INSIDE THE CALL CENTRE SWEATSHOP
Aggressive, ruthless and cynical, the bosses giving £7.30-an-hour staff a ten minute briefing and a script before they hit the phones
InsIde a sweltering training room in a shabby warehouse we were told exactly what to expect from our jobs as charity telephone fundraisers.
‘The whole point of it is going to be asking people for money,’ our trainer, Callum, told us bluntly. ‘That is what we’re here to do. We’re not an information line.’
He warned us about the string of protests we should expect from the people we called.
‘I’m a pensioner, I’m retired, I’m 87 years old, I’m unemployed, I just went on maternity leave, our mortgage payments just went up … .’ Reeling off his list in a bored voice as he swigged from a water bottle, Callum told us that we should become experts in ‘deflecting’ these objections.
Then, we should ask them for money again – three times, in fact, in every single call. situated in a run-down area of dalston, east London, the GoGen call centre – and its £7.30-an-hour staff – are entrusted by big charities with national campaigns.
The British Red Cross, nsPCC, Oxfam, Macmillan Cancer support, Cancer Research UK and save The Children all rely on the centre. Bosses, who come to work in the stuffy office in shorts and vests, claim the atmosphere is relaxed.
Yet employees are scolded if they are even a minute late – and are ordered not to laugh too loudly in the grubby corridors in case it makes too much noise. And there is nothing casual about the company’s attitude to raising money. In a spirit of aggression that seems at odds with charitable giving, bosses demand ‘ brutal’ and ‘ferocious’ requests for money.
Fundraisers are told to get charity supporters ‘on the back foot, where we need them to be’.
‘We are now going to take it up a level. I want to hear much more ferocious asks,’ we were told at the beginning of one shift by Hadley, a supervisor.
‘If you are tempted by any kind of fluffy language, take it out of your vocabulary. More ferocity in your asks – because let’s face it, you know it works. It’s time to get the persuader out, and hit it really hard.’
In a practice that causes misery for families, telephone fundraisers must call people in their homes and on their mobile phones until 9pm.
At the beginning of each call, they must make two attempts to persuade the person to talk to them.
If on the first attempt the person says ‘I’m just going out’ or ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry’, they must try again, saying something like ‘Oh, it’ll just be a couple of minutes – is that OK?’
‘Once the person has agreed, they continue with the call, during which they must make three separate attempts to get a donation.
They are supposed to call up to 80 numbers an hour.
In many cases, nobody will even answer the phone – while other calls last just a few seconds because people do not want to talk. Most people we called on behalf of the charities would assume we had a personal connection with the causes. In fact most of the employees of GoGen know next to nothing about the charities.
Most are just scruffily- dressed students, desperate to make some extra cash during the holidays.
And they are given only a short briefing – lasting about ten minutes – on a charity’s work before being told to start calling supporters and asking for cash. sometimes fundraisers will even be switched from one charity campaign to another halfway through a shift.
On one occasion, having spent the first 15 minutes of a shift talking to people about the nepal earthquake for the British Red Cross, I was suddenly asked to switch campaigns. Within minutes, I had to start talking to Macmillan supporters about Britain’s ‘cancer care crisis’ instead. despite this, we were under huge pressure to sound passionate about the causes we were calling on behalf of – whether or not we actually were.
One supervisor, Glyn, told us: ‘Regardless of whether you’re an animal lover or not, every single person you’re speaking to today – they care about the polar bears, they care about tigers and leopards, they care about the planet.
‘so today, you do too. Whether you do or don’t – today you do.’
All the fundraisers will be reading from scripts provided by the charities – which they are told to stick to religiously. There is a different script for every campaign. some charities will be carrying out several different campaigns at the same time. And there will often be people in the same room calling on behalf of three or four different charities – such as Macmillan, the British Red Cross and the nsPCC – all at the same time. This often produced a deafening background noise, with
‘Get them on the back foot where we need them’ ‘Pressured
to sound passionate’
overlapping monologues about cancer, child abuse and disasters.
Every single fundraiser could be heard telling someone it was ‘urgent’ that they donate, right now.
On top of the noise of the other fundraisers reading from scripts were the shouted instructions from supervisors – usually berating us for not making enough money.
If we were falling behind on our targets, supervisors would shout that it was ‘not good enough’ and tell us: ‘This next call has got to be a yes.’
If they suspected we were not being aggressive enough, they would listen in to our phone calls to make sure we were always asking for money three times.
The scripts are carefully designed to pack the biggest emotional punch possible – and to make it sound like asking for money isn’t the main reason for the call.
‘ We’re going to be asking for money,’ Callum explained. ‘But we don’t want to be saying – “Yeah I’m going to be asking for money”.’
And during the calls, members of the public are assured by telephone fundraisers that their donations go straight to those most in need.
But in fact, tens of thousands of pounds from every campaign must first be paid to the call centre – before a single penny reaches the charity. The public are informed about this fact only at the very end of the call – after they have agreed to donate and handed over bank details.
Legal experts who examined the campaign scripts used by the British Red Cross, Oxfam, Macmillan and the NSPCC said such a practice was ‘concerningly close to a breach of the law’.
A lawyer for Which?, who specialises in consumer law, said: ‘Some people might choose not to donate if they had that information before their donation was finalised.
‘Therefore, providing this information late in the call could be in breach of consumer law – specifically the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations.
‘If it is information that the average person needs to know when choosing whether to donate, then it should not be withheld until the end of the call.’
The NSPCC tell donors that £4 a month could help them ‘answer 12 calls to Childline’ from children suffering ‘family problems, self-harm and abuse’. Only after they have agreed are donors told that of the £120,000 the NSPCC expects to raise on the campaign, more than half – £65,000 – is expected to go to the call centre.
In a script for a Red Cross campaign, callers are told to tell donors that ‘popping an extra £1 on to your monthly gift’ will buy three foil blankets for those in Nepal.
Donors are told: ‘This means over a year, we can give more than 30 people warmth and comfort in their hour of need.’
However, at the end of the call – after their donation has been accepted – fundraisers have to say that the call centre is being paid £150,000 for the appeal.
This is one of four Red Cross campaigns currently run by GoGen – for which the call centre is set to receive £434,100 in total. Each campaign lasts only a few weeks.
Macmillan Cancer Support tells donors that simply adding an ‘extra pound or two’ to their monthly donations ‘would make a huge difference to ensuring that no one has to face cancer alone’.
Then, before the conversation ends and the donor is thanked for their money, the caller adds: ‘GoGen will be paid approximately £55,000 for carrying out this campaign.’
Telephone fundraisers are also faced with dozens of people who were angry that they were being called.
GoGen accepts millions every year from the charities for these campaigns and its bosses are thought to take home large salaries.
Chairman Nicholas Smith, 48, who owns more than half of the business, lives in a £1.2million apartment in Blackheath, South East London. He owns a second home in the Midlands.
Finance director Robert Metrebian, 53, owns a £1.3million detached property in Woodford Green, Essex, and often boasts on social media of his lavish lifestyle.
On Facebook he writes of drinking expensive wine to excess and evenings dining out.
Director Giuseppe Iantosca, 36, lives in a £1.2million terrace in Dalston. He said he had suspended two members of staff while they investigated the Mail’s evidence.
He also said GoGen would not be asking anyone with dementia for money in future.
He said the old policy was approved by the Fundraising Standards Board – and inspired by a belief that ‘age and mental health are not reasons to discriminate against’ people who want to donate.
Mr Iantosca added: ‘GoGen do not support, condone or agree with any of the alleged statements made by staff members. We will be reviewing the processes and criteria by which members of staff are inducted into our training and supervisory teams.’
‘Berated for not making enough money’ ‘Bebrutal ...these people haveno excuse fornot giving’