It’s 5:38 PM Friday and it's avail. Thank goodness it's avail. For the past few weeks, we have been bombarded by calls about the latest website protocol that is mandated by EU for all websites offering credit card payments.
It's my 9th month on this account and is my 1st UK account. We handle the support for a UK-based merchant payment facility which is very similar to Shopify. So merchants apply for our service with a number from their banks.
This merchant number is then integrated on our system and we provide merchant a website for their developer to get the codes for their website. Once the code is on the merchant's website, whenever their customers enter their CC information, it is evaluated and verified using biometrics, password and other security.
The closest version of this is the Philippines is probably PayMongo. Although in the UK, it's just the 3 major CC -- Visa, MasterCard and Amex. No such thing as e-Wallet like GCash. Other options that our customers / merchants have is the use of an Online Terminal and Pay by Link on mobile phones.
What I don't like about the company is that there's no free dependent. You have to enroll your dependent to an HOM at 2.6k/month. The HMO is also not available unless you're regularized. The thing that I like about the current company is the voluntary retirement and the 11+ VLs that can be availed upon regularization.
The account just celebrated its 1st year so the process is still constantly changing. They just started integrating QA in the calls. We don't have First Call Resolution (FCR) or Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSAT). We also don't have Average Handling Time (AHT) but the calls are fairly short.
We do handle emails though. We allot about 30 minutes to 1 hour of our time answering emails. Most of the changes that we initiated on the merchant's account is initiated by email because we need to have the request documented.
Most of my calls are about:
-Password reset
-Transfer calls to customer service regarding bills payment, physical terminal support and online viewing of their invoices
-Whitelisting IP and URLs
-Enabling the security protocol on their account
-Searching for failed transactions (merchants can view it on their end through the provided website)
-Adding additional contact person on the account.
-Referring website developers to the company's developer website which contains the scripting and coding guides
Our office is at the Trinoma area and our training was on-site. After the training, it coincided with the ECQ around September 2021. We only returned to the office last April 1 as mandated by the government. Working onsite is more expensive because I always have my lunch at McDonalds and meryenda at Ministop. However, it's more fun seeing my colleagues face to face, errr I mean, facemask to facemask.
Since the implementation of ECQ in Metro Manila, the company provided van service to agents even up to now that the Alert Level in Metro Manila is 1. I'm from Pasig and there's a pick-up point opposite Jollibee Rotonda that takes us back to the office and back.
Britain time is about 8 hours behind the Philippines. So my shift starts at 3 PM to 12 AM (DST time). This is considered mid-shift in the call center industry. We still have time to sleep like the rest of the population. Travel to the office, even if I commute via MRT, is light because it's not yet rush hour. Going home from the office at 12 MN is a different story though.
Over-all, I'm enjoying my stay at this UK account and I'm hoping to finish the minimum stay of 5 years to be able to get the Retirement Benefit.
