Sensee S.

On its surface, Sensee's business model is compelling: no more commuting is something everyone wants.

However, read (and pay heed) to the raft of negative reviews here. Sensee is not your traditional callcentre: Sensee are beholden to their clients, and they promise their clients a number of hours which are fulfilled by you, the agent, and your colleagues.

In practice, this means the following:

* No real flexibility. Mandatory hours exist. Each week, the hours are released, and there is a mad scramble to book the hours you want. If you can't get those on time (and sometimes they don't appear when they ought to), you can wind up with a patchwork quilt of hours which leave you 'commuting' to your home office multiple times per day.

*Taking holiday during busy periods (e.g. Term time) you may as well forget. Only a certain number of hours are provided as holiday hours, and once they're gone, unless you can beg for a shift swap with someone else, they're gone. MONTHS in advance. I have never seen anything like it.

* Shifts can change at short notice. The only way to protect yourself is to book holiday, but refer to the above as a warning. It is the most inflexible company when it comes to booking holiday I have EVER worked for. They simply don't hire enough agents to create enough of a buffer to provide holiday unless it's outside of peak periods. If you holiday in the winter and your sister's wedding is in the winter, you're ok!

* Interaction with management occurs online and mostly via text conversations using software tools - there are often many people asking questions and not enough senior team members/managers to answer these quickly.

If you are on a part time contract, don't have any commitments which you must attend at particular hours, and don't mind not taking any holiday at busy periods unless a kind soul offers to swap with you, Sensee might be worth it for you. It is not entirely the fault of the company, as they are tied to their clients. As it stands, working for Sensee means you bend to their requirements -- it is not at all as flexible as it is made out to be.