Remote Customer Service/Support Jobs

January 2, 2019 12:10 PM

I've been considering this direction for a while but I'm concerned about job security. Does anyone have any insight on the world of remote jobs in the modern age?

I am currently in HR and I work in an office environment. A long time ago (12 years ago) I worked in call centers, both as a customer service rep and a manager. I think I'm good with people and I like to help.
I absolutely hate HR. I like my company but being limited to 15 days PTO (including sick/personal days) and a total lack of flexibility has me feeling bummed out a lot. I have for a long time been interested in pursuing remote work. My husband works from home and I would love to as well. We have excellent reliable internet and the room for me to do it.
I've browsed "We Work Remotely" a lot and there are always a lot of great looking opportunities. I have one hesitation. A lot of these companies are start ups and I'm concerned about the job security. At the same time we're living in a world where live chat is a feature on most websites, my favorite thing in the world. Some of these jobs must be legit.
In particular I'm interested in a support position at a company based in Malta, called Hotjar. It would technically be an independent contractor position but the tax responsibilities don't alarm me because my husband already uses an accountant anyway and we file together. They have great reviews on Glassdoor but I'm mostly asking, how do I go about doing my due diligence and figuring out which companies are reliable? Does anyone have experience in this area? Any insight?

Thanks as always!

posted by emotionalmotionsickness to Work & Money (5 answers total)

Tech is significantly less stable than "join Acme Widget Co after high school and work there until you retire". That said, unless you're one of the first 10 employees, no tech company (aka "startup", the term is kind of meaningless these days) is particularly more unstable than any other random modern office job. It also tends to pay well, and the norm for employees is "stick around for a few years and then get a new job" -- but that's driven by the hunt for money/promotion, not any inherent instability.

More the point: When you interview with a startup, ask! Ask about funding and revenue and profitability. Those are all completely reasonable questions to ask.
posted by so fucking future at 2:32 PM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

In the course of your work, did you become really familiar with any special software? Payroll, HR admin, ERP, something like that?

Go look at the makers of that software, and if applicable partners that are value-added resellers or implementers or consultants. Some of those jobs are going to be hardcore travel, but there's a good bit of remote support/consulting/implementation work out there too.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:48 PM on January 2, 2019

I haven't tried it myself, but people seem to recommend https://www.flexjobs.com/ for this sort of thing.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:33 PM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

Echoing Lyn Never, an empire like PeopleSoft is going to have a lot of training and problem solving demand, both with the company and with users and third parties.
posted by SemiSalt at 7:30 AM on January 3, 2019

I tried working remote customer service for a tech startup that developed various apps. It was a nightmare. There was no communication between the dev team and us, so they’d update something and cause issues, and we’d get blamed by customers. Also, the company paid us as independent contractors even though we had to be available as full-time employees (BIG red flag — they pushed their generous wages, but being an independent contractor and paying self-employment taxes meant huge tax bills and no benefits), and that included float shifts where we had to be available for 8 hours at a time to help if needed, but we only got paid for the time we actively worked. I sat in front of the computer for 8 hours and got paid for 1.5 hours. And I spent those 1.5 hours getting blamed and abused for mistakes the dev team made.

Just some things to watch out for. I was a big fan of this company’s apps until I worked for them.
posted by QuickedWeen at 5:06 PM on January 3, 2019 [1 favorite]