Today i chu stunt.

There was this few ppl who refused to give me and my colleague a reply about some case for which cx keep calling us up. It was a very simple thing like "have you received the application form?" So i shot an email to them, the team leaders and oic blasting them for not replying. Don't you think its fun to do stuff like that? Dispense with all the pleasantries, the bullshit and just give it straight to them? Works wonders i tell you they replied about the status right away.

Things might change but i've made a decision..never to stoop so low as to do a white collar job ever again. Or at least never to act like a white collar worker. Theres a standard i know that has to be set for any big company where professionalism and protoccol has to be followed, but its precisely that which i hate the most. Or at least there's only so much that i can take.

So far there have been no repercussions but just maybe i might find myself out of a job tmr :)
And actually thats fine with me. In fact the more i stay in this job the more miserable i get. Its not so much the customers fault in that i feel like i'm unable to help customers to the best of my ability. And thats is the fault of UOB. There's so many layers that have to go through just to get a simple thing done that i feel its dragging the productivity.

In fact when i leave i'm going to shoot another email this time to the entire platform. including the head of call centre. The title of the email would be "Parting Shot"and the contents would be as such. Its still a work in progress. Maybe i will leave the minor grievances out so as to make the point across more strongly.

Let me just start off by saying that i appreciate the opportunity extended
by your very honorable organisation to allow me to experience working in the
banking sector. I have a learnt a considerable lot from my short stint and for
the most parts its been quite favourable in my eyes. But sadly this has
been marred quite badly by several factors of which i feel they are easily
remedied but for whatever reason the situation has remained unchanged. Heed this plea to change the working conditions in UOb by simply taking 5 mins to read this email.

The past few months have been quite frustrating to me as i struggled to settle
into the job as a temp. First of all the training period which was given to
me was quite short and inadequate considering the skill set of the calls i was
assigned to. From the get go we were thrown into the boiling pot and the first
week was quite horrendous in that i gave cx wrong information quite frequently
and unnecessarily made simple queries very trying and difficult for the
customer. As weeks went by we slowly got more familiar with the information and
the tools availiable to us but still it felt as though we were strictly
restricted in what we were able to do. I have several suggestions to make and i
feel that it would be helpful if you would consider my suggestions on the basis
of their merit and not the source from which them came from.

1. If your going to hire temps for a short basis and give them a reduced
training schedule and not allow them access to CRM, restrict the skill sets of the calls they can take. On job training might work fine but its hardly suitable for a position on which the banks highly esteemed platinum customers rely on for their point of contact. For example if we were just restricted to waivers and application status, and allow other CSRS to transfer their calls to our line, it would be so much better
because as job specialists we would free up highly skilled resources to handle
highly sensitive issues like disputes.

2. Am i the only one who feels that a call queue of more than 5 mins is ridiculous for customers? I mean surely we can spare some resources to serve the millions of credit card users in singapore? We are the single most biggest credit card entity in singapore and yet our call centre occupies 2 floors. This chronic understaff problem and overall reliance on temp staff seems to be epidemic in UOB. Before working in the call centre i worked as temp staff in UOB Business Internet Banking where i entered data for BIB so i know what i'm talking about. The budget for temps that year was 40,000. Just so that they did not overshoot that budget me and my colleagues(perm staff and temp) worked overtime almost EVERYDAY. And yet the backlog was neverending, which was the reason why i quit my temp position there. Obviously in the call centre we do not have such a backlog simple because its based on callvolume pertime. However we have all surely taken note of the amount of abandoned calls and callbacks that have to be done. Spend more money staffing your processing centres and less money on promotions! I believe i speak for the customer when i say that having my call answered on time, having my card delivered faster beats the cheap digital radio clock ($22.50) i'll get for signing up. Protect the UOB brand don't let it get cheapened. Where the hell is our Service Pledge!

3. This is a minor grievance but please provide our CSRS with better tools to manage calls. An excel spreadsheet that likes to eat the last digit of your credit card number and a stupid workaround hardly cuts it. Get with the program! Its damm easy to commision a software company to create a program that can automatically record the time of call, have a preset list of actions to assign to each call (like waiver of membership fees), preset reminders and flag cases that have yet to be followed up. CRM is only one part of the call centre package.

4. KMS - its unwieldy. Information is decentralised and there are a LOT of outdated documents. A major cleanup and overhaul is necessary. I would recommend a wiki solution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki with limited editing access. Again get with the program.

5. Other call centres practice a casual dress code. Why can't we?

6. Singapore has 4 official languages. Why is there only 1 language other than english.