Response Employee Review

I have been working at Response full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Working indoors. Most people were friendly. RHL offers younger people an opportunity to enhance their communications skills

Cons – 1. It is a call centre but every one is crammed into it resembled a noisy chickencoop.
2. Not enough "cool down time" in between calls. -Anyone who's ever worked in a call centre or in customer service in general knows that these roles are stressful. Having an assembly line of phones calls i.e. being understaffed, is not ideal for service levels, or customer or employee satisfaction.
3. Employee's were expected to write notes while on call with the customer. I think it's obvious why this is a bad idea.
4. No opportunity for advancement. Sure, one could rise to the heights of "team leader" which is one tier above "customer service rep" with a bit more responsability.
5. No dignified recognition of employees. I once received a teddy bear!
6. Tenure not valued; wages start low and stay low. I worked there for a few years and earned less than 7 pounds.
 7. Long hours. Working at anything for 12 hours days is lame. Even if I loved doing something, after being compelled to do it for 12 hours a day I would quickly come to despise it. Yes, I use the word compel, because people are compelled to "make a living".

Advice to Senior Management – 1. Reduce noise in the call centre.
2. Allow some cool down time after every call. It is unnatural to serve people every minute for an entire shift.
3. Allow employee's to write notes off call. (could be part of the cool down).
4. Show more appreciation for employees. Make the work environment comfortable (decent equipment -chairs and headsets / quieter) Invest in employees via pay rises, other benefits (e.g. time off for exceptional service), and by offering employees meaningful training opportunities which would make them more valuable to the company.
5. Short shifts (4 hours with option to work longer) with higher pay make more sense than a long shift with mediocre pay.
6. RHL could be a pretty good place to work but the company seems to have a puritan work ethic and is perhaps blinded by profit which it does not seem to share with the staff. In my experience, RHL was not a bad place to start but it seems to be a company that people will plod along at until something better comes along but what is worse is that the company seems to be ok with that.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend