Working as an account manager in the fraud department at Discover (“charge verification group” as they call it) was a nightmare. First off, pay was lower than the competition, and while benefits were decent (pto, health insurance and 401K), at the end of the day, you weren’t paid enough to rise above the poverty line. Nepotism and cronyism are rampant and you’ll often see new hires that “mysteriously” breeze through the promotion process by quickly and undeservedly moving up without having actually achieved anything (other than being well-connected).
At Discover, toeing the line and being a yes-man is valued and rewarded over being an independent thinker and over coming up with innovative ways of doing things and improving the company. Daring to rock the boat there by trying to offer useful ideas, means you’re guaranteed to either get fired or that you’ll be stuck in the same position for years with no chance of advancement. As an account manager in the fraud department, you’re always made to feel you’re not good enough, you’re not meeting enough stats, and your coworkers are always better and more productive than you. This cruel, counterproductive psychological game of “you’re not good enough for us” is callously played by management so coworkers are constantly pitted against each other in order to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of them, and you, the little guy at the bottom of the pecking order, get little or nothing in return. Thus, the rat race, with you, th
ProsDecent benefits
ConsLow pay, high stress and pressure, no job security, poor management, no upward mobility
Discover Financial Services used to be a great place to work. I used to love coming into work. Many of the employees would work hard and still find time to socialize with each other. We had many contests and free food. It was kind of like a big family, but I guess when Discover wasn’t booking as many accounts as they wanted to, they decided to change up on their employees.
The biggest complaint was with quality. They kept changing the scripting and adding unnecessary things to ask the customers, making the calls longer. Plus, they were getting so knit picky and taking points off for every itty bitty “mistake” an analyst made. Because of the sudden change, I just knew they hired someone new for the quality team and after talking with some of the team leaders, I found out that was true.
They kept giving out surveys and asking us for our ideas and opinions. Many of us had a lot to say and brought it up… BUT NO CHANGE! Plus, they have a website that you can submit ideas to called Innovations, but you no longer get money for them, instead they make you wait four months for a response and the response is really short and generic. I have experienced this. Plus, others who I have spoken with said that they were lied to when they received a response for their innovation. Many said all they got was “it was already in the works” then not too long after they got their response, it was implemented. Another big complaint that was discussed amongst the employees was the lack of communicat
I enjoyed working with Discover and was with them for two years. Due to a disability (which they were very flexible with previously) and very poor management, I lost my job and feel I am now unfairly barred from getting another job at the company. The convoluted process just to get my belongings back was very frustrating and inconvenient, not to mention having to wait at a gate on not being able to stop in as a normal visitor.
Working in other call centers, you realize that despite still requiring a lot of reform, Discover has made several steps to be better than other employers in creating a better working environment. I was always learning new things in my department, moving around with a few advancement opportunities that I felt were plentiful until my last position that was supposed to be a stepping stone for promotion but ended up being the position with less opportunities than any other position I had with the company previously.
Of course, the hard part of customer service is dealing with customers, especially in collections, where there were some unfair expectations that would literally always be firing employees because they weren't making as much as their peers even though payment was largely based on the luck of the draw of calls coming in. As good of a negotiator as you can be, if someone is unable to pay, they're unable to pay and having to go through required, redundant steps with those people feels like employees' time is being wasted and making a custome
The company itself is awesome. Our team just happened to have had the worse management team EVER
I knew my job extremely well and had always received the highest rating on my yearly reviews. After 25+ years, I learned multiple skills and was afforded the respect of my peers and all levels of management. Discover as a whole, is a GREAT company to work for. They have some of the best benefits that I've ever heard of and their PTO is very generous! I can not say enough about how great of a company that Discover is. Aside from the few bad apples, you won't want to leave if you get into the right area. There are however, two areas that the company could use some work on. 1. Higher pay for long term employees. 2. Although a college degree is a great asset, it shouldn't be the biggest requirement necessary for someone to move up in the company. It actually says on their postings on Indeed, "A degree of any type". There are people in Sr. Management that have Horticulture degrees and Fashion Design. This is a financial company. A person who wants to move up, has to either have a degree of some sort or agree to start school after you're promoted.
However, Discover does have a particular group of management that is among the worst I'd ever worked for in my years of service with the company. The absolute worst. There was absolutely NO respect between the management team and the non-exempts. They made it very clear that they didn't want our opinions and that if we did happen to give them our opinion on a process or whatever, that they didn't care. This group of m
ProsThe definite pros of this job, was how the company itself treated their employees. The PTO was also VERY generous
ConsSome of the managers, were REALLY bad. Also, if you don't have a college degree, you probably won't get promoted.
Throughout my time at Discover, I have learned a good portion about credit that has proved to be beneficial for me in and out of work. You can tell the department I work in (credit operations) really cares about their employees and will often send little gifts/goodie bags to employees in the department which I appreciate. The PTO is quite generous and the pay is above what I could make doing the same job elsewhere. I also enjoy the work from home aspect and they have now given some employees the chance to work from home permanently.
A typical day at work is clocking in and getting your screen ready for the day (pulling up the programs needed) Then answering inbound calls (sometimes making outbound) and adhering to your scheduled lunch/breaks. When following your schedule, you are contributing to "schedule adherence" which is a metric that is looked into. One of the cons I have found for this is that there is no flexibility when it comes to schedule adherence such as requesting to switch your lunch/breaks occasionally to best fit your schedule. In addition, they sometimes make it impossible to follow by putting you in "phone time" for only five-ten minutes. So you either have to gamble that you're going to get a really short call that doesn't run over or sit in "not ready" cutting into your adherence. It doesn't seem fair to me.
The hardest parts about working at this job are the customers and quality audits. I would say audits could use a lot of improvement. They don't see
ProsPay, PTO, healthcare, tuition reimbursement
ConsNitpicky audits, micromanaging, angry customers, call center environment
Pros:
-job security once you get into a roll. They really do not like firing individuals, even if they are bad performers. If you are not good at the job you do, they try to find a new position that is a better fit. Which makes this ideal for lifers.
- They PTO days they give you to start off with is abundant (about four weeks) and it's easy to request the time you need.
-Flexible with your schedule, if you have a pressing need.
-Work at home is great! I was doing it pre-covid and is a great way to save gas and time. Discover makes it easy to w@h by providing all the hardware, training you on all the programs, and educating you on troubleshooting your computer. Very understanding when connection issues occur and imped work.
- People are great. Almost everyone is nice, respectful, encouraging, helpful. They do expect you to maintain a certain level of professionalism so most interactions with agents, team leaders, department mangers, and directors are pleasant and productive.
-They give trusted agents a lot of side projects and ways to grow your skill sets.
- Offers coach training and financial literacy classes. Also tuition reimbursement is a must use benefit! (details: they offer completely covered 100% online degrees (for business related bachelors, limited selection & 50% tuition reimbursement, grade depending, for instate college/university, business related degrees.)
-They do employee appreciation and stat based prize give-aways pretty often. They do their best
A typical day at work as an Account Manager involves a lot of phone time, back to back. You have two 15 minute breaks and one half hour lunch break. Other than those break times, you are taking incoming customer service calls. The facility is very nice. It includes a large cafeteria, plenty of vending machines, and an on-site gym. There are also many break rooms with TVs and couches to hang out in on down time.
I learned a lot about credit cards while working for Discover. Also, I learned more ways to be better at customer service! They really want their customers to be happy, so they focus a lot on making sure their employees understand the importance of the customer service side of call handling.
Management at Discover are some of the best leaders I have ever had the pleasure of working for! Throughout the training process, my trainer, as well as, my training Team Leader and Coaches, were all so welcoming and encouraging. They really want you to succeed. In training, you start off with an overload of information, but they do their best to implement games and other learning activities to keep you from feeling overwhelmed. When you leave training, and are placed with your permanent team (until you get another raise), you are more on your own, however, your new Team Leader and Coach are always there willing to help you in any way they can. They want you to be the best you can be, and are more than willing to hear your side of everything. (I love these people!) There are
ProsGreat Work Environment, Caring Leaders, No Uniform, Salary, Benefits, Schedule Preference, On-site Gym
ConsShort Cafeteria Hours, Must Have Cash or Discover Card to Purchase Anything
A typical day at my job could be considered hectic in others eye's but I enjoy the challenge. My job duties include:
Directly Manages a full team of 14 daily, and assist with managing department of 85.
Accurately and efficiently answers all questions from agents.
Coaches all agents on the team at least once per day to ensure call quality and motivates agents in achieving high performance.
Reviews all Quality Scored Calls/Secured Message Center/Click to Chat (5 each per agent) each month.
Reviews 5 random call listening to ensure call quality with each agent monthly.
Creates "Hot Quiz" for Department monthly to keep educated with policy and procedures to adhere to compliance.
Switches call templates daily to ensure full productivity with agents.
Ensures agents track specific call types with technical issues.
Works closely with Department Manager to inform of Brand Promise and Service levels of calls.
Analyzes call types daily to ensure efficiency with call routing.
Single point of contact for all customer escalations.
Works closely with Customer Experience Manager and worked with her to provide feedback on website and IVR System.
Coaches agents to progress to a higher position.
Creates strategies for agents that make giving outstanding customer service easier for them.
Reviews Secured Messages sent to customers. Experienced in editing and proofreading lengthy documents with focus on word definitions, spelling, sentence structure, syntax, and grammar.
Lea
I would rather light myself on fire than to ever work in collections again. Collections is a joke. They change the procedures literally every day. You are expected to remember all these "law and compliance" rules and they change them so often that nobody ever knows whats going on. Call quality fails your calls for things you didnt even know about. Then your manager would try to fight the failed calls for you but they were rarely overturned... The problem with failing call quality is it would affect your commission. I constantly felt defeated, and the coaches and managers would literally walk the call center floor shouting things into your head to do better, answer the call faster, remember this remember that, focus on this focus on that, so on top of people walking around like slave drivers screaming you had card members screaming too cause they were mad about being delinquent. It was awful. They have an onsite gym that costs 20 bucks a month to use and the hours of operation for the gym do not fit in with work schedules. The food in the cafeteria is WAY over priced. The only good thing about this place was making such good friends with co-workers and *some* managers. People who could relate to how awful it is to work there was nice. Nobody gets how bad collections is unless you work in it. They claim they have great benefits ummmm ya they are good but they cost a billion dollars, after taxes and insurance 3/4 of my check was gone. The only way to make money was to earn the c
ProsFriends free food
Consshort break, expensive health care, slave driving, unrealistic expectations, disorganized, low pay for the work, under staffed.
I absolutely loved the job I was contracted for. Discover was in the process of restructuring their process, and organization was very unmanaged. We didn't have a manager, and when we did, they were thrown into the mix.
The HR Coordinators fell under the Recruiters. Because of the restructuring, they contracted several recruiters, as well as the HR Coordinators. Due to the nature of the work, we were suppose to take New Hires through a process within 24-48 hours, and get them to take the Background Test, Fingerprinting, and Drug Testing. Because of mismanagement, the process took far more time than necessary, and left several potential employees not enjoying the process of hire.
I LOVED seeing people come in and want to change their lives in different areas. We dealt with several from different areas, which gave the company a lot of diversity.
The hardest part of the job was working with the "legal" team in another time zone. We had to wait several days before getting answers back, and the steps needed to get proper documentation on some of the items were a waste of time and not necessary. The HR Coordinators were constantly taking new roles on, and nothing was ever clear from day one.
I loved the constant business of the day. I would have worked for free because I loved what I did so much.
A typical day would be going into work. Take the paperwork of those we were onboarding and make sure they had completed it online before coming in for their tests. If not, we were required
Prosloved being busy, seeing and meeting such a diverse group of people, as well as working with a great team.
Consdisorganization, due to the fact management wasn't in place before restructuring
Questions And Answers about Discover Financial Services
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Discover Financial Services a better place to work?
Asked Mar 27, 2018
I would consider us older workers with employment gaps. We usually are very loyal and have lots of experience.
Answered Nov 18, 2021
Create an environment where employees are growing their careers in an environment that is engaging and employees have a voice!
Answered Dec 19, 2020
What is the work environment and culture like at Discover Financial Services?
Asked Aug 13, 2016
Rhe environment is extremely stressful and hostile. Things are politically motivated and not confidential.
Answered Apr 1, 2019
I am a full grown woman with children and grandchildren. Not the type that would want to be in a high school environment.
Answered May 16, 2018
What questions did they ask during your interview at Discover Financial Services?
Asked Jul 7, 2016
What kind of experience do you have? Why are you wanting to leave/why did you leave your current/previous employer? What type of pay are you seeking?
Answered Aug 8, 2020
Job experiences, situation based questions
Answered Jun 5, 2020
Are pay raises given? If so, how often?
Asked Oct 15, 2016
Raises need to be given to tenured employees. After a while they are capped out and cannot get raises.
Answered Apr 1, 2019
Depends on tenure and department
Answered May 9, 2018
On average, how many hours do you work a day at Discover Financial Services?
Asked Apr 25, 2017
Typical week is 40 hours a week. 3rd shift has an option to work 4-10s after training is successfully completed.
