Pros
The people who delivered the classroom based training were very friendly and helpful. There is a canteen with decent kitchen facilities and a deli. It's one hell of a motivator to get further education.
Cons
On the live floor you're told most of the training they gave you is wrong and that things are done differently. Managers and supervisors give conflicting advice (One says X is right, another says X is wrong do Y instead, another says no you should do Z) and don't like being asked questions. Sometimes they'll even give you misinformation. Supervisors will sometimes say one thing to you, and then report something different to a manager. Managers have little faith or trust in their teams, and sometimes act downright condescending and rude. Some managers have no experience on the phones and are totally out of touch with the systems and what it's like to actually do the jobs their team do. Payslips get lost and they say they can't issue new ones - I received 3 pay slips in a period of several months. Holidays can be approved and then unapproved again (no one tells you, it just gets changed on your system), and sometimes you can be waiting weeks for them to actually approve a holiday request. I informed management of a day I needed off a month in advance and had to swap shifts because my request was denied. Absences due to illness are highly frowned upon. You have to be the one to inform them of absence, and it has to be done by phone call. This is incredibly inconvenient if you end up suffering from tonsillitis as I have, or anything else that makes talking painful. There is no sick pay yet you're required to present a doctor's note if you're out sick for two days. I was once phoned by a manager asking me to come in a few hours after I'd phoned in sick, and I went in because I was afraid to say no and had to work back the hours at the end of the shift. Granted I should have said no, but managers shouldn't be badgering you to come in when you've called in sick. Disciplinary action can result from even absences you have medical certs for. Agents have no access to email. If you wanted to arrange a private meeting with a manager or HR you'd have to ask them for it in public. Everyone works on the live floor rather than in offices, so if you do approach them, anyone can see. Similarly, if you do something wrong and end up reprimanded for it, it happens in front of everyone. Metric goals are constantly increasing even though none of them are met. Sales in particular are pushed incredibly hard. Even if you meet your own sales goal for the day you have to pick up the slack for the rest of the team if they didn't make theirs. You're encouraged to mislead customers to get them through to the sales team so they'll buy something. Of the 5 things customers grade you on in surveys (Care, communication, effort, satisfaction, likeliness to recommend to a friend), the only one they care about is how people rate the company (ie would they recommend to a friend). If people aren't happy with the company, the agent gets the blame. Any rating less than 9/10 isn't considered good enough. They try to encourage you to make sales in order to get commission, but what they don't tell you is you have to meet high targets on sales before they'll pay anything out. They also won't tell you what the commission models actually are (ie how much you make) unless you're hitting those targets. There are constant latency issues with the systems yet you're still pressured to solve the issue in a short time. Management don't take any system issues into account when reviewing your stats. Systems often crash in the middle of a session and you have to reopen them. Some IT staff can be very condescending and rude when you have issues with the systems. You're forced to deal with rude, insulting, abusive, inappropriate, and creepy behaviour from customers and management never have your back when it comes to them. Similarly you can get this behaviour from agents in other departments and management won't do anything about it, even when given the agent's name. You can sometimes offer discounts or account credit to customers with managerial approval, but management will often deny requests from customers experiencing legitimate issues who aren't making a fuss about it, yet approve it for customers who have a history of calling up asking for freebies and are making a fuss. When customers ask to speak to a manager, a manager is supposed to take the call according to the company's escalation process, but in reality if you ask them to take over a call they rarely will. I've had a manager be incredibly condescending to me when I asked them to speak to a customer who wouldn't accept one policy. I've also seen it happen several times that management will instead hand the call over to another agent and tell them to pretend they're a manager. There is no way to give the company feedback about customer wants or suggestions. They won't give you a reference when you leave.