Skybridge Americas

Skybridge positions itself as a company that cares so very deeply about its employees, constantly pointing to all the super fun things that it does. Look at this, Management cries proudly to anyone who will listen, mini golf and pizza in the lobby! What they don't tell you is that those distractions keep coming less and less frequent as the company bleeds money and loses business. As Coaches and CES' have more and more work to do, and so don't have the time to track prizes and incentives.

Skybridge makes its money by charging their clients less than anyone else is willing to work for. As a result, their margins are super slim and it is extremely easy for them to not be profitable. There is constant pressure from higher in the company. This results in a cycle of increased workload without time to develop talent creating more work resulting in increased workload, etc, etc, etc.

CES' (Call Escalation Specialists) are supposed to help phone agents. However, they have so many duties to do outside of helping agents that their backlog of pending work is huge, and then they're told to take phone calls, creating an even larger backlog. They're perpetually stressed and will take it out on front line Agents, even if they don't mean to.

Coaches aren't any better. Phone Agents are supposed to meet with their Coaches 3-4 times a month, just for general feedback, but you can go months without ever hearing a word from them and then all of a sudden you're getting a disciplinary meeting for messing something up. How are you supposed to get better if you never get regular feedback?

Agents are supposed to get reviews at six months and then annually and raises are contingent on the reviews. Except getting a review on time is the exception rather than the rule. And the review won't just get done eventually. It will get forgotten unless you constantly remind your Coach, who doesn't have time to do it because of all the other stuff Management wants them to do because the business is crumbling. AND they can't even get the information they need to do the review from Management half the time. Those Coaches are probably waiting 6-7 months to get their own review, just like you.

Pay has gone out the window. Bonuses used to come fast and frequent before the company realized how poorly it was doing. Now pay is a coin flip. Coaches do Agent pay, but the system they use to tabulate your working hours and calculate your pay is gone without a replacement. This means people are getting paid by Coaches eyeballing your schedule (if you're lucky) and glancing at attendance emails (if they're putting any effort in) before throwing your hours into an Excel file and being manually tallied. Fingers crossed they remembered you worked overtime three days in a row and had two days of vacation.

Attendance is a joke. There's a brutal point system where if you get 20 points you get fired. Except some people get disciplined the moment the go over a threshold while other people can have, literally (and I mean literally, this is not hyperbole) can have hundreds (PLURAL) of points and not ever get disciplined. Some of it's nepotism. Some of it's that no one was paying attention. Some of it's that the person would be hard to replaced. Arbitrarily enforcing their own rules like this the most telling thing about the company.

And that's the problem. It's not that there's a bad Coach or a bad CES that's causing problems or delays. It's that it's a bad company that abuses every level of its employees, that has problems which run through every level of its business. That will never fix those underlying problems because it would take too much time, time they literally can't afford because they don't make enough profit margins to take the time to properly train people and develop their talent pool.

So many good Agents have quit because they knew they were worth more than how Skybridge was treating them. So many bad Agents are able to wallow for years.

You will never be so happy as the day you find another job.

SkyBridge Americas is an outsourcer and it's important to understand that in this context. They offer contact centre services to a variety of different organisations, each typically having nothing to do with the other. 
As a Customer Service Representative (their term is "Brand Agent"), the nature of your work, and quality of your employment experience, varies depending on which of SkyBridge America's clients you are hired to answer calls (and / or emails and chats) for. Two different employees working two different organisations' customer bases can have two vastly and distinct experiences. My own experience was with a recently acquired client, so pretty much everyone involved, from call-takers to decision-makers, was still learning the ropes and it was kind of the wild wild west. The onboarding was a mixture of good and bad. Good that this organisation took pains to properly spell my name (most English-speaking employers do not, and use the tired line of "Our systems can't do that"), bad in that the recruiter dropped the ball causing me to await a future wave of hiring 3 months later before getting in. The training was classroom style, online (this was a work-from-home position) using Adobe Connect. Class size was about 8 to 10 at the start, and we lost our trainer to sickness after the first few days. Her replacement was the knowledge expert for this particular SkyBridge Americas client, and he ended up getting promoted then leaving the company shortly after our training completed. Our training "completed" by being cut off part way through because that particular day, the line up (or queue, as they say in Contact-Centre-Speak) was experiencing long wait times. By the time we were live on the phones, we had lost half our cohort for various reasons. The company waited a week before letting us know that our trainer-turned-supervisor was no longer with the company. In that week, any emails or messages we had sent to that trainer-turned-supervisor went unresponded and none of us knew why. This speaks to this organisation's internal communication and company procedures. In the day to day, CSRs would communicate in a group chat room also used by people on the management team. A lot of misinformation and inappropriate content appeared in the chat log for this room, including categories such as verbal attacks on CSRs from other CSRs, racial slurs, profanity, and wrong or unhelpful answers to questions from fellow CSRs. One of the means used to attempt to capture and make available procedural knowledge was using a free, public (and well know) cloud based solution that lets teams collaborate and view online content. They referred to it as The Manual. The way this was set up, anyone on Internet could access all of The Manual's content, without ever having needed to work for the company. As I write this, I can still see it's still completely publicly accessible. Turning aside the inherent security risks this poses, the publishers of The Manual's information lacked the skill or will to publish in such a way that the information was either useable, or sometimes even accurate. Multiple attempts to have the management team fix the formatting or the inaccurate content were required before action was taken, if it was taken at all. To end on a positive note, for all matters that touched on SkyBridge Americas in general, and not just this one sub-group servicing a particular client organisation, there appeared to be a will and effort to make it an enjoyable work experience. There were plenty of signs that there were varying degrees of competence all throughout the company. For example, every week the company would publish a ranking of which CSRs (from each of the different organisations SkyBridge America outsources for) had the best performance that week, and which CSRs were the runners up, and on any given week the list of winners and the list runners up were the same list.

I worked with skybridge for nearly 2 and a half years before leaving. Agents are great, support is helpful, and unfortunately everything else was absolutely abhorrent. I had moved my way through the company through experience and can confidently tell you that they do not value people there. You are a clog in their machine. You are disposable. 

On top of a 6 month review that was over 4 months late, the “back pay” that was paid out was immediately taxed away. So in essence, plan on working for less that what a liveable wage is because even when they give you a raise, you’re not getting it. 

Then you can talk about the fact that Roadside Assistance is considered an emergency line. We train extensively to assist in trying situations, and are paid just over minimum wage. I’ve seen people walk out in tears because they’re being yelled at over the phone, even watched people walk out for good because they are being verbally abused and the pay is not worth it. You can be employed with CAA and make nearly double. 

Management sits in their offices and wags their fingers when something goes wrong but if you are doing a genuine good job, do not expect a thumbs up from them. There is no praise, there is no recognition, there is hardly even interaction. One of the newest managers would not even introduce herself to the majority of her staff but expects a blind regime to follow her orders. 

On top of all that, there is an intense sense of double standards and an unsure culture across the floor. They provide improper training and then expect you to instantly be a professional, if you are not you are removed. They follow a points system in which termination is reached at 20 points, but also have employees that are in the 130 point range and are not let go for “excused” reasons. When bringing it up with HR they WILL belittle you. 

If you wish to keep job stability, than remain at the bottom of the totem poll. Because the moment you’re anything else, you’re forced to reapply for your job every 6 months. If you refuse, you will lose your position and be either be let go or demoted. If you - as I did - have experience in the field, it will be wiped clean and you will be nothing to them once again. 

I strongly reccomend reaching out to another call center before this one. There is a sickening culture of indifference. They do not care if you stay or go. They will use and abuse your dedication and you will leave there exhausted and upset. I even waited a month to post this review as to not let my anger with them cloud my judgement, but the more I learn the more I know that your well being does not matter to Skybridge Americas anymore and employment with them will surly lead to overwhelming stress and no money to show for it.

If you want to be taking calls back to back, answering emails, AND using the live chat all at the same time, while being berated by customers, yelled at and called names over the phone, then come work here. You need a supervisor? Too bad! There is never one a available for an escalated call, and when there is, they refuse to take the call from you until you are practically in tears from the customer and begging them to relieve you. The AMRG account will wear you down, and if that doesn't do the trick, then the additional accounts they expect you to work as well will. You are given multiple accounts to take incoming calls for, little to no time to learn them, and poor training. If you are a good worker and willing to learn, they will use you until you break, and then simply forget you even exist while taking on another victim. This happened to me. I've had plenty of supervisory positions in jobs previous, so I naturally help others. I quickly became someone to rely on, and was tasked with more and more. It felt good to be needed, relied upon. Then when my supervisor above me quit due to stress they had put him through, they turned to me. Put me in his place, and dumped so much work onto me that there was no possible way I could be expected to handle that, along with training others, helping in the chatroom, and taking numerous supervisor calls. When I no longer proved useful, or deemed I had failed at these added responsibilities, the stripped everything away and put me back to just a call taker. To go from extremely busy have to get this done, working on my days off and off time, to nothing but waiting for a call to come in, it completely broke my spirit. I was nothing but a shell of a worker. I went from feeling overwhelmed to lost in 60 seconds. The coaches are not helpful, they do not assist in the chatroom when you have questions, they expect you to do their work, and they won't take supervisor calls, always stating for you to do a call back, which never gets done. They micromanage and have superiority complex and make you feel the size of a big during their quality calls, belittling you on the smallest things you have missed or some wrong on a call. I could go on and on, but I won't. My point had been made. I DO NOT recommend working here.

I enjoyed being around the people I worked with. Would've been a lot more fun to be around, say in a different job.

I was stuck on the same account for the first 6 weeks I worked there, even though there were people hired at the exact same time I was who were working on multiple accounts in the same time period. I honestly thought I was going to be let go when the account ended. But kept being told by management that I was doing a great job and my co-workers did their best to assure me I wasn't going to get dumped.

The way I was dismissed, was, well, let's just say you don't treat your dog like that. I was finally moved over to a new account and I admittedly was struggling. Was asked to go to the HR office. Manager, HR person, shift manager & I. Was told by the manager I was being let go because I was struggling at the new account & they had nothing else for me. While I was in HR, my things were being packed up by staff. Manager wanted me to come back if they got the first account I worked on back. When he said good luck to me when I left, I wasn't going to be brought back.

The manager should be lucky he's not working in a pet grooming salon. In one utterly unbelievably classless move, he e-mails 2 local employment agencies I had helping me find work & tells them both I could do the basics of the job, but figured I was incompetent when the job became more advanced. I know this because the "consultant" at one of the agencies showed me the e-mail he had received from incompetent dolt & had the utter gall to say that he thought it was a fair job assessment.

In all honesty it was a decent place to work for about 2 months, after that the coaches and SDM became extremely rude and their attitudes completely changed. Even when you do extremely well you get talked down to as though you are less than them. Management does not appreciate their employees what so ever. One of the coaches went as far as to belittle me by calling me an idiot.

Unprofessional work environment, cubicles are always dusty and dirty. Lunches get stolen from the lunch room and the overall cleanliness of the office is extremely poor. 

The job itself is extremely easy yet stressful. A monkey could do it but the customers you have to deal with on a daily basis are some of the worst humans you will ever have to talk to. If you bring up anything about a customer mistreating you to management you get a copy and pasted paragraph that goes something like "I'm sorry you feel that way but 99% of our customers are amazing, fantastic people" ........Yeah. 

On the first week of training our trainer told us horror stories about the HR department and how a certain HR employee shares personal information about employees as public knowledge and starts rumors within the company.

Overall this place is a decent option if you literally have no other avenues to pursue, work here while looking for another job but don't overstay your welcome. Things at this workplace go downhill quickly and the people who have been there a long time seem miserable and stuck.

Oh and they'll force you to work 10 hour Mondays, with not enough time for breaks or lunch.

When I worked at Skybridge as a brand agent, I was constantly getting tired of telling my coach change my schedule I have school and the coach I was working with gave me the same answer, everyone is in the same schedule, but I have been receiving the same answer for week. Supervisors are not great either, everytime I get a sup call, my coach would not dare take it and all of a sudden Id be taking stuff from people, and everytime I ask a favour for a provider coaches be like, from where to where, how many miles, kind of service and then it take forever to make up their minds for approval. Pay wasnt bad, but you get points, if you sign out 1 min early, or sign in 1 min late, and aux codes are horrible to go to the bathroom you have to go on your un paid break time. The only thing great about this place was the pay either than that nothing was great, and when I got pulled to HR office, they removed my stuff from desk and then I had to bring it back up. I was furious, Workforce is never reliable, they have people that break your promises and do not care about anyone else  about anyone else. and on top of that Customers yell at you for their own mistakes

I’ve worked at Skybridge for a couple of years now and when I first started I recommend the company to my friends. Now that I quit I would never recommend them to anyone. Go anywhere else. Seriously.

Extremely low pay for the amount of things you are required to know/do. 

Strict attendance policy. You are given points for every occurrence (even if you are a minute late).

Have to work on holidays.

Management shows favouritism.

You can’t eat or drink at your desk (besides water). 

It feels like you’re working in a dungeon. Computers and chairs are very old.

Customers are extremely rude and you can’t talk back or hang up on them. You have to sit there and listen to them yell/scream/swear at you for hours on end.

Raises are strictly attendance based. If you have a few attendance occurrences, you will not get a raise. No matter how good you are on your calls. 

If the company upped the pay and appreciate their employees more it may be a more enjoyable place to work.

0/10. Would NOT recommend to a friend. Horrible place to work. Please, if you are considering this place, don’t.

This is the worst job I have ever worked for in my entire life. It is a work from home job , bring your own device. The application used for taking calls is old and leads to lots of technical issues and when you complain about the technical issues, the management ignores you, they don’t even respond to emails. They don’t even have sick days even if you have a doctors note and then they give 2 points each time you  call in sick. I remember when I was really sick and admitted at the hospital, I could not attend two of my shifts for the week, I got 6 points . Then received more points because of the technical issues I had with their call application, SOMETHING THAT ISNT MY FAULT. I would not recommend people work here, the management is rude , not helpful , incompetent, the only thing they are good at is firing people for no reason. They will tell you you are working full time 40 hours and then start reducing your hours and sending you home early. The supervisors are okay it’s just the horrible management that’s the problem. They don’t care about their employees. 

If you operate of GM account , then good luck with that.
You can get terminated before your shift starts,you are called in and sent back home.
You do not get a 2 weeks notice before you are released.
For this account,going to work is like going to school.
You have plenty of work to do,which is okay,then you have online quizzes to do every months,low quality scores on calls for this account will get you closer to the exit door. I've seen some favoritism,they know who to keep(even if they are poor at doing their job) and who to let go (even if you do well)
so Get ready to be terminated at any time without a 2 weeks notice;reason might be you may not be performing well or they no longer need you for the shift you have been working.

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