Machine-generated automation and statistics are trusted over people - Customer Service Executive Booking.com Employee Review

All your calls are recorded. ALL of them. Customer service executives are encouraged to put - and keep - callers on hold, because it benefits the statistics (not the customers, or actual solution quality). The organisation prides itself for being young, and in that culture some people in leadership positions forget or simply fail to treat employees as adults. The immature culture this breeds starts grating after a while, especially when you find yourself spoken to like a child, or feeling unsupported as a member of staff in times of need (calling in sick 3 times in a year leads to disciplinary meetings and possible dismissal, even to employees getting injured in accidents or suffering from cancer). A lack of mature people combined with extreme focus on processing as many calls as quickly as possible does not benefit high-quality, genuinely empathetic customer service. The first few weeks in customer service, when you're still in training, you'll feel supported and coached. After that, you get reminded of your performance stats almost daily, which feels like doom hanging over you all throughout your six months (or more!) probation. Personal use of company computers is understandably restricted, but you are expected to fill up your personal smartphone with all the apps the company pushes on you to monitor your schedule and keep up with internal news and updates, and keep up with your team's group WhatsApp. You're expected to show this loyalty and commitment to the company, but the company doesn't show much of it back - it just thinks it does, by way of posting inspirational quotes on Facebook for Work and covering offices in posters for endless in-work and after-work events.