Stockholm syndrome - Customer Support VANMOOF Employee Review

The company vibe: The work pressure is almost not to handle and everyone else within the company has only the spark of an idea on what the department is actually going through every day. Promises are made on a weekly basis, everything is in the works since one year and we just have to put “a little effort now” for “the greater good” in the end. What greater good? For the greater good of everyone else within the company making the threefold of what we make, so we can borne the consequences of their not-thought-through ideas and concepts. They take support quite literally, as also the company expects that support supports every dumb decision made within the company (and of course gets the push back from the customers when they do not work out). It is evident that their only intention for now is to grow, not to deliver customer service. Unfortunately, the product requires a lot of support, and the department does not have the means, the dedication or the capabilities to do so. Together with some colleagues I found out that the Stockholm Syndrome is actually what describes working at Vanmoof Support: They „Stockholm“ you by making great promises and paint visions, so you agree with them and you don’t mind being abused by them for a little while. Until the next meltdown hits you. They say critics are welcome and they support open and honest conversations. But as soon as you speak up against something that bothers you, and many of your colleagues, you are weather being told that you are blocking the others from forming their own opinions, that this is nothing that you should be concerned about or that “these are the cards we have to play with” (LITERALLY!). Don’t dare to voice your opinion to people working in other departments, because you will always just be the support minion, and they will take it Personal and invest hours explaining you why you just don’t see that this is the greatest chance of your life. You are basically expected to jump on the train, play their game and do their bidding. no other opinion is acceptable and will be called out. The job itself: There is literally nothing you can do about anything and you are being fed to the wolves every day. The only thing you basically do is listening to the odysseys that the customers had with the bike and then tell them that you don’t have good solutions for them, most of the time and that you are sorry. It is basically your job to disappoint customers on a daily basis, telling them that they unfortunately had too high expectations. Being constantly yelled at and having mental breakdowns are „part of the challenge“, this is what they say. They use the word „challenge“ a lot, but it is basically just a word they use to sugarcoat the failures of the company that YOU have to wear out. What is also very nice that you have to multitask all the time and take a call whenever there is one coming in, no matter how busy you still are with finding a solution for the previous one. Also you cannot turn off the sound of the phone ringtone, and it happened to a lot of people already that they dreamed about it (no joke)! This issue exists since forever and they do nothing to fix it. If you flag this issues constantly or complain about them too often, you are just „not embracing the challenge“. And then you are being told the right way to think: Their way. It was very like communism, being inside. So that’s just a few highlights on what I experienced and what helped me to see the truth, about VANMOOF.