The Inside Facts About Working at Home for LiveOps.com - from My Friend

I write about working at home on a regular basis, so I always love it when I can get "inside information" on viable work at home opportunities. Here's one I came across and would like to share with you. I was talking to a friend of mine last night. He's been trying to change his employment situation for months. His previous position (more about that in a second) had come to an end. He really wanted to be self-employed but had no capital to start a business per se. In fact one sales business he'd tried had too long a time frame between the "sale" and the "commission" for him and his family to survive. Hence his search for a solution.

He was telling me what it's like to be a home based call center representative for LiveOps.com

I was waiting to hear the worst. You always hear about "work at home scames". So what did I hear? That basically he loves it.

Perhaps some background is in order. He was working for a family member in a dental office. The family member (the dentist) retired and suddenly he was unemployed. He had tried working for other dentists, but it wasn't quite the same - plus he was logging about an hour's commute each way.

So he found out about working at home with LiveOps.com.

He had DSL and a computer anyway. His only expense was obtaining a dedicated phone line.

In this positino he takes calls from people responding to direct response marketing ads and he's the operator at the end of the 800 number. When a call comes in on the dedicated line, the script for that particular call pops up automatically so he can take the call and serve the customer. As he gains experience, he'll be able to schedule his hours pretty much how he wants. His goal is to schedule 10 hours daily Monday through Thursday. That sounds like alot, but really he was sitting in traffic for 2 hours and working 8 hours in between (with some extra time for lunch) so it's about what he was doing anyway.

When you talk to most LiveOps.com reps you hear they're making on average about $12 - $15.

Here's how that works. Basically home based customer service reps are paid for every minute they're handling calls. If a rep is busy 60 whole minutes per hour, they make a base of $15. Then depending on the orders they take and additional sales they make, they can earn bonuses or commissions depending on the promotion. Since it's unlikely that you'll be on the phone the whole 60 minutes per hour, that's where the $12 to $15 per hour average comes in. This jibes with what I heard from another LiveOps.com teleworker who is a work at home mom. She makes about $15,000 per year working part time or 20 hours per week.

In his previous position my friend had no benefits so there was nothing to lose by switching to this position for him. That's something to consider if your job has benefits associated with it. Best of all, he still has the option on his remaining days to start that sales business he was looking into and have the financial "breathing room" to build it now. Would he recommend this move to others in his situation? "Sure!" he said. "Come on in, working at home is fine!"