So I’ve been at virgin for over 10 years, our job as technicians is to fix faults affecting customers tv & internet etc, the last 5 years have been a rough, stress filled spiral into a corporate toxic fake daily stress. It’s such a shame as most if not all other departments still have a great virgin culture but the service department seems to be picked on by its senior management. As soon as Liberty Global purchased virgin media they announced that they feel they “over paid” for the company and that we need to make a huge amount of cost savings. First to go was our management structure which didn’t really affect things too much, then it was the uk call centres and boy let me tell you the one we now use in India do their best I’m sure but the level of customer service is shocking, Almost every customer I speak of which I see around 10 a day all have to vent to us just how bad it is, customer tell me they are rude, lacking in knowledge and are completely scripted, it on average takes 2-3 separate calls just to get a appointment if you need help which is causing massive frustration. To mitigate this virgins launched a app called my virgin media so you won’t have to call in anymore, not let’s get his sorted let’s just avoid it. Once we do get there we have to desperately ask the customer to recommend their friends and family, which in it’s simplest form is a great way for customers to save money as you get £50 if you do it, however from the tech point of view we have been targeted to get our customers to do like a sales target and this is a huge cause of stress for field management and techs as our senior management see us as a cost to virgin not a investment keeping our customers happy and connected so to mitigate our own cost we are to get our customers to recommend our services to help pay for ourselves. That is straight from the head of department words himself nice one JP. If we miss our targets then we are micro managed to the point of desperation as the field manger also has his target for his techs to hit and if we miss it so dose he and then sits on your shoulders all day every day making sure you are working to our recommend processes which is a whole other story. Another great example of just how toxic it is is our internal staff survey called ZOOM, this was designed to test the water and see how the staff are doing, trouble is if anyone is unhappy with anything we are seen as not engaged with the company even if the company is making bad decisions if you disagree with them then the field manger gets the blame for you not being engaged so to save the manger getting sacked or put on a performance improve plan we all have to lie and rate the company as amazing or my manager who deep down is a good guy gets in from the senior manager and there’s only one way *#*# rolls and that’s down hill so to spare us all we need to say how great it all is even thou we all (me and my area at least) currently hate our working days not our work just the environment. Work amount is another bugbear, at the end of your very long 8am to 7pm shift without commute your asked to stay late to cover extra appointments that we couldn’t cover on time due to current incompetence, if you had plans after work forget it, if you say I can’t stay late the senior management phone you to guilt trip you, if you still say no your reputation is left in in bits and your own manager is forced to leave his house to come out to cover that job/jobs himself which you can imagine how your treated after that. It’s also advertised as having a bonus each month, that’s unrealistic to get and further more there’s a new bonus system in 2020 that makes sure more will get bonus turns out to be a money saver for the company where is better if we all get pennies then some earn hundreds. Our pay is another bugbear, new starters currently start on 24k where current staff are on 23k although most new starters find this job so stressful they leave within 6 months but that’s not the point, there’s no loyalty from the company for length of service they do usually increase our pay in line with new starters but you would have thought that a tech with 5 years experience or even 10 years would earn more then new starters. There are options to move departs but for example the last internal job that came up to get out of here had 96 applicants.... so options are limited at best. The best example of the toxic culture is customer satisfaction survey NPS in our world, If the customer visited responds to a emailed survey and rates the overall experience as a 9 or a 10 I get £10 great huh? If only the call centre hadn’t upset them if only they hadn’t had to call in 3 times to get help if only we hadn’t put the price up mid contact 3 times in 18 months, you get the picture, the next great idea from the senior management is to get us to tell the customer that that question about overall experience relates directly to the technician visit so please give me the tech a 10 for my visit, it’s for me we have to say before we leave not anything else please give me a 10 have I said it enough yet it’s for me please please please give me a 10. Those NPS surveys turn out to have a impact on the share price no wonder we have to tell customers that, faking the customer experience too huh, I’m sure if BBC watchdog got wind of what we are doing they would be all over it. If I wasn’t trapped in a job by my House I would of left years ago but as all the training I’ve done within the company isn’t transferable to any other job I’ll be starting again as a trainee elsewhere. My advise to anyone who is switched on enough to check reviews before starting here is not to, get a real trade, gas electrical etc it’s defo harder to train but you never see a poor sparky or a unhappy gas man. Don’t join virgin service department become a professional elsewhere and definitely don’t become a apprentice in this department. FYI These are just some examples I could go on. I’m sure virgin will respond with how we are developing etc, don’t buy the bull.
