Pros
-Lower management is extremely caring and understanding. Excellent people to work with, and for. They understand the struggles their team faces on a daily basis and does their absolute best to provide support and even getting their hands dirty when needed. It's been an honor to work under them! -Breaks are given without question. If you are scheduled for a shift that a break is needed, you WILL get it. No ifs ands or butts about it. You will also NEVER be rushed or asked to come back early. Your break is yours to take and do as you please. -They promote from within. Very rarely will someone from outside the company be put into any type of management position. Our store has I think a total of 2 managers that were hired from outside the company? There is a pretty clear path and the expectations are set for getting promoted. -Believe it or not, most of the customers are great! It's a different type of retail environment and most of the customers are awesome. Be warned though, the bad ones will sour your day quickly. -All of the products and services offered, including protection plans, truly are a great value and you can honestly recommend them without lying to customers! This is actually HUGE and a major benefit.
Cons
-Very high expectations. While you are guaranteed your breaks, keep in mind that is the only break you will get all day. If you are scheduled for a 9 hour shift (the usual for full time) then you will get a 1 hour lunch. There is no telling when that lunch will be though. So you could be stuck performing your duties for 6 hours straight. While that doesn't sound terrible and is almost expected, that's a long time to stand in one spot doing the same thing without even so much as being able to use the restroom. (They don't tell you that you can't, unless you are on the "security" lane) but you know that if you do... Upper management will frown upon you and you'll be under the impression that the whole store will explode and fall apart. -Upper management ONLY CARES ABOUT NUMBERS. You are told to provide world class customer service but I have never ONCE been recognized for going out of my way to help a customer. I've been talked down to for actually going above and beyond with customers because a transaction took to long or because someone was worded differently than company policy. First time building a computer? No sorry, I can't offer any tips and tricks to you because that's going to make this take to long. Oh, but I better start by offering you a 3 year plan and then if you say no go to the 2 year plan for EVERY. SINGLE. ITEM. Even if your sales associate already did or you tell me you're not interested. Because that doesn't make things take to long. Name and email capture? Important info, yes, but no it should not be how CSR's are judged on performance. That is a completely ridiculous metric. No CSR is going to stand there and NOT ask for that info. If someones numbers are low it's because customers simply refused. Nothing more. -Our protection plans are great. But relax the pressure on selling them or risk annoying customers. Sales associates should ask and do the actual selling. CSRs should do a reminder that it's their last chance to get one. You cannot seriously think I'm going to ask for every single item every single time. Our protection plans are worth it, but you're barking at us about how long transaction times take and how long people are standing in line... yet you have 1000 things you want us to discuss and explain to customers while collecting their information while doing this and that. -Commission is only offered on service plans, but should be offered on other things sold at the register when there is an opportunity for an up-sell. "Are you sure you need a 2.0 flash drive and not a 3.0? They are 10 times as fast and only a dollar or so more! How about a 128 instead of that 64, it's only a little bit more!" -This new attendance policy that was introduced under the guise of being for Work Life Balance is a joke. Have a straightforward policy and just talk to problem offenders 1 on 1 and deal with it. Or at the very least be straightforward and say "We have a problem with people calling off to often so there is a new policy." Don't lie and say it has anything to do with work life balance. You seriously gave people more sick hours then they are allowed to possibly use. If I'm sick, do you really think I can get my shift covered in less than 24 hours? And you expect us to PAY TO HAVE OUR SHIFTS COVERED in a third party app?
