Friday 20th June 2008

Dear Mr Munro,

Further to our telephone call earlier today, here is my observation in writing.

I am a temp worker with 'Reed Employment' in Hammersmith and have undertaken assignments with Direct Response in the past.
The most recent being this week which was cut short as it was decided that my services were not up to scratch.

This surprised me, as I am generally considered at least 'Average' or better.

The reason that was given for my assignment being cancelled was that my number of 'Completes' and my conversion rate average, were well below par.

It is my belief that the measuring system that you are using is fatally flawed, and I will explain.

On my last evening with Direct Response, which was Wednesday 18th June 2008, I made a total of 118 calls, and came into contact with a cosmic number of answering machines.
At the end of the evening the girl next to me remarked that she had counted about 20 answering machines, I thought to myself 'your lucky' I must have had more than that in the last hour alone. The customer services operative has no control over that.

To measure someone's complete rate in relation to the total calls made gives a distorted view, as it is a total lottery as to whether or not you get a 'Live Contact' as opposed to an answering machine or some other negative outcome.

Getting lots of negative end results when you dial up also reduces the amount of time left to you to get more of the positive ones.

You would get a far truer picture of a person's application, ability, and conversion rate, if you only measured them in relation to the number of 'Live Contacts' made. And even then it will still be a bit of a lottery.
Application means total calls made to measure if a person is keeping busy.
Conversion rate should measure their effectiveness as a communicator, from 'Live Contacts' made, and as I have stated above it will still be a lottery, but a less brutal one.

The broader the time period used to measure someone's effectiveness and application the more accurate it will be, except in very blatant cases, a few hours is not enough.

In addition, because of 'Problems' with the new software being used, I and no doubt others, frequently had to wait a long time for the screen display to go to the correct page, or close the programme and restart again. During the evening I had to do this many times, I was counting but gave up after it reached 14 times in the first part of the evening, I brought this to the attention of Ms Stephanie Hand. It was a similar story the day before.
More productive time lost.

The software problem is especially important, as Mr Gillimore has introduced a bonus system, which means that the operatives are now operating in a competitive environment, they are chasing money.

This new bonus system came as a surprise to me. Because Direct Response sells itself on the quality of what it does, motivating people towards quantity at the possible expense of this quality, may not turn out to be the best of ideas.

Yours Faithfully
Sean Bryson

48 Tavistock Road
Notting Hill
London W11 1AW

Email qwerty451@hotmail.com

Mr James Munro replied to this email, in which he told me that he would be forwarding it to the relevant people, and said that he hoped that I would get some 'feedback'
Alas, I did not get any.
In addition, the shifts at Direct Response were just three hours long, so I was not slacking.

On Thursday the 18th of September 2008 I contacted Ms Ellen Wright at Reed Employment concerning future work with Reed.
I said to Ms Wright "It looks as though I will not be getting any more work with Reed"
Ms Wright replied with a very decisive "No"

So I asked Ms Wright to cash up my account with Reed.