LiveOps: Customer Service Gigs Paid By The Minute

LiveOps Review:

LiveOps promises to connect you with tech, health care, retail and insurance companies that need work-at-home customer service operators.

How it works

LiveOps emphasizes that you might work through them, but you won’t work for them. You are an independent contractor working for yourself. This is important because the site will require you to have a lot of equipment; pay for your own background check; and participate in at least a full day of unpaid training  — and potentially weeks of training — before you take your first call and earn the first dime.

If you were an employee, of course, they’d have to pay you for training; your background check and your equipment. But, according to them, they are helping you along the exciting path to being your own boss!

But, you’ll have to apply to be your own boss. And the site is pretty bossy about what you’ll need. (See the laundry list of requirements below.) Moreover, you’ll need to sign an independent contractor agreement. (Read it carefully.)

Once you verify that you have all the requirements, you complete the unpaid training, sign the agreement and pay for your own background check ($25), you can start taking calls for one of this site’s clients.

Pay

LiveOps doesn’t promise a set rate of pay, but maintains that most companies pay 25 – 45 cents per minute. Theoretically this works out to between $15 and $27 per hour. But this per-minute pay is only for the time when the representative is engaged in a call.

And you don’t necessarily have calls every minute. You don’t get paid for the time you spend sitting around waiting for a call — even though you’ll need to be available to take calls during set hours. So your actual hourly pay will be less. Often much, much less.

However, some clients also pay commissions.

Workers are paid twice monthly by check or direct deposit.

Contrasting reviews:

Worker reviews of LiveOps fall into two categories — people who love it for the flexibility; and people who hate it for the unpaid training and the lack of reliable pay.

In an era where flexible, remote and part-time jobs are readily available, we think you can do better. This site also requires a lot of equipment that you may have to buy. As a result, LiveOps gets a substandard Husl$core on SideHusl.com.

Requirements:

• A quiet place to work online. (No background noise, such as kids, barking dogs, traffic, doorbells, TVs, radios, etc.)
• A telephone (it may need to be a land line)
• A corded headset compatible with your telephone
• high-speed internet connection
• anti-virus software and ad blockers
• the ability to pass (and pay for upfront) a background check
• A computer with a wired connection to the internet
  • Processor: 3 GHz Intel Pentium P4 processor or better
  • Memory: 4 GB of RAM Memory or more
  • Operating System: Must be one of the following:
  • Windows 10 (or better)
  • Browser: Google Chrome (latest version) or Internet Explorer 11
  • Monitor: Capable of displaying at least 1024 X 768 pixels
  • Sound: Must have a sound card installed and be equipped with speakers or headphones.

Recommendations:

Remote work is undeniably popular and LiveOps offers that. But workers have a lot of complaints about the unpaid training and the fact that you must commit to be available during certain hours. But, the site does not guarantee that you’ll take calls during those hours. And, no calls equals no pay.

The notion that you have to commit your time, but they won’t necessarily pay you for those hours strikes us as patently unfair. Notably, competitor WorkingSolutions operates with similar terms, but appears to have more clients and fewer unpaid minutes. We don’t recommend either site though.

We’d suggest you check out Boldly, which hires virtual assistants and customer service representatives. You may also want to check out FlexJobs, which is a broad-based job site for remote positions.

What their workers say (from Indeed):

Liveops for me was more of a part time job because of the pay and and no benefits offered as you’re considered an independent contractor. You get paid per talk minute instead of per hour. Training for “certification” is not paid. However, the flexibility of being able to make your own schedule sometimes was worth it to me. Also you’re able to pick the clients you want to work for.

I had to get used to not getting paid for training…because your role as “business owner” means you show up all day and not know how much the pay will be. You have to consider the good vs. bad I guess. I loved working from home and being there when the kids got home. If it’s not a busy day of calls, no money made. If you can master noting calls a while on the phone and grabbing enough hours before every one else…this can work.

Unpaid training

Love the flexibility of the jobs, but wish training was paid. If there are system issues, you will not get paid. I wish there was some type of base pay. I still love it.”

The job pay .35 per call and is not worth all the work they want you to do for the money. Can not live off this sorry. The job requires two monitors that you have to have to complete job. However does not pay for training so your in 6weeks training for free. unbelievable.

Don’t work here

I strongly recommend not working for this company. After weeks of unpaid training where the training facilitators are rude and condescending you will spend time studying for a role where you will ultimately not have any shifts available to work. There is virtually no support system and virtually no income after spending weeks in training.

I’ve committed to different hours on different days and received absolutely no calls. Which equals no money! If agents are expected to honor a certain numbers of commits then LiveOps responsibility should be to ensure that there is a steady call flow.

No calls/no cash

You make your own schedule. Work from home. But what good is making your own schedule if you can’t get a schedule? Or you do, but sit & sit with few to no calls? Sitting for free I might add.”

I have been working with Liveops on and off since 2014. It’s a good company depending on the project you are on. I say this because you get paid per min of talk time so if you are not on a call they do not pay you not even if you say logged in and available you won’t even get partial pay like working solutions does. I literally used to sit 5 and 6 hours with 3 to 4 calls.

Paid by the engaged minute

“You are an independent contractor at LiveOps. You are paid the the talk/email minute when working so your pay for each day will vary. Unfortunately they don’t pay a minimum per hour like other companies. At one point I was making $6 per hour but have made up to $18 per hour.”

Updated 2/8/2023