An Environment Where Customer Service Is not a Priority and Where Front-Line Staff Are Expendible Resources
Pros
Job security. Even when my department shut down, all workers were reassigned to other departments. Immediate line managers (usually) put their team members first. Two week intensive training course before starting work. Overtime is sometimes offered at double pay. If you introduce one of your friends to the role, the company awards you £500. Managers are obliged to coach your at least once per month with exceptions only in busy periods.
Cons
Low pay for frontline staff, little more than minimum wage - though sales teams and managers can get commission and bonuses. To bring all staff in line with the national living wage, the company gave all customer service staff a blanket cut in hours rather than pay more. Long hours 42.5 pw for relatively small salary. Harsh work environment, but depends on department with some centres having a low volume but others being stressful and fast pace. Complaints are common (usually several per day but depends on department) and varied while abusive customers are also common. Frontline staff are not allowed to do more than apologise. Work is repetitive with variation only being shown in variety of complaints received. While not experiencing problems myself, members of my team developed many stress-related problems. One lady had more frequent anxiety attacks, while a friend of mine started to take medication for depression. One of my team members simply quit when someone called him names too offensive to be written here. An email was sent out congratulating two people that managed to make it one year without one sick day, which says a lot about a department of several hundred people. Strong focus on poor performance and assigning blame. In my particular department, a whole team was employed that checked the actions you took on a call to check for mistakes. In my department, high work volume and outdated system meant a lot of mistakes. I am not exaggerating when I say that every single mistake is sent to your manager for review. You have to sign a document saying you understand what went wrong that that you won't make the mistake again. Making too many mistakes in 3 months causes an interview where all your mistakes are listed and read out to you and you are required to offer an explanation as to why it was made each time. More than half of front line staff had attended this interview in my department with some progressing to disciplinary action for not improving. This worsened a situation where many workers suffered from low morale. If instead you made a mistake while speaking on the phone, the recording is played back to you. Marks can be deducted for silly things like coughing or sneezing without apologizing or sounding too robotic. Frustration with management. Procedures are sometimes open to interpretation, and your process can sometimes differ with your manager. While customers can only escalate a complaint if they specifically request a manager, but even when this is done, your manager will usually send you back to the customer with "try saying this..." or the even more deplorable "try saying sorry again because I can't do anything.". Managers are given a target of calls taken and are less likely to get their bonuses if customers are kept waiting on hold. As a result, customer service suffers as staff are encouraged to finish with a customer as quickly as possible. Bizarrely, this method of work increases your rate of errors which your manager will call you up on, while answering more calls than anyone else without any errors does not provide any additional reward. Managers also favour people in their team, getting frontline staff to do their work for them in exchange for getting off the phones. The people chosen for these tasks are not done so by experience but usually by how much your manager likes you. Contract and logistics. to book one day holiday (or even half a day), you are required to give at least four weeks' (sometimes five weeks) notice. You have better luck having someone covering your shift, which usually means you work their weekend, thus landing you with working three weekends in a row. You also must give four weeks notice to leave, making you an unattractive employee for future employers. Often though, booking is a difficult process with whole months and most weekends not eligible for holiday time. Any time you work over because you are on a long call is not paid for. You must apply for the time to be added as lieu time. This is not always done and before I arrived this was apparently done automatically - leading me to believe I was racking up hours of time off when this was not true. Complaining only gave me the response that I should have asked for the hours back if I wanted them. Training opportunities and extra development is promised in theory but never provided. With only one day on complaints training in addition to my initial start. Working Christmas is also on the table.