The Chat Shop Reviews

Being a live chat homeworker sounds like a dream however, once you have been at the Chat shop a few months you soon learn it's not as good as it sounds. The extreme high turnover of staff speaks for itself and it doesn't take a genius to work out why that is. Some of the management are really nice to your face yet they talk about you behind your back. There's such a distinct lack of communication that it creates such a wedge between the management, Team Leaders and staff, it seems that if you don't get promoted to Team Leader your shelf life will be up in a few months. Team leaders are promoted within weeks of joining and are treated like royalty however, agents are constantly brought down and disrespected. The team leaders are inexperienced and lack knowledge so you tend to get a lot of conflicting information when you have been trained a certain way. When you have something you need help with there is no point even bothering going to a team leader because they are right and you are wrong. Most of the agents are too scared to say anything because they fear they may lose their jobs and it doesn't seem like the management even care if they lose their staff or not. I would highly advise anyone that's looking to apply to the Chat Shop to think again before applying

Minimum wage with no bonus. Myself and my wife both worked here and I never expected any kind of bonus as most of my clients were leads and customer service but my partner was working in a more sales driven environment so I think sales bonuses wouldn't go amiss. The wage isn't a HUGE problem as you don't have to pull out for travel so that's a plus. On my partner's team she encountered workplace bullying which she didn't want to report to management right away as she was afraid that management and the person in question were too friendly, hence nothing would be done. She mentioned it before leaving to the manager however so hopefully it'll go on record as looking over some of the chats between the man in question and my partner I was quite frankly amazed that he was allowed such a position of responsibility. For my own experience I did have a ton of positive experiences with The Chat Shop, I cannot fault them much they are a near ideal company. I miss the people greatly and I will miss the job but I have further commitments going forward. The last negative thing I will say is quite serious however. I myself had a rather bad turn in health not so long ago whilst I was on shift with The Chat Shop and suffered with debilitating migraines and I went blind at one point, (naturally not the best thing to be when you're at work!) On three separate occasions I asked politely if I could go off shift as I couldn't handle it, but I was told that as there was nobody to cover this would be impossible. So I suffered through this until the third time when I actually went blind (the result was me going in for an operation, which I already had booked.) The time when I was blind my Team Leader told me that: 'this is getting a little ridiculous, you've been covered 3 times already.' Which of course I hadn't, I'd asked for cover 3 times. I had to find my own cover for the mid morning and mid night shift that day despite it stating in the contract that the Team Leader is responsible for finding this for an ill employee. This was the best job I have ever had, but this is one moment I will never forget as it made my opinion of the company plummet at the time. I didn't want to report this to management as I didn't want my Team Leader to get in trouble. (I hasten to add that after that moment my Team Leader was great, we got on super well and I couldn't have asked for a better one, but that did happen and this is the place for honest reviews.)