TELUS Reviews in Calgary, AB Area

Pros

Great training program, benefits start on day one (increase once probation is complete), extremely positive work environment.

Cons

As a customer care rep, day-to-day experiencedepends on the manager you're assigned to. My manager is forward-thinking, involves team in planning events, contests, "team builders". Other teams are worried about not meeting sales targets; I've seen more than one agen close to tears for not meeting hers.

Advice to Senior Management

Give all team members a chance to work on extra projects and have a chance to get off the phones once in a while; not just the ones who are constantly brown-nosing.

Pros

Average Pay, Benefits, Stock purchase plan. Large growing corporation with an upward stock price. Company was flush with cash for any business purpose.

Cons

"Passion for change" value should be "Passion for Positive change". The constant change in this company is not warranted. The decisions of numerous departments above the customer service level compounded daily at customer serving level. No respect for CSR position. Many departments sent offshore. Advancement is a popularity contest.

Advice to Senior Management

At least look like you are working hard. Nothing is worse than busting your butt selling, resolving issues, billing, and accounting in a time sensitive environment only to see your boss or other management chit chatting or spending half an hour in the Tim's coffee lineup. I know people in management who spent years playing World Of Warcraft on the job.

Pros

- Management always willing to take in new ideas for improvement
- Work environment is excellent
- Great opportunites to advance

Cons

- inflexible work schedules
- had hard time with doing repetitive tasks,
- after learning curve is reached, no particular challenges are present

Advice to Senior Management

- recommend employees for promotion to other jobs or let them be aware of other opportunities when learning curve is reached.

Pros

Great opportunity for Growth and self development. Very good work life balance opportunities. Management promotes innovative thinking.

Cons

Benefits seem to be eroding over the past few years. Although TELUS has had a good bonus structure in the past it seems to paying only to senior leadership team

Advice to Senior Management

Although off shoring call centres are cost effective don't lose sight of the importance of providing superior customer service

Pros

Flexability is good; Genuine care for each customer; Life Balance is ok; upward growth potential; education paid for when you are performing;

Cons

A lot of "do as I say, not as I do"; lots of talk about change, but no desire to actually do it; complex network makes it difficult to provide service/ resolve customer issues; union issues hang over your head, regardless of whether or not you are directly involved in managing unionized employees; too many old-school management who are scared of change and throw up roadblocks

Advice to Senior Management

Shuffle tenured directors around to new portfolios, there is too much "old blood" running legacy services, and they are unable to innovate or see the benefit of new thinking.

Pros

Work-Life balance, work from home.
Compensation is higher than average.
Dynamic workplace.
Great colleagues and managers.
Share-Profit program.
Generous vacation compared to industry standards.

Cons

Processes.
In a continual state of re-organization.
Can sometimes be buraecratic and silo'd work environment.
Lots of re-structuring from past acquisitions.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide more clarity for the direction of the company and strategic reasoning behind all the restructuring besides mitigating HR challenges at the senior level

Pros

benifits, good vacation, flexible when time off required, flexible shifts, interesting work, good people to work with, over time is double time.

Cons

lock outs, poor morale, evil managment, poor customer relations, employees not respected, unstable job security (company moving toward contracting out)

Advice to Senior Management

It’s not all about profit people are important parts of the Business i.e. customers/employees. Lower level management show know the job they are managing.

Pros

Great people...loved my manager and coworkers. Telus chooses great people. Good training, decent pay.

Cons

Slow to fix technical problems, nonsensical policies for customers that make them furious, shifts are nearly impossible to work when you have children which is why I no longer work there.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide better options for women with small children. My daycare is open only until 6 pm. Hubby works a late shift.

Pros

There is ample direction given by management. A need for balanced work/personal life is appreciated, but not always accepted. Good overall compensation packages.

Cons

There is ample direction given by management; sometimes good, often awful. Skills and projects are sometimes very poorly matched, to the point of embarrassment. Promotions are not as open as they seem.

Advice to Senior Management

The only way Telus, or any of the big telcos, are going to improve ( and there's plenty of room for improvement all the way around ), is to listen. Listen to their customers, and listen to the professionals they've hired.

Pros

Pay was good at the time, but I was a student then and was happy to be making $15/hour, even if it was at a call centre.
I liked a lot of the people I worked with at the time.

Cons

- Call centre was completely over- and micro-managed. There is about one manager to every 10-15 people. We were treated like delinquent children, even though we were all adults and their hiring process is pretty involved. For example, they once organized a "fun day" which involved hiring a magician who did card tricks in the lunch room (you were allowed to see him only on your breaks), and a guy who made balloon animals for everyone. Yes, this actually happened. Did they think we were all 8 years old? I guess so.

- Most people were hired as "casual" which means you didn't get any benefits and very little paid vacation, but still worked pretty much full-time hours. People had to apply for the full-time positions that came up from time to time - for exactly the same job we were already doing.

- Managers were sometimes hired externally and usually had no idea how we did our jobs. But they would micromanage anyway.

- Management doesn't care if you're actually helping customers - your performance is based on your sales numbers and "key performance indicator" metrics such as:
  - average work time (based on some calculations with your other metrics)
  - not busy time (this is when you're not taking calls, so lower is better)
  - committment to schedule (your two 15 min breaks and 30 min lunch are scheduled for you)
  - average call time (optimally 6 minutes or under)
  - attempt to bridge the conversation to a sale
  - attempt to gather extra/missing customer info (presumably for marketing)

- When we were hired, we were told how easily we would be able to move around the company if being in a call centre wasn't our thing and we were just getting our foot in the door. 2 years later, me and several others who had university degrees were still in the call centre, and it wasn't for lack of trying. We applied to other positions, filled out all kinds of "development forms", etc. You were to indicate what your short/long term goals were, and the managers were supposed to help you get there. But really, the only place you can go in the call centre is somewhere else in the call centre. I got the impression that the managers don't really want to let you go if you're half decent at the job, because their bonuses (which were much better than ours - see next point) were based on our sales.

- Before I started working there, the bonuses were great. If you met your quotas, you could expect up to $2000 a quarter. I was never interested in selling (I'd rather try to solve people's phone problems), but after a few months they cut the bonuses down a lot. Instead of $2000, people were getting $300. What's the point of trying?

- Also, managers have a budget for team building. But I found out that they get some percentage of whatever they don't spend at the end of each quarter/year. Hmm.

- The whole idea of having a sales AND customer service department all in one doesn't make sense, especially when the attitude is sell sell sell! The idea that customers are calling in because they have an issue to resolve doesn't even hit the radar in that department.

- They implemented a process where if the customer wanted to talk to a manager, you'd have to fill out an "escalation form", which may or may not be approved. If approved, the manager would call the customer back sometime within the next *48* hours! How would you enjoy telling an infuriated customer that a manager may or may not call them back within 2 days?

- By the time I left, they no longer allowed people to have the flexibility to not work certain days/times. This basically killed the population of student employees. Rememebr, the people who work in that call centre (and call centres in general, I tend to think) are generally either students or lifers, so I don't understand that decision.

Phew. I could go on and on. I'm so glad I don't work there anymore.

Advice to Senior Management

If you care about your customers, give some respect to your front line employees.