An adviser at Brightmere's Filton contact centre says their monthly review now includes a number they cannot explain. The employee can see an empathy score derived from call analysis, but says they do not know which parts of a difficult conversation have raised or lowered it. 'I can tell you why I said something. I cannot tell you what the number heard.'

ECSU, the Energy and Customer Services Union, lodged a collective grievance on 27 November about automated scoring in performance management at Bristol. The union says advisers should be able to understand the measures and challenge a result that does not reflect the call. Automated empathy scores entered monthly reviews in November.

Regional officer Maxine Doyle said the grievance concerned the use of the scores, rather than opposition to every part of the technology. 'Members can welcome help with their notes and still object to being judged by a calculation they cannot inspect,' she said. 'Those are different experiences of the same change.'

Brightmere introduced automated quality and sentiment tools at Filton in October, following call notes and transcription in September. The company says the measures are intended to help managers and colleagues improve service. A spokesperson said managers were expected to use judgement and that an automated result should be considered alongside other information.

Asked how an adviser could establish that a score was wrong, Brightmere said colleagues could raise a question with their team leader and that it was discussing the new measures with ECSU. The company did not provide a public explanation of how the empathy score was calculated or details of the collective grievance proceedings.

The adviser interviewed by Tech and Work Weekly said the note-writing tool had made it easier to listen without trying to capture every detail at the same time. The monthly score was a separate concern. 'I do not want the useful bit taken away,' the employee said. 'I want somebody to be able to answer when I ask why this call was marked that way.'

Another Filton employee, also speaking anonymously, said a conversation with their team leader had helped put a disappointing result in context. They were less certain that every colleague would have the same experience. 'My manager listened to the call with me. That mattered more than seeing the chart again.'

Doyle said the union wanted a process employees could use without having to argue from a position of guesswork. She did not provide a claim about the proportion of scores that were inaccurate. Brightmere similarly declined to publish a numerical assessment of disputed results in response to this report.

The grievance remains a matter for the company's collective procedure. Outside that process, advisers are continuing to take calls and attend reviews with the measures already present. The employee who welcomed automated notes said they would be looking for a practical answer at their next meeting: what, exactly, could be checked when they disagreed?