Arise Training and Treatment :: Rogers Communication Opportunity

So, you're thinking of working at home and heard about the Arise opportunity from a friend or maybe an online forum. It sounds good so far, but you may have happened across a few not-so-good things about the Arise and some of its practices. Voices of Arise is made up of CURRENT Arise contractors. We are not disgruntled former employees, but instead, current contractors joining forces to demand that we get what we were promised when we made the investment in Arise.  Be sure to check out the comments section below to hear from some of the VSC's and ACP's who work for Arise. We hope this information helps you make a more informed decision before you invest in this company.  


Once upon a time there was a large group of people from all over the North American continent who decided to take a chance and start their own business based on the promise of "Work, Freedom, Trust, and Results" made by Arise. This group of people expressed interest in working for Rogers Communications, an Arise client based out of Canada. 

It sounded wonderful! Pick your own hours, roll out of bed into work, make new friends, provide exceptional customer service and start to enjoy life. Training began and we soon found out that along with the 4 hours of online classes, we were required to commit 3-6 hours of self-study time EVERY day in order to be certified to service Rogers. For 6 weeks we crammed for weekly assessments and a final exam, we were given little or no time to put to practice the things we were learning because the technical issues in class were many. Days after class began some of us were told there weren't enough training ID's to go around, we'd have to share, night after night it was hit or miss if the training environment would be working so we could practice, but we still moved forward and we all did what we had to do, excited to FINALLY start working. The small voice nagging at many of us that things weren't as they were supposed to be were silenced by assurances that we would have 30-days to "nest" and wouldn't be responsible for metrics or Average handle Time on calls. We were promised we'd have PLENTY of help in virtual "Nesting Chats" with Performance Facilitators (PF's) who were pro's and eager to help us get where we needed to be to reach final certification. 


Upon "graduating" from the certification course over half of us did not have working ID numbers to begin servicing the client. We were told this down time would not effect SOW's (Statements of Work we signed with the client committing ourselves IN WRITING to honor the 20 hour minimum commitment). We were all excited to receive an email from Arise telling us there would be more training and we'd even be paid for it! Six days of training with two teachers who truly had our best interest at heart. 


Many of us took full advantage of the extra training and were present the entire 9-hours each day all six days. We were relieved to be able to tell the teacher what we didn't know and have him show us individually how to perform tasks we were unable to do, we were even more excited to learn we were going to be paid for the time we were spending in these classes and many of us began to wonder if maybe we were just overreacting a bit. After all, our group was considered a "Super class" and over 700 people were coming out of training at the same time, Arise probably just needed extra time to get all the ID's issued. We'd go to class while we waited. Arise knew we didn't all have ID's, they wouldn't hold us to our SOW's when it was impossible for us to work without ID's they had yet to issue. WRONG! We finished certification on the 9th of the month, there were still people waiting for ID's on the 23rd. Several of these people had their SOW's terminated because they weren't meeting the SOW commitment. Numerous emails to their QAPF's were met with silence. 

We heard rumors about hours and hours spent in technical support addressing system issues and it wasn't until some of our own where there for hours and hours that we realized these weren't rumors. Little did we know that in the upcoming days many of us would spend more time in support then we would actually servicing the client. Arise has stringent AHT's for VSC's and ACP's but their own hold times can average FIVE HOURS! 


We still had hope that is was all going to be good and we were just going through the normal growing pains all new VSC's and ACP's went through when starting service on a new client. We were told that anytime spent in class before the 15th of the month would be paid to us on the 22nd and that was good. This down time was at least productive, or so we thought. The classes ended and some of us got working ID's and some of us were still waiting. All of us were looking forward to the 22nd  when we'd receive our first check, the long wait was going to pay off. 


Well, that's what we thought. 


The 22nd came and went and none of us were paid. Instead we received an email from Arise apologizing for the delay but promising that all of our fees for class would be paid with our regular service fees on the 7th of the next month. We had no choice but to keep moving forward. 

Actual screen shot from Citrix

Day after day after day many of us experienced crippling problems with the Citrix/ICM/V21/ and Avaya system which prevented us from working and left us with no choice but to sit in Arise technical support for hours on end.  Our complaints and concerns to our QAPF's (Quality Assurance Performance Facilitators) have in many cases, gone unanswered or simply dismissed with company line answers like "It isn't global so it must be your system".  Almost every day you can see ACP's in the PF Chats asking if there are system issues because the system logs us out in the middle of customer transactions REGULARLY.  


Some Arise employees assured us that all of this was normal and that we we're still in nesting and nesting is a time to work the bugs out. One week after we began nesting, an announcement was made that nesting was closed. We were directed to regular Pf Chats with PF's who were rude and impatient.  


We were told that no calls could be transferred to any department without permission from PF Chat which results in MANY customers being left on hold for 6,7, even 10 minutes to simply be transferred to other departments. The requirement to wait for approval GREATLY effects AHT as well. Most days there are 48-71 ACP's in a chat with only 3 PF's on hand to assist resulting in tremendous hold times for customers and more bad AHT's. Numerous complains to Arise QAPF's regarding these concerns have gone unanswered. 


There's more...


In certification we were never told that:


-Issuing non-discretionary adjustments would be held against us.
- Transferring calls counts against us
-After Call work would be done with no pay (We were told we'd be paid)
-We would not be compensated for many hours of down time due to inadequate systems. (Some ACP's and -VSC's were shorted almost HALF the hours they worked). 
- No compensation for system reboots which can sometimes reach half a dozen during a 4-hour shift.
- Nesting would only be one week and performance would be measured from that point on. (We were told we had 30 days of nesting)
- Arise would not return the level of service and support they demand from us. 


See comments below from actual Arise VSC's and ACP's for more broken promises. 

Access Restricted message a VSC received minutes before servicing.
She lost an entire days pay as a result. 

In a nutshell, the training that Arise provides for the Rogers Communications client is inadequate, the systems are unreliable at best and the "partner support" is NON existent. If you are considering joining Arise do yourself a favor and STAY AS FAR AWAY FROM THIS opportunity as you can. It's a nightmare and there is little or NO support. Other opportunities may be better, but this one is horrible. 


Arise has not lived up to its promises with regards to technical or partner support. They treat us like an assembly line. Once the fee is paid your required to meet or exceed their standards, but do NOT expect the same in return from Arise.  


Stay tuned for our next article which will cover the topic of fees. If no support isn't enough to convince you to stay away from Arise, not being paid all the hours you work, might be. 




Signed,

Frustrated Arise VSC's and ACP's


P.S.  Feel free to leave a comment, our VSC's and ACP's will be glad to answer any questions you might have.