customer service representative

member services representative

member experience specialist

relationship manager

customer specialist

Coast Capital Savings

Although many might consider the computer operator job to be boring and monotonous I quite liked it. It was challenging, detail oriented, and I learned so much within so little time while I was employed there. The typical workday consisted of managing a phone queue while also processing over 250 unique tasks and monitoring the various systems that make the organization tick.

The team I worked with was excellent. There were a total of 7 team members who all worked opposing shifts. Even though I did not work with them directly it was really important for the whole team to accurately and clearly communicate changes in processes and ongoing issues..

One of the hardest parts of the job was the night shift. As an operator you are required to switch between day and night shifts every week. The shifts are 12 hours long and they can get very quiet and boring. It was important to keep self motivated!

The best part about my job as an operator was working with a whole bunch of different computers and systems. From unix command lines to windows server to powershell and sharepoint. There were so many things to learn and I am always happy to do so.

Too many levels of management and red tape. Say one thing, ie. they promote well being of employees, but not reflective in the lack of support when lines are long, resources are unavailable and staffing is short. Very performative when it comes to their “values”, tend to pander to what’s politically correct at the time without it seeming very genuine. They say they are all about helping people, however they just want you to make a sale. 

Hiring is a mess, especially with the front lines. Training is pushed to go faster, not necessarily to promote what’s best for the employee. Promotions are based on who they like, not necessarily who the best person is for the role. Learned that this is how things go so used that. 

Benefits are good if you are full time, and as long as you are a “yes person” and don’t speak your mind, you can go far. They don’t like questions on processes or policies. Keep your mouth shut, do the job and you will be ok. 

When I was hired at Coast Capital Savings, I was met with a branch in disarray. The Assistant Manager had taken what seemed like an extended "sick leave" — essentially early retirement — within my first week, and the Branch Manager was rarely present. This left me with little support and ultimately led me to request a transfer to another branch within the first week of employment.

Unfortunately, the issues didn’t stop there. Human Resources appeared under-resourced and lacked the necessary training to effectively support staff. Their approach to management and training felt outdated, which only added to the already challenging environment.

Given my experience, I would not recommend Coast Capital Savings to anyone looking for a stable work environment or the opportunity to progress in a banking career. The lack of support, leadership, and proper resources made it clear that the company is not conducive to professional growth

Fortunate for those uneducated, highschool drop outs, teenage pregnancies are predominant in this department. Most people that work in EPMO don't even have any higher education, yet they will think they think they know better than anyone else. Some have never worked for anyone else only because no one in their right mind would hire them, so they stick at Coast until they die. A person can work in the call center one day and next day turn into a BA or a PM with no skills required just because the manager favours them. 

In short, this place promotes people based on preferential treatement and even the Directors and VPs are worst I have seen in any industry. You can manage a $10 mil project and outright fail, but you will never get fired. It's the Coast policy they call it, can't fire if you are an employee.

Hours are reasonably flexible, and it's largely up to you to decide if you want to WFH/remote 100% or be in the office. The architecture team is fairly large and the practice of enterprise and solution architecture is quite mature compared to many other organizations. Management tends to be very supportive; there's ample opportunities to work hard and get advancement and no shortage of interesting projects and programs. There's also mergers and acquisitions so it's an opportunity to flex the consultant/business architecture muscle if you have some. 

The work culture is indeed very good at this credit union. 

Epmo is supposed to be the supporting function within the organization, but its leadership team runs on the accomodation of power, self serving agendas and ego. 

Team members have full intention to deliver good work for the company - executing projects and assessing business needs, but the leadership team acts as the bottleneck to prevent the team from doing progressing. 

For example, while the team focuses on moving the process forward with partners and vendors, leadership regularly trash talk and demands pointless respect from them. The middle management and HR embraces the leadership’s bullying tactic and they are not helpful at all. It’s quite a sad situation.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Interaction with staff, meeting a variety of customers & their family. Head office was always pleasant & helpful. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Like any banking facility, when very busy month end, possible computers go down. However staff & management always pulled together to make it work. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Excellent, variety of customers from all over the world. You learn how to help them, how to talk to them so they understand their options. 


What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Start at 8 am, work till 5, lots of interaction with coworkers & customers. You get to know them all. Always be polite, in the long run, customers & co workers who can be a bit prickly, they come around & change their attitudes.

I worked there for over 18 years.  The first 13 years were great then the culture got messy.  Too many Managers were giving the few staff a boatload of unrealistic expectations.  There were several inadequate, clumsy software systems that made  the actual work very hard.  Not enough genuine support was there when needed.  Proper training to do the work was anemic.  There were endless meetings about "sales" and gaining business but not enough planning of how to gain expected business and the computer systems, policies and procedures were deplorable.  Many RM /Account Managers found the admin very time consuming and overly complicated.  Most staff felt there was no focus on building their financial knowledge so they could deliver on the promise of great financial advice.        

They care about their people and invest a lot of time and $ in training their employees.   It's a fun place to work and everyone is super friendly and helpful - you frequently see managers joking around with their teams.  I also like that they give so much back to the local community and give everyone a paid volunteer day.

Some of their systems are outdated but management has lots of plans to update to the latest and greatest tech,  and they provide tons of training and coaching to help.

Sometimes the pace can be pretty crazy but I love the excitement of working on some really cool projects.  If you like getting things done and working with a good group of people, highly recommended.

Pros: 
good entry level job to move up in company
friendly work environment 
Ok benefits
CONS:
Company is definitely moving away from its "credit union vibe" of helping members to "big banking just make the company more money vibe" 
Absolute worst training experience
Expected to complete learning modules from the frontline which is near impossible when there is a constant line up of members
Never enough staff/coverage so will be lined up out the door with grumpy members
Expected to make referrals and book appointments from cet group of grumpy members 
Overworked managers that are too busy to help their staff when needed 
Which in turn creates more unhappy members closing accounts and moving their business elsewhere
Numerous members of 
upper management have left CCS for other financial institutions
Need I continue...





Top Job Titles	Average salary
Customer service representative 12 salaries reported	$24.30 per hour
Member services representative 40 salaries reported	$24.41 per hour
Member experience specialist 45 salaries reported	$61,516 per year
Relationship manager 24 salaries reported	$71,879 per year
Customer specialist 26 salaries reported	$61,048 per year

Working at Coast Capital Savings: company overview and reviews

Coast Capital Savings

Coast Capital Savings ratings

Popular jobs at Coast Capital Savings

Salary satisfaction

Job seeker tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected