Phone Work From Home at Windy City Call Center – IL or IN

One company that is often hiring home-based virtual call center reps is Windy City Call Center. I usually find their job leads posted when I search the Chicago-area Craigslist jobs page. As you might have guessed, you can’t really work for this company unless you are a resident of Illinois or Indiana due to the onsite training that is required prior to working from home. Prior outbound call center experience is preferred, but not required.
If you are in Illinois or Indiana and you’re looking for a work from home phone job, you might be curious about this company. I did the research today and have lots of info to share with you.

 

About the Job

Windy City Call Center aka Bird Dog Media is in the business of providing educational leads for their college and university clients. These learning institutions may or may not be accredited (I’m getting mixed info on that). If you work for Windy City Call Center, you will mostly be making outbound calls to people who have indicated online that they would be interested in furthering their educations and helping them find degree programs.
So this isn’t *exactly* cold-calling because these are people who actually have requested the information. You’re just calling them back to give it to them. However, I think we all know that lots of times people mistakenly tick off boxes indicating that they might like more information about this or that online when they didn’t intend to. I know I’ve done it! And these people are usually not going to be happy about getting called and will assume you are a telemarketer. So if you do this, be prepared to deal with some irate people on the phone.

You read from a script and you have a minimum quota you must meet of at least two leads per hour. Apparently if you don’t stick to the script perfectly, you can get dinged on your quality score, which must stay at least 92% or above. You can get fired if your quality goes below 92%.
Apparently you take some inbound calls, too, but most are outbound.

How much does Windy City Call Center pay?

The website claims everyone starts off at $9 an hour with a $1 raise after 600 hours of service. So if you stick with it long enough, you may be making $10 an hour.

When and how does Windy City Call Center pay?

Windy City Call Center pays every two weeks with direct deposit.

Are you an employee or independent contractor?

It appears you are an employee.

Are there benefits?

You are eligible for paid time off after your 600 hours of service, plus they claim to have a 401K plan you can join at some point. There may also be bonuses/performance incentives.

What about training?

You will be trained onsite in Arlington Heights, IL prior to working from home. The training period lasts for three days and it is all paid.

Your Schedule

This is what the website says about your schedule:

We prefer candidates who can work 25 to 39 hours per week.  Special consideration may be made for qualified candidates who can commit to at least 20 hours per week.  Call center hours: Monday – Saturday, 9am– 8pm CST/10am – 9pm EST, and Sunday 12pm – 4pm CST/1pm – 5pm EST.  Qualified candidates must be able to commit to a set weekly schedule.

Feedback

There is mixed feedback online. For obvious reasons, many people do not enjoy calling people that don’t want to be called or being cursed at and yelled at on the phone by those same people. Some people have also said it’s hard to meet the two lead minimum per hour you’re required to meet because there are long periods of time with no calls to make or take. The pros people tend to list are of course getting to work from home and being paid hourly. There also does not appear to be any problems with people getting paid. Everyone says the company pays on time.
Below are some links to reviews of Windy City Call Center at Indeed and also Glassdoor. Read the good and the bad before deciding to apply here.

• Indeed reviews
• Glassdoor reviews
• Forum thread at WAHM

Where to Apply

You can visit the company website here for details on the application process. Please comment below if you have applied here and would like to share your own experience.