Call Centre - put through to handler WFH

People on here are bonkers. Of course this is not OK. This person's home is their place of work and a loud dog is NOT OK. (It's not like during COVID when we were all making WAH up as we went along.)

That's me told 😂

During lockdown I had a meeting with a co-worker who had her bird, (I have no idea what kind), perched on her shoulder. The bird lunged for the camera and startled the shit out of me. For a co-worker it was fine, but if I had a been a client, it would have been inappropriate. I have no idea if she kept the bird in its cage during meetings with clients.

Whilst I am sure the change to policy happened smoothly in the end, the dog barking makes the setup feel unprofessional. I would wonder to what kind of company I was handing over my money.

I remember calling someone who was WFH and all I could hear in the background was "Mummy I need a poo!" I complained as IMO the child should not have been there during work hours.

it isn’t
so best to ignore that poster

Really don’t see how that’s comparable.

People should be perfectly capable of wfh and having a dog at home (albeit it should be kept quiet or away from working space). Totally different to looking after a child.

As long as the call was handled and my query was dealt with, can’t say I’d bother complaining.

When I wfh and make or receive calls, my parrot will start calling out very loudly. I usually move him to another room but on occasion when I don’t, the other person is fascinated by the parrot screeching and forgets what it was they were talking about and are only interested in what type of parrot he is, does he talk, what does he say. No one has ever remonstrated with me about it.

i agree it doesn’t look professional to have any domestic background noise though

I agree that it's unprofessional to have constant interruptions when talking to the public/clients etc but as shown on here people seem to think that as long as the work is "done eventually" it shouldn't matter how bad the service is. But the problem is these things will just get worse and start affecting more services.
So it's a dog barking on an insurance call. Then as someone else said an IT bloke having a row with his wife. What if you rang your GP and you were finally discussing your awful crippling depression or your embarrassing bowel issues but the GP had to keep interrupting to deal with their upset child or you could hear Judge Judy ranting in the background? I mean surely as long as you eventually get your prescription or get referred to whatever it doesn't matter then? And if that's the case maybe GPs should just bring their child to work with them and play in the corner of the surgery all day. Or have a tv playing with their favourite show so they can relax better at work.

The point is really that by allowing and ignoring small interruptions at first, it starts to get worse. Well it was only a dog barking becomes only a child crying. Its only "unimportant" services like energy/ car insurance so why does it matter can soon people health insurance claims (where you might be calling upset about cancer diagnoses treatment etc) and health care professionals dealing directly with patients.

Once you start accepting poor service from some places it often becomes the norm and more and more acceptable for everything.

I agree. It was different during lockdown when many of us had never WFH before and had makeshift home offices/work areas. By now we should all expect a level of professionalism.

Or don't have dogs that don't recognise simple commands like 'shut the fuck up'.

Yes, that dog will have overheard all the OP's personal details...

That's really taking the proverbial. Managers should be making regular calls to check up on this sort of thing, and any indication that the call handler is not working from suitable premises or not taking the job seriously should be dealt with by withdrawing WFH privileges.

I do. Thank you.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5113035-woman-complained-to-manager-about-dd?page=1

i’m guessing @Arewealljustloosingtheplot doesn’t WFH and is green with envy of those that do!

Would people be this blase about it if it was a small child making noise?

can you link to that thread?

Working from home is fine-great for me actually, but it's not appropriate if you don't have a suitable environment to work from.

Our call centre works from home twice a week. Ideally you wouldn’t have dogs barking but life happens

Well in fairness, mumsnet just handed a poster's arse to them when she said her dd was complained about in McDonald's for not talking to the customer face to face.

Working in customer services, you need to pay attention and have a quiet workspace at home. A barking dog, though probably can't be helped, should not be present if you need to work on the phone.

Put the dog in another room. The call worker was not being paid to mind their dog.

yes, its terrible.

Totally against GDP-GRRRRRRRRR

It's annoying, but as long as she made the change you asked for, I'd say it's excusable.

There are plenty of professionals (including medical professionals) who have full access to your records at home so I don’t really see the problem with this.