Negative,Biased and zero work-life balance
Pros
Some of the co workers are great, some training staff too. Pay is competitive, as are potential benefits.
Cons
Rigid, restrictive and anal day to day compliance rules which are a pain if you are used to working in a "grown up way". Shift patterns are far more inflexible than the impression given at recruitment stage, and can literally ruin your family and social life. As a single parent with 50% time with children, it is absolutely awful. Training is long (3 months) and often contradictory. Some managers are very negative, giving criticism but never praise, making you feel useless and small, often these managers form a one sided and distorted view of an agent and their work.Also contradictory as others allow their team members to perform poorly with not a word said. Agents are at the mercy of Customer reviews, and it is possible to get a terrible review merely for having spoken to a customer that another agent has upset or spoken to. Travel & Lifestyle is one of the only departments in UK to have weekend, night and very early morning shifts, and it is very difficult to get a 3 month shift pattern that is good, it has by far the highest turn over of staff in the UK and the worst reputation internally. Card Services, Merchant Team and Welcome Team seem to have a more relaxed, mature and less restrictive, picky and anal approach, and are also 9-5. Having far fewer resignations among staff, be they in training, probation or confirmed. It "can" be a good place to work, but NOT Travel and Lifestyle.