First Source is definitely the worst place I have ever worked. When you join, the training is relatively enjoyable. The teacher is friendly, mostly you learn about Sky products and services. You also do a bit of training using an emulator of the software that you use on the call floor. They may as well not bother though because the differences between the emulator and the live version are vast.
Also your bonus and incentives are mentioned constantly. They exaggerate and tell you that TV’s and holidays are given away constantly, when they are far more likely to give you sweets or a chocolate bar. Like a child.
They tell you what your average bonus will be per month. Which goes off your save/sales rate but this always falls far below what it should be. The criteria they use to work this out are so vague that you can’t even challenge it. Besides, who would have the patience to every single month?
After training you are thrown in at the deep end in what they call ‘Grad Bay’ you take calls and when you inevitably don’t know what you’re doing on every call because all you’ve learnt about is Sky products you can put the customer on hold and put your hand up for assistance from a floor walker.
You make innumerable mistakes because you haven’t been taught to objection handle. This is the only time you are cut any slack.
After that you are put on business as usual. I was in the retention team so when people planned to cancel their Sky they were put through to me and I tried to change their mind. Often times the concierge in India would put people through to you when they didn’t know who else to put them through to, which would make customers angry. You have to get an overall save rate of 70% while at the same time not breaking the rules by being obstructive to a customer who genuinely wants to leave. Of course it’s pure chance who comes through to you but the managers pretend like it isn’t and if they leave it is your fault because you didn’t say the right thing.
It’s an impossible balancing act.
When you add onto that all the things you have to mention to a customer it becomes hugely stressful. You are measured on every second of every call. All calls are recorded and a piece of software called iAnalytics monitors what words and phrases you say. If it doesn’t pick up key phrases you have to say it marks you down. Also you aren’t allowed to even mention the word “Cancel” I Analytics monitors this too, again you will be marked down.
Get marked down too often and you will be given a “Record of Discussion” essentially your manager will tell you that you aren’t doing well enough and say that if you don’t do better soon you will be sacked. Records of discussion can be called if. Your calls are too long, your calls are too short, your save rate isn’t high enough, you aren’t mentioning key phrases, you aren’t reading every single key fact for whatever is being sold/ offered on the call. You are using too many offers to keep people (Even though they are made available to you) You make a mistake in what you offer the customer on a call. (offers change constantly) You aren’t meeting sales targets.
Around the time I left, Sky Mobile had been introduced which you had to mention to every customer even if they were leaving Sky and you had a sales target for it.
Every month you had a call of yours listened to with a manager, who described how everything you were doing was wrong. First Source pretends they want to do what’s right for the customer and then punish you for a low save rate.
If you are off sick for a day you are warned that if you are sick again within 6 months you will be sacked.
Of course it being a call centre you are shouted at by customers for things entirely out of your control for endless hours and you are completely miserable. The hours are awful and unsociable. (Bye bye weekends and bank holidays)
You don’t have to take my word for it though. The turnaround for this company is so insanely high they have to keep 3 groups of 20 people in training constantly because people will try to leave this job as soon as humanly possible because it’s so mind numbingly horrendous.
The company used to be in a bigger building but they moved to a smaller one because hey, money.. Never mind that there isn’t nearly enough parking and a tiny kitchen to service hundreds of staff…
At First source you are a drone, a number. You are a unit for making money and nothing more. You are expendable. You are also treated like a child. If you want help from a manager good luck. They will do anything to avoid taking an escalation. Mine disappeared constantly to avoid them. You have a startling lack of support and then are blamed for making mistakes.
I was here for a few months and I was so happy when I got out. If you take a job here, only do it if you have a clear plan of getting out soon. Treat it as a stepping stone and nothing more. This place is an awful, dehumanising prison of misery and the money isn’t worth the mental anguish of working here for more than 6 months.
