If you come into the company on the lowest rung you will have the most pressure on you. You are an expendable slug. You will be paid alright, depending on where you work. If you're in branch then you'll be the most done over for pay, and chances are if you go to the call centre in Manchester you'll not be paid as well as temporary staff elsewhere.

Most of the first point of contact work will be one of 3 things - genuinely lovely customers who will be super quick or want to have a bit of a chat (which a bad manager will probably flag you up for). Morons who don't understand about borrowing money from a bank/wanting to raise a complaint for something they're probably lying about. Cleaning up a mess a webchat agent in India has caused.

There's obviously a wide range of customers, but these tend to be the big 3. Shift patterns can be awful, but tend to be fixed for a week (e.g. one week you will do 9-5, the next 8-4, the next 12-8). However, this can change any time, they're meant to give you 2 weeks notice but frequently would not, and you would receive no notification of the change. Reductions in the team organising shift patterns led to a lot of slapdash work.

You will be trained to handle complaints, however will be expected to do it to a much higher standard than the actual complaints team, who will provide precious little information should you have to look into anything, and probably just bung £50 in someone's account without confirming anything with them and just hoping that and a letter will fix it.

Your management can vary, you'll either have the ultra-strict by the book jobsworths who will come down on you like a tonne of bricks for being 15 seconds over your 15 minutes allowed daily break, or you'll get someone who realises that goals are usually team based and works to that.

Saying that, no management I dealt with actually had a clue about the job, none had ever actually done our role and made it known they probably couldn't. Interview processes for promotion are variable, when you apply it is based solely on your CV which must be tailored to the role you are applying for. The interviews themselves are box ticking exercises, you can have 0 experience of something, but check the right boxes and get the job, which led to overachievers out of their depth.

In terms of benefits you can get some decent insurance packages, but that's about it. No discounts on products (unless you were there before 2015), but you can get a card that you can top up and use to shop at supermarkets to get cashback.

If you enter at a manager level or above then you are basically untouchable and would need to literally steal money from people in order to get the boot.

The bank is also quite clearly pushing loans and mortgages again, if you are first point of contact you will be made to bring these up to customers in the form of prompts. You will quickly see that a number of these people could not afford any kind of borrowing and it will definitely concern you that responsible lending doesn't seem to be at the forefront.

A typical day at work for me was on the desk known as eQ which was the offshore bank's electronic international payment system for corporate and institutional clients.  My job was to verify and release the payments that had dropped to our repair queue where the system had been unable to process them automatically and manual intervention was required.  I also was a first point of contact from the our payments sections requiring assistance with routing of payments or problems that occurred. I also had to speak to relationship managers and other staff from other sections of the offshore bank across all four islands - Jersey, Guernsey, Gibraltar and Isle of Man as the payments section had been centralised on the Isle of Man.  I also sometimes worked on the Foreign Exchange desk.  This was manned by two staff and was created as a central point for all staff across all four islands for booking foreign exchange deals, as previously any staff member could call the treasury dealers direct to book fx deals but far too many errors were being made.  The creation of the FX desk in the Isle of Man drastically reduced these errors as the staff had to be experienced to work on this desk and the treasury dealers knew they would only have two knowledgeable people to deal with instead of dozens across different departments.  I also had to make sure the end of day position close outs were processed urgently as these were received from treasury back office in Jersey and were expected by RBS London Global Markets by a certain time each day.
I learned a great deal during my nine years working offshore and very much enjoyed the experience I gained and the people I worked with. I learned to work in a far larger department and with many more people across many more departments than I had ever experienced before, but this was good as it provided a lot more variety in my daily routine.  We had to work closely with our team members and on the whole everyone pulled in the same direction.  There were a few staff who could have tried harder and the management could have enforced a little more discipline in this regard but generally it was a good working environment where everyone got on well.
The hardest part of my job would be usually before and after bank holidays or when we were short staffed due to illness or holidays.  It was very pressurised at these times making sure payments were not missed but still released correctly.  However, it could still be a curiously positive pressure as it is always better to be too busy than not busy enough.
I would say the most enjoyable part of my job would be when it was a busy period but the perfect team of people would be on hand and as well as getting the work done, we could also have a laugh and lighten the mood.  I think if you can enjoy yourself at work with your team members (within reason of course) then it makes the work and the day flow much easier and quicker.

Hello, 

This is review is about RBS Southend (telephony centre). I worked there for a few months before resigning. 
First of all, the interview process was ridiculously easy, you are first invited to do a video interview and once it is assessed by them, they invite you to do an on-site interview. Of course they go through the basic interview questions, why RBS etc. but I think they would be happy with any answer. You need to keep in mind that low level personal banking jobs, don't require any knowledge of finance etc. and the people who will interview probably have no idea other than answering phones and using a couple of systems. No offence...

Starting the job, you have to do training for 7 weeks. This is fine, you just go through blah blah... they show you all the systems once and then you are supposed to just know them. After these finish, they throw you at the lions, the customers. The amount of abuse you will get is unimaginable. If you are a foreigner, pray to God to save you. The amount of racists you will meet at the other line of the phone is crazy, people will swear at you, shout at you, insult you in every way possible and you will be talking to them for 7-8hrs a day, non-stop. If you want over-time by all means, they have. They pay good for over-time hours but you also exchange your sanity. 
You will have customers messing it up themselves with their cards, not knowing how to do a transfer, how to use Paypal to make transfers between cards, how the banking system works, how the internet works... and they will shout at you calling you Stupid, refusing to talk to you if you have an accent they don't like. 
Horrible human beings these customers and I've been in customer service for more than 20 years. They destroyed my attitude towards customers in general. 
The so called managers... well... they are just high-school kids who managed to put up with the abuse for a year or two and got promotions and became "managers". Some of them will not know more than you that just started out but knew the right people and got promoted. Others know a lot and are still phone agents. 
These stupid managers are the people who are going to assess every single of your calls. So when someone is swearing at you on the phone, and you are reading out mandatory dialogues, if you miss a word, your whole call has failed and they will write it down. Because they are not the smartest people on earth, each one of them will tell you different things, so one thing that someone says it is right, will make you fail a call assessed by someone else. And don't dare to fall sick.
On the positive side, it's something good to add to your CV if you have no better option. Adding a big bank like RBS even for a month or two counts, if you want to get into Finance and didn't manage to get into an internship etc. The money is decent to start with for the amount of hours but nothing to get excited about. Iguess high school students would be happy. 
 Regards

The role itself can be quite difficult at times, particularly as the department is the busiest it has been for a few years. A typical day involves answering inbound calls, which can be quite tiring at busy times but it makes the day go by quicker. We deal with a wide spectrum of customers as they are all at different stages in our collections process so you never know what type of call will come through, from those who may be close to missing one mortgage payment, right through to those customers that are already in arrears and are close to having their homes repossessed. The role has taught me a lot about banking processes that I never would have known otherwise, and it has also helped me to improve my communication skills, and my ability to adapt very quickly to situations.

The hardest part of the job is dealing with difficult customers. Though it's not common, it can be frustrating getting an earful down the phone for something that most likely isn't your fault. Unfortunately it's common for call centre staff to experience several irate customers a day, and due to the nature of this role most of the customers are understandably worried and stressed, and they do sometimes take it out on whoever's on the other end of the phone. It makes things a bit more interesting at least..! It does make up for it when you get a really nice customer, particularly if you can help them as they are always so relieved to know they won't lose their home. That's probably the best part of the job.

Overall the department is well managed, and team leaders look out for those with the potential to progress and try to develop necessary skills for them to move up in the department. All eyes are constantly kept on performance so if they notice anything you're doing wrong they will get you the appropriate advice and training to help you out rather than just trying to get rid of you. There is a high staff turn around, mostly because the recruitment process is through an agency so staff initially start on a temporary contract but most stay on after. There's also a lot of strict assessments they do on your work - they listen to 4 calls a month for quality assurance and check your deals to make sure they're right. There's around 80 of us on the phones and we all know each other and generally work well together.

•	Closely work with Journey Managers to help them optimize conversions and rectify leakages through actionable insights. E.g. Time and duration to sale analysis, Private banking analysis, customer survey analysis, Products funnel analysis etc.
•	Map Customer journeys for each product using Visio that support Journey Managers in understanding the full journey flow and drop out points. The mapped journeys prove as a handy guide to optimize customer journeys through various analytical methods like surveys, Test & Target, live chats etc. 
•	Built and regularly maintain Data & Analytics Team’s work stack process within Digital Channels Department. Manage end to end process of all requests on MIs, Analysis pieces, dashboards, tagging requirements and other queries single-handed within the team.
•	Manage workflow and Train a team of seven in Group Operations India. Include day-to-day support, work stack management, quality check, training through webex etc.
•	Built and manage SiteCatalyst dashboards on Sales and Service live performance which are shown on plasma screens for Digital Channels’ MD. 
•	Developed an automatic marketing campaign code generator using excel. The user-friendly generator helps in defining consistent naming convention for ongoing campaigns both in Marketing and Digital Channels departments. 
•	Built and manage weekly Executive dashboard for Sales, Service and Mobile for senior stakeholders including MD for Digital Channels.
•	Setup automated Journey Managers reports for all products across the Digital Channels. Run weekly Journey Managers’ sessions to discuss actionable insights. Transformed all JMs reports into SiteCatalyst dashboards format after migration to SiteCatalyst version 15.
•	I’m an Omniture survey expert within the Digital Channels who manages end-to-end survey process. Involve in designing questions, building surveys, managing responses and present key insights.
•	Actively involve in number of tagging projects at the RBS. Includes gathering requirements from Journey Managers, mapping SiteCatalyst variables, following up with developers, testing and analyzing. 
•	Support Journey Managers on SiteCatalyst training and ad-hoc queries. Running basic queries in SAS and TeraData.


Working in the UK financial industry all my professional life there are two areas that both drive and motivate me. First being successful in coaching and leading a sales force that deliver. The second being is delivering results for the customer managing their needs/expectation gives me a sense both achievement and satisfaction. This was most prevalent in the eight years I spent working at Resolution Trust.

The fulfillment of developing a group of people to effectively assist customers to make their biggest purchase of their lives has always been a personal privilege. Having the opportunity to work in a highly regarded company offering this service is not only an exciting, but a brilliant platform to demonstrate my key skills.

Having a proven track record of inspiring my staff, driving them to meet and exceed targets, I promote a working atmosphere that allows them to have fun and enjoy what they do. This has given me a great sense of pride. The fulfilment of training, coaching and motivating people to attain their best potential makes every day worthwhile. 

When employed by Resolution Trust, my remit was to relocate and set up a new mortgage brokerage on the South Coast. Within six months I had found premises, employed both a team of mortgage advisors, and an office administration team. I devised a training and operational manual, promoting policies and procedures adhering to FCA requirements. Under my stewardship the company went on to help over 1900 customers with their home purchases.

Moving from the Winchester Branch to Basingstoke I took on team of inexperienced people who in the last 3 years have become top performers within their peer groups. As a unit we achieved excellent and outstanding performance ratings in 2017, which is combined with the national achievement awards proving not only our success as a team but for me personally as a leader.

My personal half-year review for 2018 scored a “four” giving me an excellent rating. This consequently put me in the top 10% of performing Branch Managers within RBS, delivering exempt customer service, adhering to the company’s objectives & achieving set targets.

•	Assisted in building a  number of SOX 404 compliance procedures and activities on behalf of RBS Technology division’s processes including security, change, incidents, 3rd party supplier, operations, capacity, backup & recovery, threat & vulnerability, anti-malware, patching and configuration management, thus helped the bank’s compliance function to be fit for purpose and manage its risks
•	Tested  and reviewed for IT General Controls and SOX compliance purposes a number of RBS Technology’s IT platforms and infrastructure including iSeries / AS400, Mainframe, Windows, Wintel, OpenVMS, Tandem, DB2, Sybase, Oracle, SQL, UNIX and Linux
•	Assisted in the annual design of the compliance activities including SOX testing for  key processes in RBS Technology division and to manage SOX risks
•	Managed stakeholder relationships including that of external auditors and internal business divisions regarding RBS Technology division’s compliance activities
•	Performed annual SOX tests with timely reports on the adequacy and effectiveness of risks, controls and procedures of RBS Technology division’s processes
•	Provided education and training to upwards of 100 RBS Technology colleagues across the globe on SOX 404 regulatory compliance requirements, testing and SOX risk management
•	Performed risk management activities on RBS Technology’s distributed infrastructure risks, saving the bank from serious consequences pertaining to regulatory and operational non-compliance.
•	Used COBIT framework to fine-tune RBS Technology policies, controls, control activities and risks, as well as provided assurance mappings to RBS group policies.
•	Coordinated series of infrastructure, applications and SOX audits performed by RBS external auditor and the group’s internal auditor (GIA)
•	Performed IT security compliance assurance, IT General Controls, PCIDSS compliance and Faster Payments compliance assurance reviews on some of RBS payment applications including WorldPay, Walker, Caustic and Eiger.

Time Management - making sure the days tasks such as relevant paperwork and general customer service reviews are being conducted. Prioritising workload to ensure tasks are completed promptly to the highest standard possible.

Networking Skills – able to liaise with different departments within the bank, by using existing relationships that have successfully been built up over the period of time, to increase services being provided by the bank.

Attention to Detail – ensuring every word in every application completed for customers by myself including addresses matches the correct identification given on the day. All information on applications must be 100% accurate otherwise applications are delayed leading to customer dissatisfaction and possibly loss of business.

Organisational Skills –responsible for preparing the Saturday rota to ensure that the team is organised for the Saturdays and are aware, in advance, of when they are due to work. These must be allocated fairly so not to upset staff morale and to take into consideration what holidays may have been booked ensuring the correct work life balance is given.

Influencing and Negotiation Skill – These are key to being a success in many roles. I have excellent communication and negotiation skills. I have to be clear so that the customer fully understands in which direction they are going to take next. Also by cold calling I am able to influence customers to review their existing business with us and to make changes to their banking requirements which would be beneficial to the customer and the bank.

Man Management

Directly tutoring and training new members of staff on products and services offered by the bank. Able to make direct impacts into sales and reap benefits and rewards. Adaptable to dealing with different types of people. Upskilling current members of staff on new products and keeping the team up to date on knowledge. Running team meetings and influencing performances. Also leading the team directly when management are on annual leave.

A typical day at work would involve coming into work and answering calls in order to deal with customer queries about accounts ( balances, missing cheques, bounced cheques etc) transferring money between and out of customer accounts and complaints about either service provided or dissatisfaction with a particular process that has caused an inconvenience. In dealing with the above you learn that yo have to deal with customers with a professional, friendly and polite manner no mater what the circumstances.

During the working day if there are queries and processes that need confirming the management are able to provide assistance. In some cases we are able to put forward suggestions in order to manage some given situation in order to resolve the matter.

The co workers are of great help given some have greater experience on the job and in certain cases are able to provide advice in order to help manage customer queries and concerns better in order to avoid misunderstandings.

The hardest part of the job would have to be when the customer is calling in regards to a bank error that has caused problems financially and emotionally.Financially meaning that customer has called up a few days before to request for money to be transferred and all has been agreed and it is not actioned. This then leads on to emotional distress because now customer is left in a dilemma of how having to undergo the whole process resulting in them in certain cases loosing out on a purchase (house purchase, products, business deal).

The enjoyable part is when you are able to deal with queries to the best of your ability resulting in customers recognizing and appreciating your efforts in how you have dealt with them.A realization that every customer is different and all need to be given the best service all the time regardless of the type of call is a key factor to providing a lasting impression.

•	Creative and innovative communicator, with an extensive knowledge on delivering multiple, successful communication solutions – Design of various communication channels, using a variety of traditional and digital communication platforms, to a diverse population of 1500 staff across 15 sites within the UK and 200 off shore staff, whilst ensuring operational and tactical delivery. 

•	Delivery of Communications Unification Strategy for new Business Division – Successful delivery of unification strategy of new business division, which incorporated 7 complex business populations. The unified communications and engagement strategy has successfully imbedded as part of BAU culture for the division. 

•	Successful Delivery of External UK Retail Complaint Communications – Effectively communicating to customers the various complaint channels and guidance available through: RBS and Natwest.com, Product Terms and Conditions, Marketing Material, Telephone Feedback Surveys and Customer Mailings, significantly increasing customer satisfaction.

•	Design and Implementation of UK Retail Complaints (RBS Business Division) SharePoint Site (Internal Intranet Site) – Creating a One Stop Shop for complaint handling material, allowing staff easy access to information to serve our customers more effectively, whilst achieving substantial cost and staff savings for the division. 

•     Highly experienced in building relationships with Key Stakeholders - Allowing divisional messages, projects and campaigns, to be delivered effectively and on time across the business, my ability to influence stakeholders is critical due to the reactive nature of the complaints business.  

•	High level of experience in copywriting, sub-editing, public relations, marketing, event management, media relations and the successful delivery of communications and engagement strategy in a highly demanding business environment.

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