To think this isn't on and I have no choice but to leave

[CakeAndTea1]

I work in a firm of a solicitors handling conveyancing matters.

My company around a year ago introduced a phone system which to me is just completely ridiculous.

Essentially they have scrapped direct dials and put us all in a pool where all calls just bounce to various people in the office.

Very rarely these calls relate to a matter you are personally dealing with however we are expected to assist by looking on the system at whichever matter the caller is asking about which interrupts your own matters.

At first it was manageable. However, they have expanded so rapidly that I am taking nearly 70 calls a day on matters which have nothing to do with me.

It's not about feeling that this is below me or anything like that. But I find it really hard to work on my own things whilst being constantly interrupted to deal with other people's matters. Add to that the fact we are now absolutely berated if we don't answer all calls to our phone and have even started receiving emails to say 'CakeandTea you have been away from your desk for 15 minutes can you explain why and go back in the phone pool please'.

I am trying to run my own cases and manage my own clients expectations and do actual legal work which takes concentration. I'm making mistakes and missing things because of this and it's causing me stress.

However, they will not see it. There has been a surge of people handing in their notices recently and one of the management essentially told another member of staff that they will happily 'manage people out if they don't like how we do things'.

AIBU to think this is not an efficient way to run a business or a fair way to treat your staff. I've been loyal to this place for a long time but I feel like they have changed their attitude towards us so drastically recently.

[MummytoCSJH]

The worst part is my firm worked in personal injury so we actually had a call centre for contact with clients and insurers so no idea where they got the idea that anybody and everybody should be answering calls and directing them. Similarly to you they started checking how long we'd spent off the phone/away from desks - regardless of whether we were in an actual meeting, speaking to a solicitor, getting tea or going to the toilet.

[kikisparks]

I’m a solicitor and I couldn’t work like that! You’re essentially a receptionist. They need to get some reception staff to field the calls and let their fee earners do some work or they are not going to make any money.

[cakecakecheese]

I've had this, people who don't actually do the work making sweeping decisions about stuff without a clue about how it actually will affect our day to day work. If people are leaving over it then clearly it's not just you having issues with this and no add to the frustration no one higher up is listening. Maybe you should see if one of them will come and sit with you and see what you actually have to deal with. Other than that though look for another job and mention why you're leaving at your exit interview.

[CakeAndTea1]

TeeniefaeTroon no not based in Scotland!

It makes me mad because essentially it's my name that clients have and my reputation. Instead of saying 'Oh x firm of solicitors is shit' the client thinks 'Oh CakeandTea is a shit conveyancer'. I'm not. But I don't have capacity to do my job properly.

[SuperSuperSuper]

It sounds like a tinpot outfit. Start looking around, OP.

[CakeAndTea1]

MummytoCSJH it's so demotivating isn't it. I fear this is the type of direction a lot of larger firms are starting to take.

they did hire 3 telephone progressors to just answer phones a while back but it's made no difference as they keep expanding and people keep leaving so when they say they've hired more phone help, they are just replacing the ones that have left.

[DamnWhyAreAllTheUsernamesTaken]

Conveyancers are in huge demand at the minute - contact a few recruiters and find something else, your situation sounds ridiculous!

[TeeniefaeTroon]

Are you based in Scotland? There's a firm I have to contact frequently who do this and it drives me crazy not getting through to the right person when I call. I recommend our clients not to use this firm.

[CakeAndTea1]

Will try to answer some questions:

It was originally brought in because we let too many calls go to voicemail apparently. I can't speak for everyone but I know I for one, whenever I did leave a call to voicemail, would allocate a time in the day to go through them and call back. To me I think it's a bit unrealistic to expect to speak to your solicitor/conveyancer every single time you call. Sometines we will need to call you back and I always tried to make sure I did same day.

We do have a reception but when someone calls through to them they literally just plonk them through to the pool so they still don't get who they asked for resulting in me getting an angry client saying they asked for x and asking whether the lady on reception explained why they called. So I then have to take all the details they've just given to reception.

Some days I literally do nothing but answer the phone and reply to emails. I have been in tears before now because the phone just keeps going. They have locked all the volume of the ringer too so you can't even turn it down. I assume to prevent you from being able to ignore it.

Myself and numerous colleagues have spoken to management and it's never resolved. We're now simply told it's the job.

I imagine it originally formed part of the service agreements we had with some introducers that all calls should be answered but to me there has to be a better way to do it. We got told that we had to answer within three rings originally but that never really got into practice.

The only time you are allowed out is if you're covering for someone else whilst they are on holiday i.e looking after their case load as well as yours including their emails etc...

[GU24Mum]

It sounds awful from both your perspective and for the clients too. Unfortunately though the choices are put up with it or go elsewhere - or hope someone sees sense in the interim but I suspect that's unlikely....

[MummytoCSJH]

This exact thing happened to me. I was a paralegal. Not only was it taking time away from my own work which annoyed the solicitors but it ran me into over time when I was meant to work 9-5. Of course, I always stayed late to get my work done by choice anyway, but the point is I was doing an extra 5-8 hours a week unpaid and still not managing to get all my simple paperwork done. If I was talking to somebody I couldn't leave until they ended the call - if I was unlucky enough to get another call straight through I still couldn't go home, I had to deal with the issue which often had nothing to do with the group of solicitors I assisted. I could never get through to anyone I wasn't directly involved with because they had no clue who I was! I was told 'this job is what you signed up to' I absolutely did not sign up to work in a call centre!! So I left.

[DancingForTheDog]

How ridiculous, you can't work efficiently under those conditions. If you've brought this up and been brushed off and if management are actively saying if you don't toe the line they will manage you out, I think you have little option but to leave. I wonder what effect this call pooling is having on client feedback? Most people prefer consistency with complex matters such as conveyancing and to know the person they are speaking to is familiar with and up to speed with their case. We've used Premier Property Lawyers a couple of times and if our allocated conveyancer wasn't available it was always too much hassle to go through everything with someone unfamiliar with our case, so I always requested our chap to call me back. You can't win unfortunately, when someone high up has a patently ridiculous brilliant idea to increase turnover, they will stick with it no matter what the fall-out.

[BarbaraofSevillle]

Personally I am very put off using companies who can't give me a direct number

Direct numbers to a direct person only work if they are at their desk most of the time. We tried direct lines but it didn't work because people in my job typically spend 1-2 days out visiting clients and 1-2 days in meetings or at training events. So we are only at our desks for about half the week on average if that.

[BarbaraofSevillle]

The situation is ridiculous. if you're answering 50-70 calls a day, you have hardly any time to do anything else. It's well documented that even a short phone call interruption to deskwork takes 10-15 minutes out of your concentration/thinking time.

The person who came up with this policy is an idiot. I assume they've done this because they think they can do without a receptionist or two? And possibly some people whose job it is to deal with quick/non techical queries like whether or not something has been dealt with?

If you're dealing with 50-70 calls a day, and you have colleagues also in this position, it stands to reason that you need an admin team to answer simple or administrative queries that don't need a lawyer to deal with and to field calls to the correct person. It's a waste of resources for higher paid people to be dealing with basic queries on top of their own work. It's also compleletly stupid for everyone to be answering each other's clients routinely.

Agree with the suggestion to ask customers to complain. Customers generally value being quickly put through to the same named person each time, who knows about their case straight away.

[MaverickSnoopy]

What's the business rationale behind this? Is it because calls were going unanswered and so the mindset is that this way someone will pick up? If so would they consider a divert system, where is person x is unavailable then it goes to person y as a back up. Although I'm not sure if that would entirely help you.

Personally I am very put off using companies who can't give me a direct number.

[ButtPlugInMyHalloweenHaul]

Wow no. YANBU. So much of your job is getting to know the minutiae fo your cases that this system must wreck your head.
Just because they are management doesn't mean they can manage though does it?
I have a good friend that works in a branch of a very well known large company. The management left one by one for better jobs and due to the location and other issues the head office struggled to replace them. No one at the sharp end applied for a management role and this encouraged one of the warehousemen to apply. Crazily he was given the job but he had never actually worked on the shop floor and had no clue how the actual work was done, knew nothing about the machines etc. My friend has worked there 11 years and knows the place inside out and yet she is being managed by someone that has no clue how to manage people or do the job and it is causing massive issues.
Just because your management is called that OP it might be titulary only!

[LittleBookofCalm]

Can you take note of how many calls you receive and the result and the time?

[JW13]

As you say you're doing legal work I presume you're a solicitor or conveyancer/legal exec. As a solicitor I say run for the hills! There's no way you can focus on drafting documents when you're stopping and starting to answer the phone on matters you aren't even working on! Your management are crazy and it's a negligence claim waiting to happen. I wouldn't want you working on my property transaction in those circumstances! I'm relatively senior and will answer colleagues phones and take messages if they're away from their desk (I don't think it's beneath me!) but I couldn't do it 50-70 times a day. I'd get nothing done and I'm too busy as it is. Your bosses are completely unreasonable.

[DidIEatThat]

As a client, that sounds stupid. If I called your office I'd expect the number provided to a) go through to reception who'd direct my call, with no comment on my case. Or b) go through to my actual solicitor. Or c) their assistant / secretary who could give me a non complex update or pass on a message for me.

I can't imagine a solicitors work is a quick 5 min email or outbound call to resolve after every phone call. It sounds like a call centre not a solicitors office.

Why have they put in place? Has there been clients complaining that their solicitor is never free to take their call, so now they have a "everyone answers everything" policy.

Also are all your colleagues taking 70 calls a day. How are any of you getting any work done? I don't even take 70 and I work in a call centre.

[CakeAndTea1]

FenellaMaxwellsPony no, I'm not a solicitor but I run my own conveyancing matters. Or I am a 'fee earner' in other words.

[CakeAndTea1]

TheFatberg we get told that complaints are not our responsibility and to pass them to management if we can't handle.

[GinIsIn]

When you say you work in conveyancing matters, is that in an admin capacity?

[CakeAndTea1]

I did see that other thread, it's not me but it did make me write this one as I saw some similar things there.

I have definitely not resigned via text or anything like that.

[CakeAndTea1]

Apparently it came about because we were allowing too many calls to go to voicemail when we had direct dials. So now they've scrapped voicemail too so the calls bounce around until someone answers.

It's all calls as well so clients, estate agents, other Solicitors, lenders etc... They get quite frustrated when they speak to a new person all the time.

I can't speak for everyone but I think 50-70 is the norm for most of the people I speak with. Which on your own matters may be manageable but when you're having to come out of what your doing, put down that lease you've been trying to read through for an hour etc... To look up someone else's matter to update someone you've never spoken to it's very very disruptive and I can sometimes be getting another call before I've even properly got back into what I'm doing.

They have a system that monitors how many you take and how many you miss, how long you're away from your desk etc... So it all gets brought up if you miss too many or step away from your desk for more than ten minutes.

Admittedly I've started replying with a bit of sarcasm saying I was in the toilet having a shit (not those actual words but you see what I mean!) and things of that sort. But I've got so fed up of being watched like big brother! I'm an adult professional woman, I don't want someone monitoring how long I'm in the bog for!

They started asking us to set our phones to certain codes if we were getting up i.e. 'comfort break' for the toilet. We all refused.

[LadyLaSnack]

There was a not altogether dissimilar thread about this yesterday in a surveyor’s office. The OP felt strongly enough about it to leave:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3395134-AIBU-about-job