George Gazzard

As an Overrides Agent, this was the peak of my time with the RAC. My main responsibilities consisted of running a real-time support chat across all working hours providing support to 1000s of our on-floor phone agents ranging from our Renewals and Retention department, our Sales department and our Outbound department. The Overrides team was only a very small team of 3 people including myself, meaning we were dealing with numerous time-sensitive queries at once all while completing our other responsibilities which I will detail further shortly. This role was only available to people who were extremely knowledgeable in RAC's terms and conditions, inner processes and all intricacies of the business, requiring quick responses to questions, and being able to carry out processes only available to employees with higher access such as myself. Another large responsibility I had as an Overrides Agent was our monthly Short-Call Audits. This consisted of listening to our phone agent's short calls, to assess whether there was any call avoidance, call termination or incorrect processes being followed on short calls. I would have to listen to 10 short calls per agent, flagging any that came up as incorrect such as an agent hanging up on a member, or transferring them to an incorrect department, and arranging for their manager to be able to feed this back to the agent with all appropriate information being provided by myself. This led thousands of calls being listened to each month within a strict deadline to ensure customer's were receiving the best experience when calling the RAC. Another main responsibility I had was our Potential Fail Call backs. Whenever an agent had a call where they did not cover all information required via our script, it became a Potential Fail, requiring myself or another Overrides Agent to call the member back and rectify the mistake, such as asking if the vehicle that had been added on to the policy, was registered to the home address, which if not, would mean the cover had been mis-sold. These were extremely important to complete as call Fails can impact a colleague's bonus, a manager's bonus and cause customer detriment as well as a negative reputation for the business. Another main responsibility I had was being solely responsible for our Fail to Cancel call retrievals, as the Overrides team had access to listen to agent's calls, our Outbound team would submit numerous examples where they would suspect a previous agent of failing to cancel a policy under the customer's request. It was my job to listen to these calls, investigate whether I believed it to be a Failure to Cancel a policy or if the correct process was followed, and in the case of it being a Failure to Cancel, directly feeding this back to the agent so they understood what process they didn't follow, and how to correct this in future calls as to avoid customer detriment. This job really improved my multi-tasking skills as I was often performing 3 tasks at once and having to allocate certain parts of my day to ensure tasks received the appropriate amount of care and ensuring they were completed within our allocated timeframes as to not effect colleagues, managers and customers. Being on a team of 3 people really helped emphasise the importance of teamwork and correct communication with my fellow Overrides Agents to ensure work was being completed accurately and within our deadlines.

As a Web Chat Agent, my main responsibility was helping customers via our website's live web chat function. I was selected for this role due to my vast knowledge gained during my time in the Renewals and Retention department and my skills at quickly being able to gain rapport with a customer and deliver outcomes that benefitted both the customer, and the business. The biggest change from being a phone agent to being a Web Chat Agent was dealing with more than one customer at once, often having 5-10 active web chats at any given time, with a range of different queries and processes such as trying to retain members who wanted to cancel, renewing policies, making mid-term changes and answering any questions customers had about our services. This multi-tasking that I managed to develop helped me later get my role as an Overrides Agent when the Web Chat role was dissolved due to the company's license on the software used, running out.

I initially joined the RAC as an 18 month Apprentice achieving my Customer Service Practioner (Level 4) Qualification during my role as a Renewals and Retentions Agent. After this 18 month apprenticeship finished and I received my qualification, RAC decided to keep me on as a permanent employee in the Renewals and Retentions department. My main responsibility in this job was answering customer's calls, mainly focusing around the renewal and cancellation of their policy, but still dealing with mid-term changes, queries and complaints. This job gave me a vast amount of knowledge as my first full-time job at 17, where I quickly learnt how to build a rapport and deliver satisfying outcomes to both customers and the business.

This was my first experience working part-time as I finished college. My main responsibility was being out on the floor, helping customers with questions and helping them find the products they need, also offering recommendations I found applicable to their individual needs. I feel this job belongs on my CV as it taught me a lot about working as a team, and generally how a working enviroment can go, helping move me from just a student, to someone who can effectively work in a team and put customer's needs above my own.