Pros
The front line agents are devoted to their jobs, believe in serving the client, and supporting each other.
Cons
First line managers are overloaded and cannot supervise their teams in real time. Above that, senior managers don't give a hoot about the people that actually interact with the customers. Our tools don't work and slow down agents doing their jobs. They keep talking about these great tools but we don't know what they're talking about because the ones we have are slow, unreliable, and can't talk to each other. Then they crash. They gone back to the giant team model and expect agents to handle up to 50 high-touch clients smoothly. Agents cannot remember all the one-off exceptions the salespeople give clients to get them to sign up. There is no life/work balance. We are losing senior agents all the time because they can't stand what has happened to our company. Travel agents are treated badly. You are supposed to get vacation but unless you are psychic and can plan everything that's going to happen a year ahead, you cannot get any time off. Not even if you have a wedding or a funeral. They make you wait list months in advance and keep you waiting until the last minute. Managers however can do whatever they want. We haven't had a raise in years. We are supposed to have a bonus program but no one knows how it works. They say we work full time, but we usually don't. They "flex" our hours down. If you don't make much on the hourly to begin with, that can really cut into a family budget. They do not respect the lower level workers or their human needs. we don't even have a HR rep any more. There is no one to go to with a problem. There is no career development or even the smallest attempt to identify good workers or talent. Upper management shows up once in a while to do these road shows or come to the site to tell us these grand plans, but the words that come out of their mouths are nothing like what they really do....which is to treat the agents like cash register clerks. We have very difficult jobs where knowledge of math, geography, law, and accounting are all everyday skills. Upper management just doesn't understand what we do or how we do it.