A day in a Northampton contact centre

“Today my shift is 12:00 noon until 8:00 pm. Arrived at work at 10:00 am, straight into the gym, a nice quiet work out. I’m revitalised and ready to start work at noon.”
Mel, Collections Advisor

“I have just completed a further advance for a customer and am really pleased to have cross sold a flex account and credit card.”
Kim – Sales Advisor

“It’s now time for my morning break. When working a full day you are provided with 3 breaks. A 10 minute morning break, an hour for lunch and a 10 minute break in the afternoon. I feel that it’s important to walk away from your desk in these breaks as it can get busy and it’s good to have some time away from work. I tend to go and get something to eat or drink from the shop.”
Megan - Customer Service Adviser

“I was a little late this morning for me and I didn’t log on until 11:45 am. I got to bed later than normal after a farewell meal for one of our team. I had a lovely meal with my colleagues and most of it was paid for with our winners’ kitty. My team often win 1st prize in the pilot race, which helps pay for team nights out.”
Kim – Sales Advisor

“As a senior adviser I take a lot of complaint calls. I have just been dealing with a gentleman who never received his notification letter informing him his overdraft is being renewed and reduced. Because he hadn’t received this letter he is very angry as now he has no sufficient funds in his account to withdraw. I apologised on behalf of Nationwide and put him through to our collections department as they may be able to realise further funds to him.”
Megan - Customer Service Adviser

“I attended an assertiveness course at 9:30 am today, until lunch. After lunch I’m back on the phone, it’s giving me the opportunity to reflect on the new skills I’ve learnt and implementing that on every call.”
Alix - Collections Advisor

“I did a remortgage earlier for a lovely lady. We had so much in common, it was really nice talking to her. I did give her a quote for home insurance as we had built up a really good rapport, but her husband usually deals with this. I will call later to see if I can secure the sale. “ Kim – Sales Advisor

“I’m now back from lunch and have signed on waiting to take a call. I take a wide variety of calls, it can range from a straightforward account balance or bonds maturing to a serious complaint. Sometimes if the complaint can’t be dealt with by me it then has to be forwarded on to my manager. The number of calls I take a day on average is around 70, there are times throughout the day when it really picks up - this is mainly at lunch time or 5 o’clock when a lot of people finish work.”
Megan - Customer Service Adviser

“It’s my development session now. Every month we get a couple of hours off the phone to work on any issues we might have with our performance or to sit with someone who has a different role in the department to get an understanding of what they do. Today I’m sitting with our complaints handler to see how things get resolved.”
Michelle – Sales Manager

“Between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm the whole team pulls together to take the remaining calls. This is the busiest time of the day. Then until 8:00 pm making outbound calls, both manually and by an automated system. This is a quieter, less pressured period of the day. We use this time to contact people who work 9:00-5:00 pm.”
Andrew - Collections Senior Advisor

“Just had a relaxing break away from the department and now I’m back on the phones dealing with applications and queries. The calls we get are quite varied and they can sometimes be quite challenging.”
Michelle – Sales Manager

“Just had a great call to finish my day! My customer was really happy that we were going to be saving him some money on his mortgage payments. It’s really rewarding knowing that we are making life a bit easier for people especially if it’s difficult for them to get to a branch.”
Michelle – Sales Manager