client advisor

customer service representative

team leader

sales advisor

engineering team leader

Domestic & General

I had wanted to wait a while before I left a review of working here, so that I could see clearly the difference leaving the business had on my life and so I could offer my honest thoughts of the company.

I entered the company at a point where I really needed money and a secure job that I could just get on with. This was partly the reality of what the job offered but over the time I was there, it left me worse off than before I joined, due to the level of pressure, stress and the poor quality of management that seem to have acquired their roles through making friends with one another and then covering up for each others mistakes. I really did find management a self serving bunch that made me question how they have managed to have keep their roles for as long as they have.

It's a slow burner, but after some time working here, you will find yourself stretched thin mentally, feeling tired, depleted of empathy and questioning weather it's worth working here any longer.
The commitments they say they are working towards to improve the quality of work & customer service is very rarely achieved.
Lots of ill advised or bad behavior from management goes unnoticed/ignored, where as if you are an agent and spend more than 4 mins going to the bathroom, you are questioned about weather you need an occupational health call to 'treat your bladder problems'? This is something I have never come across from any other job I have worked and I found it de-humanizing and another excuse for team leaders to act like Dictating overseers they all too well enjoy playing the part of. 

Probably the worst part of the company, and what made me leave, was the disturbing level of stress related sickness that almost everyone working there seemed to end up having one way or another. This resulted in a huge rise in mental health issues that they tried to tackle and *shock horror* left for management to fix, the very same people that were to blame for exasperating the problems people were having in the first place.
I myself became clinically depressed resulting in taking medication to stable my mood and keep me from breaking down altogether.
I thought that it was just me at first having this problem but as more people opened up about their own issues with their health, it was evident that the impact of over bearing targets, questionable micromanagement, poor judgement towards discipline and treatment of staff and the amount of hours/ shift patterns required to follow were to blame. We were all burning out and it was sad to watch work colleagues battling through whilst becoming more and more sick from all that pressure. I was made to feel that the difficulties I was having at work and with my mental health was my fault and my fault alone which made me question myself at every turn, leaving me feeling completely disempowered.

I mustered up the courage to hand my notice in, say goodbye to colleagues and move on.
almost a year later, I no longer take medication, no longer have sick days, no longer feel tired all the time, and I am treated in my new job like a person and not a robot with an expiry date when all the batteries are used up.
I still speak to a few friends who work there and hearing how it hasn't changed very much or in some cases, become worse, really makes me feel like I made the right choice to leave and would not go back even if they paid me to. They will always value profits above the wellbeing of their employees, pushing people further until they cant continue and everyone is treated like a disposable pawn that can be replaced at any given moment. 

My apologies for this long explanation of what it was like working here, I could go on but this review would never end.
I urge anyone who reads this, that if you really value your health and well being, stay well away from here.
For my friends and colleagues still at D&G, There are plenty of other jobs in the area and don't ever feel like you are stuck in one role.

I would like to start off this review by saying that i dont normally write reviews for companies but i had a look on here before starting the job and now that i have been working at Domestic and Genral for nearly a year, i feel as though i can give more insight to anyone who is looking for a role at this compnay. 

I got offered the job after applying during Covid, they were one of very few employers apart from supermarkets who were hiring at the time and i had heard of the company, both good and bad so i thought to take up the oppertunity. 

The initall interview was pretty stright forward and i started training for about 4 weeks. Our training was from 9-5:30pm Monday to Friday and we had an hour paid lunch. There was alot of infrmation to take in, alot of scripts and memeorisaiton to do but after about 3 weeks, you get use to the scripts. 

Just for context on the actual job role before i proceed, you are basically answering calls all day and helping customers with any questions and queries they have about either thier sky protect policy or their insurance policy so yould be booking enigers for broken tv's, booking engineers for broken sky boxes, replcing remotes, registering new appliances etc BUT the aim is that you have to AIM TO SELL ON EVERY CALL! Whether the customer is looking to buy or not, you have to try and sell to them otherwise you team leader will listen to the calls and call you out for it. 

You start the days by logging into your told around an hour before you start your shift just to make sure all the systems are working. You have to use around 7-13 different systems throughout the day and they all have to be open at the beginning of the day. You then spend your days answering around 40-70 calls, depending on how busy it can be and sometimes, it can be back to back calls from the start to the end of your shift. 

You also have a target that you need to meet for the month to get your bonus and this is tracked, almost daily, taking into account how long you spend on a call, if your opening and closing the call correctly, how long you put the customer on hold for, how long you take time off calls, basically everything you do tracked and needs to be within a certain bracket, otherwise your team leader will call you out on it and i will give an example for context: If you spend more than 10 mins on "personal" everday, this doesnt include your break and lunch times, your team leader will have a "word" with you about it. 

While on the topic of targets, the targets your set to reach your bonus are forever being adjusted lower and lower, making it harder and harder for you to meet the target, the job is not all bad however it can get very frustrating constantly being monitored, even the slightest adjustments can result in meetings with your TL where they can be rude and don’t tend to listen. I personally found my time there started off okay, got use to the sales element and stats but over time, i started feeling very stressed day to day especially with the constant pressure to meet sales and earn the bonus for yourself and the team leader. 

You have weekly meetings with your team leader where they look at your stats, these stats inlcude, AHT, PERSONALS, TARGETS, etc and will give you coaching on your sales pictch to ensure you can sell on every call, they will then also listen to a random call to ensure that you are following the prescribed sales picth by your team leader. These weekly meetings are to make sure your'e doing as you should be. 

The work can get very boring very quickly and the job is very repertative overtime. 

I wouldn’t recommend this job fo anyone who is looking for a career move, the company doesn’t see to care too much about its employees. You do feel a bit disposable and because so many people leave, your team is always changing because the company is always recruiting because people are always leaving. 

They start you off with the illusion that they care, but they don’t. It’s all about making money for the company, not about providing CM’s with the best customer service or the best service, generally.
They started sub-contracting employees in South Africa where they work way more than 50h per week, with ridiculous sales targets, where the agents, driven by their sales, push customers to buy new plans and mess up all admin tasks, leaving those that work in the U.K. to deal with all the mess ups and complaints. 
My mental health got worse, sometimes we spent weeks without huddles or meetings, just constantly on the phones without seeing your team or getting to engage or develop any skills or areas that you might need improvement. The bonus scheme, for example, is split in 3 sections where one of them is CSAT (customer satisfaction), where they base that on the surveys customers receive after speaking with you. However, the surveys are not sent with each call, so you can take over 100 calls a month and have only 3 surveys actually being sent. Considering that 6 in 10 calls were about complaints, you’d always have customers not entirely happy, since most of the times engineers from Hotpoint/Hoover would cancel appointments for no reason, you’d end up by having a survey with a low rating (since customers would be dissatisfied with the company and not with your customer service). Their idea of disputing that, would only be acceptable if the customer had left a written review, since most only rated in scale (1 to 5), you’d end up by loosing your bonus, even though you took 100 calls but only had 3 surveys to base your CSAT on.
Another example of how things work, their accounts department only works until 12h30, and they’re only available for agents (you can’t put CM’s through to them), so most of the times CMs called to query odd charges in their bank statements, there’d be nothing we could do apart from advising them to call before 12h30 the next day, adding more calls to their already massive call queues, and leaving you with the feeling of uselessness and helplessness.
Would not recommend at all. Made good friends, yes, some of them my TL’s but they can’t do much as they have their own targets and orders from the actual management.
Also, if you’re after a job that would provide you progress in your career, this is not the place at all. They provide no workshops, no training or opportunities to grow within the company: I have applied for 3 different roles in the company in my two years working there, managed to arrange meetings with the Managers of those roles so I could show my interest and learn what the roles are about but they don’t even call you for an interview, preferring to hire externally as opposed to provide those opportunities for agents that have been working there already, who already have the knowledge for the roles. Furthermore, upon requesting Management or even the head of L&D for more opportunities and training/workshops to develop your skills for different roles, they pretend that they’re busy and will get back to you when they have the chance: I once spent 4 months reaching L&D and 4 times they told me next month we’ll address this and your development, though never happened.
If you do take a job with them, please ensure you check your payslips, as often I found errors and money missing in mine, sometimes only noticing months later.

Working at Domestic & General has provided me with overall confidence and capability to work inside a busy office environment using multiple databases, and maintain work under heavy call flow. Although working on the Technical support department for a short period, I have able to manage and gain knowledge in specific areas within a call centre. I was able to provide customer care and experience in;

• Operating on Macintosh, Outlook and various Citrix Databases.
• Organise customer care, by providing technical procedures to resolve faults over the phone on Sky equipment.
• Arrange and book service repair on both Brown and White goods equipment, throughout Insurance Polices by Domestic & General.
• Selling Service repair and Sky Protect Extended Warranties.
• Handle customer queries, retentions within the Call centre.
• Arrange Service repair on equipment using Sky approved engineers booking system.
• Provide excellent customer care by demonstrating dependence, patience and empathy, whilst handling complaints.

The team I worked with in Sky where a small team that were dedicated to sharing knowledge and methods on to how to successfully handle customer technical support issues. I felt that my colleagues were easiest to communicate with, as they all were dealing with similar situations when customers would call in, and we were all able to express and work together if we came across any difficult situations.

The hardest part of my role as being as a Adviser was particularly managing stressful situations out of my control. i.e customers not particularly satisfied with the service of D&G. There particular aspects where when a customer wouldn't be particularly happy with certain information given, but I found it in my best interest to help and support the customer to as best as I could. I felt as long as everything that I have performed or actioned on call correctly and sufficiently. It was certain I was providing good customer service.

The most enjoyable part of my job was particularly helping those in need when experiencing unclear technical situations with their Sky equipment. Being able to give thorough instructions to a customer and have the benefits of success when steps were complete. Was the most satisfying to myself. As I felt that many of the process and guidelines I used to help my customers could be applied with every other individual.

I get to work on average about half an hour before I'm due to sign in so that I can get my screen set up in time and read any emails to me incase there are any important messages about any changes or new information. All the calls are inbound unless you call the customer back, during your break, incase the customer can't make up their mind when they first call. The position requires that you advise the customer to purchase cover for their domestic appliances, washing machines, fridge freezers, TVs, all sorts of domestic appliance by many manufacturers. You advise the customer about the sort of prices they could be paying if they were not covered. Some customers do take the cover, a lot don't. You have targets to reach and when you don't reach those targets you wont earn your commission.
There are team leaders there to give help and advice but they do sometimes seem to be spread a little thin and sometimes its hard to find them.
The way a customer can speak to you over the phone can be a whole lot different than what they would do if you face them on the shop floor. Over the phone they can be rude, pushy, argumentative, curt, but thats just a small minority. For the most part the customers are friendly and good natured. You must not let the minority upset you or spoil your day. And you must always be pleasant even if someone is giving you a hard time.
There a lot of younger staff that work at D&G and they are nice to get on with its just that I am committed to getting on with my job with out any distractions. Some staff enjoy stopping what they supposed to be doing and having a little chat with their mates and with the team leaders spread thin its something that tends to happen a lot.
The hardest part of the job is the company gives minimal training, the rest they want you to learn on the department with live customers. So if you've got a caller using their phone bill to call you and you don't know what your doing you've got to ask the caller to bear with you "because your new". Some callers understand but I can't blame the ones who don't.
The reward or commission you earn has to be the best part of the job because you can earn a lot of money when those targets are reached. That shows also that you are doing your job right. But saying that I personally would rather do a job I enjoy with a lower wage than do a job with a high wage that I'm unhappy with.

Training at D&G was very good. Friendly trainers, lots of enthusiasm etc. You get paid for basically a few weeks of easy work and a good time. However, as soon as you get onto the call centre floor everything changes for the worse! This is not the “Customer service role” they say it will be. SALES SALES SALES.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic they increased everyone’s sales target significantly! At a time where people are losing jobs/worried about money they still put the pressure on call agents to then make more sales. 

You are expected to argue with customers to take out the insurance that they have said they don’t want. Even when customers ask you not to tell them about the insurance/they don’t believe in it or even if they can’t afford it! The response we’ve been told to tell the people who can’t afford it is “Well can you afford a break down costing £100+” All morals have to go out of the window to do this job! Even when people ring up to register a £10 radio we still have to offer the insurance of around £3 a month! If we do not do this you get told off/sent into formal meetings as it’s a “conduct” issue. You get told your not treating the customer “fairly” if you don’t try to put insurance on every item they have in their home. Even if the customer has repeatedly said no! 

Furthermore you are only aloud 8 minutes per day “personal” time. So this will include all toilet breaks and if you need to go get yourself some water etc. If you go over this, you will be disciplined. One day I took 2 minutes personal, the next I took 10 minutes and was still told that my behaviour was unacceptable. Feels degrading but you have to literally run to the loo and back. Furthermore you can only use your personal time for these things. If you want to take a sip of water you can’t take a personal for it. 

I’ve watched people be bullied out of this place many time’s before I left. They try to make you leave by constantly bullying you and being on your case. No help going forward and improving within yourself. You either sell to vulnerable customers or you are out of the door. 

If you take a day off they ring you around 8 times a day wanting to know what you’re doing and will even ring your emergency contacts. One team leader on the floor has been heard boasting that an agent had a death in the family and called her emergency contacts to make sure she wasn’t lying. How cruel and inconsiderate. If everything I have honestly wrote doesn’t put you off then good luck.

What is the best part of working at the company?
just your colleagues that you never see  

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The level of pressure placed on employees to meet KPIs is extremely high. A single error in a call can result in losing 25% of all sales made in the month, which creates an unnecessarily stressful environment. Management often live‑monitors calls, but instead of providing constructive support, they frequently interrupt by spamming the chat with unhelpful comments, making it harder to focus and perform well.
Although the role is advertised as customer support, the reality is very different. Management prioritises sales and strict talk‑time targets over genuine customer care. Employees who try to support customers properly risk being penalised for spending “too long” on calls, which discourages empathy and quality service. For someone who only cares about sales and not the people calling for help, this job may be suitable. For those who value real customer support, it is not.
I have never written a negative review about an employer before, but since the recent management change, the pressure to sell more while speaking less to customers has increased significantly. This shift has made the work environment feel increasingly hostile and misaligned with the values the role was originally presented with.


What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
colleagues are the best part of the job but you'd hardly be able to talk or see them being a remote job making social and work culture really hard if not in the same city as the office's 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day involves handling a high volume of calls while working under strict KPI requirements. The focus is heavily centred on meeting sales targets and maintaining low talk‑time, which often limits the ability to provide thorough customer support. Throughout the day, calls may be live‑monitored by management, and frequent interruptions or messages can make it difficult to stay focused. The overall structure of the day is driven more by performance metrics than by customer needs, which creates a fast‑paced and high‑pressure environment.

Though the pay here is good, the job is awful. Managers will only be nice to you if you’re meeting your sales target for that day, if not all respect for you goes out the window. They lie and say there are progression opportunities but these opportunities are extremely limited, come around once in a blue moon and are only given to those who make ridiculously high numbers - anyone who performs at or above the target consistently will be stuck in the role for as long as they are in the business. There are very few opportunities to transfer to non sales departments if you joined in a sales role as all the company cares about are bums on seats, taking calls and making sales. I know this as someone who has been at the business for two years and is fighting to switch departments with a maximum amount of resistance. Expect to be heavily micromanaged - breaks are timed to the second, stats are practically looked at under a microscope and managers regard any time off the phone to run to the toilet as “a luxury the business affords us”. The pay is great and the bonus is also great if you sell and don’t fail on any calls, but if you don’t sell expect to be put on a support plan which will eventually lead to your dismissal if you cannot keep up with the sales target. The sales target is ever increasing - it used to be 21.3%, then a few years later they raised it to 25% and then a year after that they raised it to 27.7% - I have no doubt they will continue to raise this figure. Customer service is at the back burner of what we do and we are expected to challenge customers and be rude to them if they say no to the cover - if you simply accept the customer not wanting the cover, management consider this gross misconduct. If you don’t mind being berated on your off days for the sake of decent pay then I’d say go for it, other than that I’d leave it. Also do not expect the company to understand anything about mental health issues - they campaign that they’re supportive, but this is not reflected within how management “support” you.

As a remote worker I never felt left out of the team culture in anyway, and the training is very comprehensive but it is very intense for a 4 week period. Impossible to learn everything about the company, products, and the job in 4 weeks. Once 'live' with handling customer calls you do learn a a lot more and very quickly. In fairness I never had issues with getting advice and assistance at any point in time, but sometimes there can be a delay. If you keep customers informed whilst they are waiting they generally always understand and will be happy to wait. Not all customers are patient and polite and there is 'mileage' in developing your own skills to handle complaints and dissatisfaction well and winning customers round. Great opportunity to earn high commission but you have to be compliant with company rules and Financial Conduct Authority requirements to maintain non-pressurised selling of Insurance Plans  which can cause severe problems for the company if you do not. If you are 'tech-savvy' and can use multiple screens and system pages it is a great help and makes life a lot easier. You also need to be flexible towards actual working hours between 8.00am and 8.00pm and every minute of your working hours are monitored which in fairness  means everyone is treated equally. If you are struggling make sure you let your team leader know as there are coaching, help and training opportunities available on every team. If you try hard, give the job your best and work to achieve success everyone whom gets the opportunity to work for D&G will succeed.  If you don't and you let 'hiccups' along the way deter you then you will have a more difficult time.  Work for perfection and you will get perfection, and the reap the rewards!!  Go For It!!

When i first joined the company i thought it was great. You get offered so much and get told how much of a great company it is through training, but as soon as you hit the call floor reality kicks in. You basically get treated like a school child. It feels like you get stripped of your rights as soon as you walk in. The company does not follow regulations, Health and safety gets thrown out the window OH WAIT, you can't open the windows because they bolted them shut! NO ESCAPE! Take time off for a emergency and expect to get at least 8 phone calls asking when your next going to be in. No duty of care at all!

My partner currently still works there and she has been needing a risk assessed desk and chair for over 4 months which OCC Health suggested but has this happened? NO, but they hand out the desks to mangers who don't even need them! She has had to take time off work for this because its making medical conditions worse but now they have put her in a meeting for taking too much time off!!

I was told to drive a car with no insurance to come into work! The company is shocking! 

They pride their selves on being a "Non advised selling company" which means you offer a product and if the customer says no then you move on but you get penalised for this! Its all about SELL SELL SELL! which is NOT in your contract but they threaten to sack you if you don't sell?

Your just a number there and HR doesn't know 100% what goes on there but telling them is like talking to a brick wall.

Also, they won't sack you they will just talk you into leaving so you can't appeal and threaten you until you hand in your notice.

I beg everyone to avoid working here. About 70% of the contact centre have walked out already and i am one of them as it has caused me mental health issues due to the stress.

Don't know how i put up with it for 7 months.

AVOID!

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Client advisor 67 salaries reported	£25,159 per year
Customer service representative 9 salaries reported	£22,678 per year
Team leader 15 salaries reported	£34,933 per year
Sales advisor 4 salaries reported	£23,875 per year
Engineering team leader 20 salaries reported	£33,925 per year

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