Complaint Review: Summit Outsourcing Group

I joined Summit OSG as an employee in August 2009.  They are doing heavy employment advertising for call center reps.  Their business model is to set appointments for a variety of companies so that the companies sales force has pre-set warm leads.  Most of these appointments are for sophisticated type sales.  My job was to front for a sophisticated software  company with a great niche product.  It was one of the best projects they were working.  Some of the projects they were working were terribly difficult for a telemarketer to make an appointment, some were not so difficult.  Turnover was basically 100% on several projects and I saw a lot of people come and go in just my short time there. Nobody made anywhere near the money that was  claimed in their advertising for prospective contractors. The owners are charming, and smart, they seem like great guys.  It was a major reason for my taking the position.  They talked big numbers and they seemed highly principled.

Their business model was to only provide a very limited number of leads at a time through Sales Force CRM which was probably the most efficient way to make sure a lead is never wasted, but much more difficult to make a buck for the contracted employee.  The pay was $100 per appointment.  I made an appointment a day working a half day my first 4 days on the phone.  I only worked a half day because I had a second job at the time.  I needed to drop my second job and segue into working full time for Summit for a month, in order  to go to a new company that had a training class opening up.  The next 8 days I went full time and only made 5 appointments.  There is a typical 30% no show rate on the appointments.  I had to find something else.  I let Charlie Besecker and Townsend, two of the three owners know this.  I continued to work for a few days following up on appointments and trying to set a couple more that I had almost closed prior to leaving.  My last full day was 8/28, but we had much correspondence after that date.  I had a meeting scheduled on 8/31.  Charlie gave me praises for the meeting saying it had a possiblity to be a three quarter million dollar sale for the company and that the sales person was ecstatic about the meeting.  They were supposed to pay me on the first.  They did not.  We are talking $100 here.  It is the principal of the matter, though I can't say I couldn't use an extra $100 now.

ve, I will saNow they are saying that I signed a document that said that any future appointments I have after leaving that I do not get paid on.  Only I did not leave.  I was working part time well past the first of Sept. Moreover; I cannot find the documentation they are referring to, and I have quite a bit of orientation documentation.

Why do they have that policy?  Is my work diminished by the fact that I am gone?  By the way, they have a policy that you cannot schedule appointments any sooner than three business days out.  This of course increases the chance of a no-show markedly.  You are not paid on no shows.  Bottom line I worked 8 full days 4 half days and was paid $400.  I am a much better than average phone rep as well. And remember I had one of the two best projects. I have an appointment today (9/15/09) that I set almost three weeks ago.  I am not even trying to be compensated on that of course. 

Anyone who goes to work there is probably hurting because it is a tough gig.  You will do better if you are dialing for dollars with a company that pays a small hourly plus bonuses.

This is not an admonishment of their services to their customers.  If you are a prospective customer that is considering using Summit they probably provide a great service to the right company.  Sweat Shops in Malaysia provide a great service to Ralph Lauren as well.  Prospective Employees beware.  I have a string of emails from the company with correspondence post the time I supposedly left.  To post them now would be non-productive them for a rebuttal if need be.