You will regret working in this place! - Recensione dipendente - Call Centre Agent presso Firstsource Solutions

You will start your time with two weeks classroom training with a group of around 12 other people. This training is mostly aimed at learning the products sky sell, lots of team building exercises. The downfall to all this is the training on the systems you will actually use is useless. In fact, the small amount of systems training you will receive wont count for anything because when you go live, its vastly different. The training staff also are so out of date on the systems you will use. You will do hardly any training on real communications with customers over the telephone, objection handling, complaints handling, and zero training on conflict management, as in what to do when a customer is being racist, threatening, rude, or just shouting at you. From my experience the 2 weeks training is all aimed at pumping you up to see how much money your going to earn, how quickly you can rise the ranks and how awesomely fantastic super duper god like beings Sky are! The training on products whilst important seems semi useless because when your thrown into the deep end, you will learn most of it on the job. There is no training at all on stress management, and believe me, unless you inhuman, you will find the role of CSA to be extremely stressful at times. The next step is two weeks in what they call Grad bay. Basically, your are straight onto the phones taking live calls dealing with all things Sky related. You will have a coach and dependant on staff levels, people walking around that you can call over to help you when you get stuck. This two weeks is pretty much hell. The learning curve is immense. Firstly, you will be dealing with queries that you have not received any training in at all, coupled with trying to learn the software. You do get help but my experience was the helpers actually shouting at you, treating you like your a child, and even refusing to help you because they have shown you a few times already! often you will have to keep customers on hold because it takes a helper 10 mins to come and help you. Meanwhile the customers on the line are getting irate with you because you seem like you do not have a clue what your doing, they have been left on hold for ages etc.. which in reality is the truth! During this time, you will have your calls assessed by the coach who will advise you on how to improve so you can pass grad bay and keep your job. During this time, you can be sacked for making a simple mistake they deem to be against their rules and regulations, or even breaking offcom laws that you get so little training in. You are allowed no time off, lateness at all. If you do, you will be called in for a disciplinary. A lot of staff lose their job during this period, or just walk out. Firstsource have an incredible 60% staff turnover. If you are even 2 seconds late coming back from breaks, or over using your 10 min daily allowance of unplanned break, this is counted against you. During your grad bay time, your calls are assessed as you have to reach a minimum percentage of call quality to be able to pass and go onto your role. Its worth noting that should you pass here, this does not mean you will have passed high enough to achieve your potential bonus when you leave grad bay and work in the next month. The pass rates for your role after grad bay are much higher. My experience of this was not being entitled to a £300 bonus because my call quality was not high enough from the previous month, when I was in grad bay, even though I passed grad bay! You can imagine how much money this is saving First Source from paying it to all new starters within the first two months. Your passing call quality is dependant on you, but it always finally dependant on your coach / TL marking your call correctly or their view of how the call went. This system is so open to abuse in my opinion. The TL may not like you as a person, or is overly critical. I will stress, that not only is any bonus based on call quality, it is also based on attendance, and timekeeping. If you are late , even by 2 seconds, more than twice in one week, you can kiss your bonus goodbye for that month. They are not interested if the bus broke down, or you couldn't log on in time because the software crashed.. if your late, your late.. From grad bay, you maybe able to choose what part of Sky you will be working in, but not always. You could be inbound / outbound / value / attractions. Each of these roles have varying shift times but warning, first source absolutely do not care about your travel arrangements, how you will get into work, or even get home. The latest finish is 11pm, and for most, if you use public transport, you are going to find it difficult getting home. You will be expected to work Sundays. If you are ill, having any kind of problems you need time off for urgently, forget it. First Source will not help you in anyway, not even if you have childcare issues. You are allocated holidays that accrue as you work. This is on the system as hours per week / month / year. If you need time off, you are expected to use the time you have left. If you have none, or time off isn't available, good luck, because they will not help. The rota is calculated only 3 weeks in advance so it makes working out what days you have off in the future impossible. The dress code for staff is smart from Monday - Thursday, though you will find your TL or even other TL's criticising you for what they consider to be smart dress. It grinds you down when you have a TL telling you how you should dress when you look around see everyone else. The rest of the time you can dress as you please. You are not allowed to take clothing off, ie a jumper or coat and hang it on the back of your chair, it has to be hung up. Reasonable you might think? The air con temperature in the building fluctuates so often you find yourself either too hot, or too cold. The only things you are allowed at your desk is a drink with a sports cap top and a dry board and marker for taking notes. Everything else is banned. No food, no sweets, no anything. They say its a paperless office so you are not allowed anything to help you with your job such as a list of things you need to do during your call. If you cant remember, and you don't say it during the call, your the one at fault in their eyes. Call quality is the be all and end all of not only your bonus, but of keeping your job. You might agree that in every job you have to do a good job. This role is all about customer service, but First Source really take this to the extreme. Believe me, this job entails so much you have to say during the call that its unreal. If you forget to say a certain thing, at the right moment during the call, then your bonus is history. You will find customers asking you to just get on with it and deal with what they phoned for. First Source will punish you if you forget the smallest thing and when your taking on average of 250-300 calls a day, its not as easy as it would seem. Free sky.. well how good a perk is that. You are entitled to your free sky package once you pass 3 months probation period. But.. it is has conditions. It given on the basis you have no disciplinary measures against you and you achieve your call quality when marked. First Source are known for also using your free sky perk, or the fact they can take it off you at anytime as a punishment tool. For the time they set, you will have to pay the full price of the package you have. The amount you will earn in reality is a basic wage. You will work dam hard for that small amount and probably put up with the all the nonsense until you either get a new job or just walk out. So rarely will you get bonus, win any prize. Remember, First Source are not Sky, then have a contract with Sky. Whilst your bringing in a lot of money for them, they will do what they can to limit what they pay you, under the guise of call quality or any other thing. HR are the most inept and uncaring group I've had the displeasure of dealing with. You would think a large organisation would be right up there? Not a chance. Their actions I even question the legality of? I have seen staff dismissed for the pettiest of reasons. If you have a problem that you need help with, you will find the TL's wont do anything so you go to HR, and you will be amazed at how much they do not care. Need time off for an emergency, they will say you knew the hours excepted when you took the job. If you end up in hospital for some reason, expect them to mark you as absent and punish you for it, and no, I am not joking. I would avoid First Source all you can. One of the worst employers out there.