WAHM Forums

I'm male so I hope anyone doesn't mind me posting here. I have only worked for KGB for about 2 weeks but here are my observations so far.

#1 The people using this service are mostly teenagers. So many questions about video games, super hereos, rap music, penis size etc. Also questions about obvious homework problems are common. I'm not saying this is positive or negative but that is who the customer base seems to be.

#2 Another big customer base are sports fans, esp on the weekends. I think this is a weakness of the kgb service as a lot of the agents happen to be females who aren't big sports fan, I myself am a huge sports fan and love getting the sports questions, but I've seen most of the sports questions in the database and the previously answered questions and most of them are not very good.

#3 The pay isn't great during the busiest times that I've worked around 11 at night during the World Series/Monday Night Football I was able to make about $3 per hour, this was doing a responsible job of looking up answer, plus the 'easy' ones where you just grab a question from the database. I find it highly unlikely that someone can honestly make $1000 a month unless they were more than one person in the house using the account and the supposed rules about workign 75 hours a week? don't exist.
Most of the time I make around $2 an hour but I mostly work during the day.

#4 There are too many fellow agents who won't seriously search 'hard' questions. As they say don't return things to the que, but what happens to the harder questions someone puts in the comments 'don't know' or 'can't find' and sends them on to someone else. The 'honest' agents get penalized by waiting and waiting for people in chat to help with the harder questions, many times only to have to send a 'no charge' because its basically very localized information or not available on the web.

Oh another thing I wanted to add which so many people are worried about 'scheduling' at this time it seems like you can pretty much come and go as you please. This may change at anytime but right now all the schedule blocks are always pink as far as I've ever seen. Anytime it is pink you can either just schedule a block or just click 'start taking texts' and be able to work. Being worried about not being able to make a 'schedule' shouldn't be a concern..for now.


Ok these are my observations after 2 weeks, feel free to discuss if you like.

Yes, most of our customers are teenagers and college students.

Poor answers in the database are not always because of women. The people that have poor answers are mostly "gamers" and send out whatever answers they want so they can wrack up as much money as quick as possible.

The pay will not be great. 1) the company is in the red because it is still a new company. It is very possible for people to make $1000 a month because they are either QAs or gamers.

Most of the people that RTQ (return to que) are new agents. The older agents tend not to do that because we were properly trained (shadowing... ect). And while people are waiting in chat for help, they are supposed to continue looking for the answer by using different key words. If no answer is found, many OPs will tell you to find alternate information to send instead of No charge because all no charges cost the company money.

No you do not have to schedule. But in order to move up in the company you must.

'Alternate' answers are something I'm still trying to wrap my head around and possibly improve on.

BUT would you be a satisfied customer if you sent a very detailed question about something only to get back a very vague extremely generalized answer about the same topic?

So whats a good example of an 'alternate answer' that gives the customer their moneys worth?

One example is one I had about a week ago.

Customer asked: "what is xxxxxxx (some celeb) shoe size.?"

Most the time you can find this answer but no answer was listed for her. So I asked OP and they told me to send back something about what the average shoe size for women was. I sent back to customer "XXXXXX does not state what her shoe size is but the average size is xx. Her favorite shoes are made by xxxx designer." That isnt word for word but it's close.

Most detailed questions have answers (unless searched wrong) and if I can't find an answer for them, I usually get OP's permission to send No charge instead of giving alt info (if alt info found is not good enough)

Yes I agree, most questions you get asked, the answer can be found. There are usually only one or maybe two questions per hour that are even a question as to getting help in chat about what to do.

There are just some things that you just have to be standing right there to really know the answer...those are the hardest ones for me. Like people asking 'what does the banner flying on the plane in my city say'? there are a few questions that you just can't find on google.

I know the night that Chase Utley tied Reggie Jackson's home run record that people were asking about that repeatedly and getting the wrong answer, it was a bit of a disaster. Some 'hot topics' change at a moments notice and the wrong answers go out.

I don't know what I think about the long term viability of kgb. I know as a customer it doesn't apeal to me personally, but I do like helping people out and feel good when I answer the questions right.

The major problem going on right now is that alot of newer agents just are not taking the time to train and rush everything to get money. They are trying to weed these people out but it's just takes alot of time. Whenever you see a bad answer, just make sure you pants it so no one else can use that answer.

Yes, most of our customers are teenagers and college students.

Poor answers in the database are not always because of women. The people that have poor answers are mostly "gamers" and send out whatever answers they want so they can wrack up as much money as quick as possible.

The pay will not be great. 1) the company is in the red because it is still a new company. It is very possible for people to make $1000 a month because they are either QAs or gamers.

Most of the people that RTQ (return to que) are new agents. The older agents tend not to do that because we were properly trained (shadowing... ect). And while people are waiting in chat for help, they are supposed to continue looking for the answer by using different key words. If no answer is found, many OPs will tell you to find alternate information to send instead of No charge because all no charges cost the company money.

No you do not have to schedule. But in order to move up in the company you must.

:eek: QA's do not make $1000/month. Our reviews are limited. Please do not pass on misinformation.

From 542542 Agent Positions (http://542542.com/current_positions)
Compensation is “per piece” and is based on approval or review type:


$0.10 (USD) for each real-time shadowing approval that requires changes*
$0.05 (USD) for each real-time shadowing approval that is validated without changes*
$0.05 (USD) for each shadowing review (batch sizes will vary)*
$0.05 (USD) for each standard review (20 per batch = $1.00 per batch)**
$0.03 (USD) for each simulator review (15 per batch = $0.45 per batch)

* These are no longer available with the new kgb_ platform
** batch size has been cut to 10. Reviews generated after 200 text answers. On average if QA is available when batches are generated they get 6 reviews.

I can agree with the rest. Better training/testing is in the works which hopefully will end this.

:eek: QA's do not make $1000/month. Our reviews are limited. Please do not pass on misinformation.

From 542542 Agent Positions (http://542542.com/current_positions)
Compensation is “per piece” and is based on approval or review type:
.

Last months top earner was a QA, which is what I was referring to. So technically QAs can make $1000/month just like agents can. No misinformation.

Making $1000 is definitely the exception to the rule...assuming that you could make $5 an hour as the best kgb agent ever this is still about 200 hours a month and $5 an hour is answering 50! questions with original research every hour about 1 for every 1 minute and 20 seconds. Obviously doing alot of reviews could boost your numbers.

The weekends seem severly understaffed, but its a good oppurtunity to make more money than usual for anyone interested.

Also I've noticed quesions where the asker identifies themselves as 12 or 13? Isn't KGB's policy that you have to be over 18 to use the service? I've answered their questions but should we 'request help' on any questions from people under 18? If this is the case half the questions may be against the rules?

Ok edit I guess you don't 'have to be 18' but I assume you would need 'parents permission' according to this from KGB's website, I guess some sort of prepaid plans would be the exception.

1.1 You acknowledge that you are responsible for use of the telephone which is registered in your name and accept all responsibility for any use of the Services from that telephone. Do not use any telephone to access the Services without the bill-payer’s permission.

Honestly, I don't know about that one. I'm fairly certain the policy is you have to be 18 or older to use but cant remember.

It's nice to see some honesty. :) And QA's do not make much more than SAs because now there work is very limited. At one point they were able to easily make more, but things have changed. And I do believe that the people making $1500 a month are most likely gamers. If you really take the time to send accurate and ACE answers, I don't see how it's possible. But, the bad agents will be weeded out. It always happens. As a matter of fact, we're starting to be understaffed again, so I'm assuming that a lot of agents have left within the past couple of weeks. Remember to report people that are abusing protocols because it helps us out in the long run :)

I've noticed that this past week I've been getting more otto help emails (never gotten a text even though I state for them to send me one lol). I just hope it's the gamers that are leaving and not good agents.

Edit: While I was working this morning I did notice that I was able to make $2/hr while normally I would only be able to make $1 to $1.50 per hour. Was figuring it was because text volume had gone up but if we are becoming under staffed then hmmm....

The pay will not be great. 1) the company is in the red because it is still a new company. It is very possible for people to make $1000 a month because they are either QAs or gamers.

To me, this prior statement makes it appear Quality Agents either games the system or makes more than other roles, which isn't true...misinformation by omission. Based on the private message I received I was not the only person who read and processed it that way.

Last months top earner was a QA, which is what I was referring to. So technically QAs can make $1000/month just like agents can. No misinformation.

Correct. We all have the opportunity, no matter what our role is to be top wage earner. We all have the opportunity no matter to work 6 hour shifts take a break for as little as 15 minutes and work another 6 hour shift. Many times we have been asked to work longer shifts due to the fact it is busy. The potential is there for everyone equally. Honestly I work for my own goals, so the top wage earner emails go into my virtual circular file. I know I made a small fraction of what the top earner made since my goals are different.

Many of our agents have prior experience at companies like ChaCha or research in general, which make them fast without gaming. They have multiple bookmarks for a wide range of topics. I have my top 9 most used bookmarks for kgb_ in my bookmark toolbar. Some use tools in Firefox such as decaps, clippings, fasterfox, linkification and I'm sure others as well to increase their speed in answering texts. These tools and experience can help you answer quicker and still be accurate and give wowing, cherry responses.

Making $1000 is definitely the exception to the rule...assuming that you could make $5 an hour as the best kgb agent ever this is still about 200 hours a month and $5 an hour is answering 50! questions with original research every hour about 1 for every 1 minute and 20 seconds. Obviously doing alot of reviews could boost your numbers.

The weekends seem severly understaffed, but its a good oppurtunity to make more money than usual for anyone interested.

Also I've noticed quesions where the asker identifies themselves as 12 or 13? Isn't KGB's policy that you have to be over 18 to use the service? I've answered their questions but should we 'request help' on any questions from people under 18? If this is the case half the questions may be against the rules?

Ok edit I guess you don't 'have to be 18' but I assume you would need 'parents permission' according to this from KGB's website, I guess some sort of prepaid plans would be the exception.

Reviews are a set amount. A review batch of 10 answers is generated after 200 texted answers. One can not review a batch if no reviews are in the queue, just like when the text queue is empty you can't answer them.

We were told in Jan. you needed to be over 18 or older. I just checked the review site and saw no restrictions other than texting back YES to the terms of service.

Well I apologize if I gave out that assumption. But you have to admit that there is gaming going on or else quality would not be down and from everything I have been told by other QAs, quality has gone down.

Quality is down due to the fact that they took shadowing out and replaced it with another training method that has yet to start. I'm a QA and I've made a decent sum of money and it didn't come from gaming, I can assure you of that. There are rarely reviews even posted anymore so if that particular person was gaming the reviews they aren't anymore.

Well I apologize if I gave out that assumption. But you have to admit that there is gaming going on or else quality would not be down and from everything I have been told by other QAs, quality has gone down.

No worries from me. :) I just wanted to make sure others knew QA's are not gamers or make more money than others. We are held to the same, if not higher standards as other agents.

Quality is down due to the fact that they took shadowing out and replaced it with another training method that has yet to start. I'm a QA and I've made a decent sum of money and it didn't come from gaming, I can assure you of that. There are rarely reviews even posted anymore so if that particular person was gaming the reviews they aren't anymore.

Melissa, I can agree with this. QA can only catch a small fraction of the poor quality is sent out. I wish we still had approvals and shadowing reviews so the quality would remain high. I say this not for my bottom line, but for the customer's impact. My text shift this morning I had several customer complaints due to poor quality or just sending database answers that do not answer the question. It frustrates those of us who do our jobs correctly.

I am hopeful for the new training and testing procedures. I will reserve my comments until I see it in action.

That's exactly what I am talking about! lol. QAs can only catch so much because the amount of reviews that they can do are limited. That's why we have to report people who are "gamers" because
1. It's not fair to the people who actually do the work
2. We are losing customers as a result of their BAD answers! lol

We cannot point fingers at a specific groups, because it all comes down to money. We hire several underqualified people at once so that we can send out more answers. And then we get less reviews to save money, so it's harder to maintain good quality answers. In addition, we cannot promote many more people to help insure quality (because it saves money). And people are gaming the system because they want to make more money, since we cannot receive raises. I think that once kgb_ begins to make more money many of these issues can be dealt with in a better manner. Now in no way does this make "gaming" right, but I can definitely see where it's coming from. lol

I read above what the QA's get - personally i don't think that is enough. glad they are trying to change it a little bit but in my opinion they need to do more fast or will lose customers. i am not a QA just a regular ol' agent but i have noticed so many wrong answers out there its disgusting. i'm one of those who makes $2/hr - but i research every answer and try my best. its also very frustrating when i ask in chat and noone gets back to me. i asked 3 times for some help and didn't get any. i'm not sure how it all works in chat from there end - i just know that i saw people disgussing there paycheck and i was trying to work and noone was helping me. i was tempted to return to queue llike alot of people do (and i can see why) but i didn't - just found alternate answer. anyway - sorry for the vent - i just think if they soon don't do something there will be no more kgb.

I have wondered the same thing about how long kgb can really last. I was never a cha cha agent but I know they had to scale down their pay system eventually. I just don't know how much value the customers get out of this service. Is it possible that some of the teenagers believe that this service comes under your unlimited text plan? I don't know, but who would pay $10 for page after page of lyrics?

Has anyone here used the service from the other side? What was your experience?


Also if return to que and escalating are such 'no no's' why is it even an option for the agents to do? Seems almost like its more of a system problem than a human problem, just disallow these things and that would solve the problem?

Accuracy of answers is what the company really needs to focus on. I almost think a system of routing the questions to people who actually have an idea about what the asker is asking about would be a better system than just anyone take any question or even being randomly assigned.

For instance, I have a good idea on sports questions so I could get all the 'sports' category questions while I'm logged in, and if someone was a video game whiz they could answer those.

I know there could be drawbacks to this system also because you probably couldn't always have a person with reasonable knowledge in different areas logged on, but I think that would help in accuracy. Right now accuracy in certain categories is not good, anyone who would pay attention knows that.

Even some of the 'otto answers' that fill in when you first get the question are woefully bad, such as if someone asks for a college teams football score, a basketball game from 6 months ago might pop up, and alot of agents just click that through. I've seen them in the database.

Just more observations.

I have wondered the same thing about how long kgb can really last. I was never a cha cha agent but I know they had to scale down their pay system eventually. I just don't know how much value the customers get out of this service. Is it possible that some of the teenagers believe that this service comes under your unlimited text plan? I don't know, but who would pay $10 for page after page of lyrics?

Has anyone here used the service from the other side? What was your experience?


Also if return to que and escalating are such 'no no's' why is it even an option for the agents to do? Seems almost like its more of a system problem than a human problem, just disallow these things and that would solve the problem?

Accuracy of answers is what the company really needs to focus on. I almost think a system of routing the questions to people who actually have an idea about what the asker is asking about would be a better system than just anyone take any question or even being randomly assigned.

For instance, I have a good idea on sports questions so I could get all the 'sports' category questions while I'm logged in, and if someone was a video game whiz they could answer those.

I know there could be drawbacks to this system also because you probably couldn't always have a person with reasonable knowledge in different areas logged on, but I think that would help in accuracy. Right now accuracy in certain categories is not good, anyone who would pay attention knows that.

Even some of the 'otto answers' that fill in when you first get the question are woefully bad, such as if someone asks for a college teams football score, a basketball game from 6 months ago might pop up, and alot of agents just click that through. I've seen them in the database.

Just more observations.

I wanted to reply to this sooner, but I couldn't get into wahm.com for the past few days. :(

I think the Chat with the Chief discussed the costs of running kgb_ quite well. If you didn't attend read the transcript highlights. It is found on the review page. Traffic is increasing, not decreasing. People are willing to pay for information. Some of the questions asked I would not pay for, however other people may have money to burn.

It is true ChaCha was decreased pay several times since their desktop days. They were not bringing in revenue. They had a grant they were running their operations from. Now they have paid advertisers and gift cards to use for having paid questions. They also offer free questions when the questions are phoned in. ChaCha also has the quality answers problem even with using category routing.

I never used the service as I have premium services blocked on my phone.

If I am remembering correctly when I started in Jan. RTQ was used to return questions to the ops as well. It was way misused so it along with raising an incident was taken away from the agents. RTQ is used for questions asked in Spanish. kgb_ wants native speakers or those with Spanish training to answer these since online translators translate each separately and often change the meaning.

Categories were also discussed, as well as, routing to those knowledgeable in those subjects. This is also found in the Chat was the Chief transcript.

IMO Otto should be fired. He rarely answers correctly. We have been told since day 1 that we needed to check his answers before sending them to the customer. Many agents don't do that so these get put back in the database. I don't mind having a database full of correct answers, but it's filled with outdated or wrong answers. We all can help by clicking pantsify on those wrong answers. The chat also talked about having shifts to clean the database, but at this time it is only talk.

Is there a link to the chat with the chief? Or a way to access it? My first day at kgb was Oct. 31 so I think I missed the chat and any issues that were discussed.

I've noticed emails this week about more leniancy on the 102 character count, which I think is very reasonable. Some questions obviously you can't answer in just 1 line esp when 'Not medical advice' takes up about quite a few characters to begin with.

I've noticed the emails about looking for workers from 10pm to 3am...seems like some kind of incentive might help that situation out like .11 or .12 per question instead of .10.

Overall more of the same, I've kind of got my 'goal range' in mind for what I want to make per week/ per month and I'm just working that amount of time and so far its ok, the more I've worked I think I'm getting a little better with 'alternate answers' or having a good idea what the person wants. Got my first review and no major issues, just one note to work within the 102 characters, but I like to give 'full' answers, so I'm definitely guilty of that.

All the high schools in the country must be studying atomic bonding at the moment cause I've had about a thousand questions about it :)

If they are serious about no 'help request' no 'rtq' its time to come up with the 'spanish question' button and be done with it.

I thought the Chat with the Chief was an email and was placed on the review website. The previous chat is listed there, but I haven't seen the the latest one.

I'm not privy to kgb_'s reasonings about anything. You could email the chief with your suggestions. The email address is listed on the review page.

Hey guys! Just wanted to slip my 2 cents in. I work for kgb_ and have been for about 2 months. I love it. I work about ... 4 hours a day in my spare time, I average about 2.95 an hour.

Shortly I will be making it full-time, since I travel and holding a full-time non-internet job will become less possible.

I consistently manage around 2.95 avg per hour.

With a max of 12 hours per 24, I plan to work M-F = 9 Hours, Sat 9 Hours. I should bring home about 600 a month, which I can survive off.

I have practiced to make sure it's possible, and come close, with about the hourage. So anybody curious, take that into account. You can make 600 if you do it full-time, but expecting much more is foolish, although some do make 1200 or so a month, it's hard!

Hey guys! Just wanted to slip my 2 cents in. I work for kgb_ and have been for about 2 months. I love it. I work about ... 4 hours a day in my spare time, I average about 2.95 an hour.

Shortly I will be making it full-time, since I travel and holding a full-time non-internet job will become less possible.

I consistently manage around 2.95 avg per hour.

With a max of 12 hours per 24, I plan to work M-F = 9 Hours, Sat 9 Hours. I should bring home about 600 a month, which I can survive off.

I have practiced to make sure it's possible, and come close, with about the hourage. So anybody curious, take that into account. You can make 600 if you do it full-time, but expecting much more is foolish, although some do make 1200 or so a month, it's hard!

Great job, luis! I hope it works out for you.

i gotta say im pretty disappointed. i worked my @$$ off to become an agent and because of the stupid database crap, i was told to wait 30 days before reapplying. please, someone tell me WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND IS GOING TO SIT THERE AND WEED OUT THE GOOD ANSWERS FROM BAD IN THE DATABASE WITHOUT BEING PAID??? certainly not me. if you're going to penalize someone for using those answers, then either hire someone to maintain a quality database or don't recommend people using it. if i don't pass the simulation in a month, flick it. 5-10 cents per answer is NOT worth my frustration. sorry, i like kgb_ and all, but honestly, i think they think a bit highly of themselves to put people thru as much training as they do for only a nickel or dime per answer. some things are just too good to be true.

Sorry that you feel that way but that is part of the job. Sadly there are people who choose not to research the answers correctly or use invalid links and just don't care about giving correct answers and it just makes more work for the ones who have to do the job right. They are working on correcting some of this I believe though. But on the other hand if you are that unhappy with it then you can choose not to come back.

I think kgb_ is pretty fair. It's a NSA, work as you please job. Sure, it requires some effort for 0.10 cents, but, it's pretty steady and they pay on time. The support is good, and they are really friendly.

I really enjoy being a kgb_ agent, even though I don't make a killing.

I just recently started with kgb_ and like it so far. Yeah, you're not going to make a ton but in my first 2 days only being on a couple of hours (during busy times) I made almost $10. Not bad and the time went fast. I also tutor, do freelance admin work and Craigslist listing but during holidays/weekends that stuff slows down, so kgb_ is nice to have. Weekends and nights are the busiest for kgb_ so even if I make only $10 a week that will be enough to pay my Internet bill every month.

Training is long and a bit time-consuming but it was a nice contrast to The Other Answer Site I worked for a couple years ago. I felt prepared when I started and I love the chat room where you can get immediate help. Also, being able to choose from different questions makes it more interesting and makes the time go faster. At The Other Site, it felt like drugery getting q after q asking for directions and sports stats - now I can get more variety and can choose to snap up the music or movie questions if I want, or other stuff that interests me.

Hey guys! Just wanted to slip my 2 cents in. I work for kgb_ and have been for about 2 months. I love it. I work about ... 4 hours a day in my spare time, I average about 2.95 an hour.

Shortly I will be making it full-time, since I travel and holding a full-time non-internet job will become less possible.

I consistently manage around 2.95 avg per hour.

With a max of 12 hours per 24, I plan to work M-F = 9 Hours, Sat 9 Hours. I should bring home about 600 a month, which I can survive off.

I have practiced to make sure it's possible, and come close, with about the hourage. So anybody curious, take that into account. You can make 600 if you do it full-time, but expecting much more is foolish, although some do make 1200 or so a month, it's hard!

There are much better ways to generate income without having to invest 9 hours a day at $2.95/hr.

Look around.