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Could I lose my job?

Will I lose my job? I am very worried. I received a complaint about my work from a member of the public. I made mistakes I admit that. I got a meeting with my manager next week to discuss it. In my role we do get complaints. Now I am worried that I may get others and get fired

(edited 4 months ago)

Reply 1

TiBFS

Have you known anyone else you've worked with get fined before?

I guess you've just improved the business case for bringing in AI but unless you're on a warning then losing your job in the short term seems unlikely.

Quady?

Universities Forum Helper

It's unlikely you'd be dismissed in a first incident situation unless gross misconduct occurred, and just getting a complaint wouldn't necessarily imply gross misconduct had occurred (if you physically attacked a customer or stole from the employer or something though then maybe). Usually the point of the meeting is to go over things and document them - and then they have a record in case it happens again. If it happens several times then you might get fired.

If you're particularly concerned about the situation that led to this meeting (since you haven't provided much info) you may want to see if you can speak with your local Citizen's Advice Bureau about it. But if it was just a "human error" type situation which led to customer dissatisfaction I think they'd have a hard time dismissing you without giving you a case to bring to an employment tribunal.

Reply 4

TiBFS

Original post by Thislife100121

Quady?

Reply 5

Picnicl

If you swear in anger at a customer, you can be fired instantly. Even if the customer swore at you first. Reason being that the customer's feelings about the company/staff they're buying a service from should be allowed to be known, ideally in a less blunt way but, in effect, the customer's feelings are king. A company should never have negative feelings about one of its customers, unless that customer is personally threatening the safety of staff. The most negative you should secretly think is 'How can I amicably end this conversation as soon as possible whilst having resolved any reasonable requests from the customer to the best of my/our abilities, and hopefully making that customer feel better about our company, me, or even about themselves e.g. if that customer is happier about company that customer is going to be happier about their own decision making in choosing our company?' If a customer badly swears at you, either accept it or ask them to rephrase. You can even ask them why they said it or to subtly insinuate that you're hurt if it was that bad. But never swear back. A company that cares about its staff might allow you to hang up immediately in such a case. Or to insist that you put them on hold (while hoping that they hang up whilst you're telling your manager what has been said to you).

All that said, if you're talking about having made a mistake, a deliberate 'mistake' that benefitted you by avoiding an awkward conversation with the customer can be grounds for any repetition of a similar scenario, or even that existing scenario, resulting in a final warning or even dismissal. Immediate dismissal is never off the table if your actions have been cynical towards the best intentions of the customer in a way that goes again department or company policy.

A genuine mistake is still a failing compared to the best kind of handling (from the customer's and/or the company's view) and the company should want to identify what, if anything, gave you reasonable cause to make that unfortunate mistake, what can be done to avoid it happening again, and to let you know what repercussions there would be if that mistake, or a similar mistake, happens again.