings drinking some coffee. They (Pizza Hut) clearly keeps it a secret that they hire WAH positions because they don’t want their customers to know that they are giving someone who works at home their credit card info. I don’t blame them, more people would probably not want to purchase from them knowing that. That is all where the shady unethical business practices come in.

       • You all get selected to be under a team lead. He/She basically makes sure everything is okay, tries to answer all your questions and makes sure the your peak / min hours every week are fulfilled – if you miss a shift you must tell your team lead and fill out a reasoning as to why you missed it. This also applies to if you leave early or come into a shift late. The team leader I got was Angela – very sweet woman and she really did seem to want to see everyone in her team to succeed. I think she’s an asset to the whole company and I know deep down she agrees with all of this. I think I have either mentioned it already or will again in this but Chat Monitors get paid $15 HOURLY for basically doing nothing. If they really wanted to do they could cut that in half and pay the Chat Monitors less and the order entry agents a semi decent hourly wage so agents are guaranteed a semi good paycheck. If they did this they would have less agents getting hired, doing awful or just plain resigning. The turn over wouldn’t be so bad and in turn the order agent would feel more compelled to answer customers questions and keep them happy then not really caring what they think at the end of the call.

         Okay, next is the scheduling. You have to work a min of 15 hours weekly. With 8 of those hours during peak time which is 6pm to 12am Friday & Saturday and Sundays 12-4pm and 6pm-10pm. You also have 5 holidays, I believe it’s 5 that you “MUST” work on to “keep” your contract. The days are Super Bowl Sunday, New Years Day, New Years Eve, Halloween, Black Friday and a few other times. They claim these are “HUGE” money days. But, I’ve worked some of these holidays where they rave it up and it’s always, always slow. Not sure if it’s because it’s just slow or if it’s because they made every agent make it seem like they could be terminated because they didn’t show up to their mandatory shift so the whole agent base is online at the same time and too many people are taking calls. Not sure which one but it’s always slow. & then I get upset that they barked up these days SO much only for them to be slow and you’re sitting on some semi important holidays making nothing. I stopped working the mandatory days because for as little as you make, it wasn’t worth it to me to miss some holidays. I never got terminated. You can schedule weeks in advance in 30 minute increments. You can request time off and Andrea, the head of the whole thing will usually always approve them. However if you ask for 5 days off one week you will not get exempt for not completing your peak hours or 15 hours for the week. Which is kind of crazy. I mean, you are asking for the days off – that usually will mean you can’t meet the minimum. You get a 5 minute break per 30 minute shift if you want more than that you have to schedule a break in 30 minute increments. If you cannot make a shift you can put it on offer so another agent can pick it up. If no one does that counts against you.

         • Now here comes the emails and Call Notify. You get daily emails from your team lead, which I actually think is kind of cool – she gives your stats for the week – you average talk time for a call, how much you were averaging hourly and if you did good on your calls – all the calls are recorded and allegedly they listen to some calls. They will rate you. They also say that sometimes they will call you and act like a customer to see how you will handle a situation. Then they text you and CALL you. Yep, TEXT and CALL you when they need agents and since they always need agents working because a lot of agents miss their shift (again if you treat your agents better you’ll get better work and less agents missing their shifts) you get a text from them or a call TWICE and hour because they are asking you to come please pick up a shift. My calls and texts start about 10am and do not stop until after 1am. I usually have 20+ missed calls every few hours and 32+ missed texts during a 8 hour work shift at my brick and mortar full time job. They told us this in training that they would send a text message but never a call and they never explained that it would be THAT often. It’s borderline harassment. Not only do they text and call but they also send emails from random chat monitors asking you to come on. Some of the emails will say that they “request you to log in” or “it is a requirement to log on” – sometimes I would log on to help and it wouldn’t even be busy. There are queues do not get me wrong – but they always over exaggerate it. Your team lead also emails to you to give you some general advice is there is a complaint to corporate about an issue.

           Customers – a lot of them are down right rude. You can’t hear them, a lot of them have accents so you have to ask them to repeat themselves. Which in turn makes them upset. A typical Friday or Saturday night is filled with complaint calls that you do not get paid for. You get yelled at, cussed at and just treated like crap. All the while you continually have to say sorry and tell them you have to transfer them. They get more upset because they have been transferred 6 times before that. They say when you transfer someone for a complaint it goes to the store, but later you find out you are not actually transferring them to the store – if the store the customer called is 100% Call Center and you transfer that customer to Manager Complaint which is supposed to go the store you are actually sending the customer back in the queue and the CX gets sent back to an order entry agent. If the customer called what they call an Overflow store you are technically sending the CX to the store but if they are busy they go back in queue to another order entry agent. Basically the CXs get transferred over and over again and keep getting connected to people who literally cannot help them so they yell at us. Which I don’t blame them! I would be upset too. We are not allowed to give out the stores phone number. They say to offer a CRM which is basically a manager call back even though when you click CRM for about 98% of the store it says no CRM available so you have to transfer anyways. ALL transfers and non order calls not only do not earn you ANY money but they actually count AGAINST your stats at the end of the week! Kick you while you’re already down, right? I stopped caring about my stats shortly after I got hired because even though I had crappy stats some nights it was not my fault, but Franchisees Firsts!

3. I’ve worked here twice and have not hit a $300 biweekly check yet. They will say it’s your fault. It’s not. Lots of transfers for wrong orders. Lots of unable to deliver due to address etc. You only get .55 per order not per call. I work at least 20 hours a week. My last biweekly check for over 30 hours was $157 mom is $19.99 in fees.

4. The Article above was very helpful
   Thanks!!!.

   • Just wondering if you tried this?

5. I thought I was getting a coupon but it was valid towards the things I wanted to purchase so I’m no longer shopping here.

6. WOW! All those fees are bad enough for the little money you’ll be making. You’re basically making big money for Contractworld, as I am sure that they are getting paid by you, the worker, and the clients as well. UGH! This is so American to screw up workers like that. Although I am a native French speaker, no, thank you, I’ll pass.

7. I would not recommend Contract World. It is very unfortunate because I worked for Pizza Hut back about 2006 and it was viable at the time. On the strength of my good experience, I suggested my husband try it . But things had changed since I was there and he had to quit because he was pretty much paying to work for them , the wages were so low.

   By the way, FABULOUS site!! Nicely organized, up to date!

   • Thanks! Glad you like it. Sorry about your experience with Contract World.

8. I forgot to mention that they hire now in any U.S. State, except Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Wyoming. Some clients require a webcam, but Intuitive Solutions Pizza Hut doesn’t. For more info. there’s Live Chat and I’ve been asking lots of questions. Thanks

   • Thanks for the additional info, Sandy!

9. Hi Anna, I wanted to let you know that I applied last week to ContractWorld Pizza Hut/Intuitive Solutions. I paid only $24.95 total for my 2 classes (My Business Access and Pizza Hut client) it was a limited time special. The classes start next week and they’re for 3 days (option to take classes on weekdays or weekend only). There’s no background check for Intuitive Solutions (Pizza Hut). The background check is mandatory depending on the client. Thanks

10. I worked for Contract World – KFC and for Arise – Rogers. Both experiences did not work out. No matter how quickly I placed orders for KFC, I never made more than $6.00 an hour, this is based on the pay-per-order fee, less the monthly charges you need to pay to Contract World. I did not include the cost of courses, as I considered this a business expense. They also expect you to have an HST number, which means you need to apply for a business number and you need to spend time filing the HST paperwork, even if you do not make over $30,000 — you still have to file. Overall, Contract World, the company does it’s best to help you but they cannot do anything about the low pay. Bottom line, if you are doing nothing all day and cannot get another job, than making $6.00 an hour is better than nothing.

    Working for Arise, I had to incorporate — this means you need to file corporate income taxes and pay annual fees to keep your business number. Being a Canadian the only company I was allowed to work for (at that time) was Rogers. The training I received was not very good, but good enough for anyone who already has a good knowledge of software programs and is comfortable using computers. The support Arise gives is best described as “adequate”. Just enough to keep you going, nothing more. And there are definitely monthly fees to be paid to Arise for access to their system etc.

    The reason I quit Arise and Rogers is I could not take the abuse from Rogers customers. They yelled and actually screamed at you when you told them they could not cancel their contracts or you could not reverse long distance charges, etc etc.

    Bottom line: be prepared for a lot of work upfront to get started, and if you don’t mind the abuse from Rogers customers, it’s not a bad way to make some extra money as there are always shifts available.

    • We had the same experience with Pizza Hut. It was fine in the early days, since you were guaranteed a minimum hourly wage (about 10.00 CDN at the time)
      Now, you pay to work for them.

    • I hate Contract World and Pizza Hut, in training with only sales call in the queue you make like $11 dollars an hour, but when you start production, you get two complaints calls for every sales call – you are required to handle the complaint calls for free, and you only make money off the sales call, I worked 62 hours in two weeks and only made $3.21 USD, even as teenager 30 years ago, I never got paid so low and Contract World response it’s your problem because you signed a 16 page contract. What scam with all their fees, and that I had to pay Vonage $30 USD a month for a Canadian Phone#. I quit after the third week and never went back. Ohh, the average Spanish call takes from 7-10 minutes, and Pizza Hut demands you take the call anywhere from 2.5 minutes to 3.0 minutes per call.

11. It’s very disturbing to have to pay to work somewhere, it just makes no logical sense. Why should someone have to pay to work for a pre-historic company is beyond me. I too have paid for their training, and after an 8 hr day with no breaks and a 20 minute lunch, that we weren’t paid for, I was very reluctant to continue. Further, once I installed the software, found it to be tedious at best in learning how to navigate it. It is true that if you don’t pass the final exam you can’t work, so you’re essentially paying for training without the promise of work. I bailed and ate the 150 that I wasted because the headache of trying to earn that back on top of paying bi-weekly fees to use a system that was probably created in 2004 and not updated since is not worth it. In the end this company magically is able to attract reputable companies but the hassle involved with getting through the training and set up is not worth it. If you are paying per-call as well, you should have a reflected deduction at the very mininum, but to think you have to work a good 10-20 hours just to break even is the stupidest thing I ever heard. Contract world is one of the worst at-home jobs I’ve ever come across.

12. have you written any other websites about jobs that don’t require you to pay?
    🙂 thanks

    • Actually, most of what I write about doesn’t require payment. If you browse the categories on the right side of this site, you’ll find lots of things. Just avoid the “home business” category. Pretty much everything else should be free to start.

13. I am a remote agent for contract exchange and so far i like it alot .. My schedule is to my liking and i can change it and lay around with my shifts.I do my minimum of 10 hours of week with no problem whatsoever.. the calls are pleasant but you do get irate customers.. The training was pretty straight forward and easy ..
    I think it’s a great on the side for extra income job and if you want to make it into a full time home based job you just have to choose clients that offers around the clock schedule ..

    • I actually start working for them in March. Can you please explain to me the 1099 forms and how does the tax thing work.

14. Hello everyone! I worked for some of their clients such as KFC, Redberry Pizza Hut and The Shopping Channel, all on the Canadian side. I’m not impressed, with the exception for Redberry…maybe. The biggest issue is management. They’re quick to press the ‘terminate’ button or scold their agents such as in the case of KFC. The latter monitors their agents with the ‘Whisper’ Feedback. This means while you’re on a call, if they hear you making an error, they tell you that you’re making a mistake while you’re on the phone speaking to the customer. Sounds confusing? Yep….it is! This took me off guard because at no point did they advise the agents this is a KFC practice. The issue with Redberry Pizza Hut? They love to send out little emails with all the errors you made during your shift. For instance: You added this to the order but you didn’t suggest the promotion. The problem is that if you continuously make the same mistake, wouldn’t it be wise to suggest methods to improve your call quality? Most call centres adopt this ‘logic’ but what’s logical for you, isn’t necessarily logical for the next. The Shopping Channel uses way too many inhouse softwares. They don’t expect you to breath and they don’t like you asking questions when things don’t quite make sense. In other words “Shut up and keep working. Do as I say!” Lastly, as for Contract World:Their entire platform needs to be updated. There’s too much going on! I think the clients need to train their ‘managers’ to be just that…managers.
    Overall, my experience with Contract World: 8/10. My experience with their clients: 4/10!!!!
    Good luck to all those wish to work for the above clients.

    • Hello, I’m interested in working for pizza where you get paid per call. How is the call volume, can you make 10 per hour or does it vary?

    • Hi, I have a question in regards to KFC or The Shopping Channel, which one has a higher call volume. I’ve in the past worked Pizza Pizza which at the time was great no matter when I logged in, however I don’t see them there no more. I tired Pizza hut US and Canada, with mixed reviews for both.

      So I want to try KFC or TSC however I want to make sure I’d be busy if I do try one or the other. Any recommendations here, thanks in advance!

      • Keisha have you been able to make a decent hourly rate there? I’ve heard complaints about less than minimum wage so if I have to pay fees to start up I don’t want to have to sacrifice sufficient hourly pay. Please let me know, I’d like to talk with someone who works with Contractworld as I am a single mom and need more information

15. I too found their website to be quite confusing as well. I even left and came back when I had more time to concentrate and still couldn’t find much more information than very basic things. I have decided to pass on them as well at least for the time being.

16. Thanks for the review Anna! I really like the overview you have given of them as I have checked out their website but found it somewhat confusing?? Or should I say overwhelming..I don’t know..But after reading your review, I think that I will be checking out Arise instead. There are less fees with Arise and just seems all around a better option IMHO to work for..Again, thanks for the great review!

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