Achieve

2.0

12 Dec 2013

Recommend

CEO approval

Business outlook

Pros

Schedule flexibility. If you need to work around school or kids then this is a huge benefit and management will approve schedule changes without much issue. Free lunch is provided one time per month as a nice gesture.

Cons

Christmas is two weeks away and management is still firing people almost daily. I understand the need to do that if people can't meet their numbers but come on, right before Christmas? Leads slow down to a trickle in December and January but management doesn't lower the sales quota in these months at all! So they give you nothing to work with yet they still expect the same production out of you. The leads that DO come in are disconnected phone numbers and people who didn't even inquire. Only here is that called a "lead opportunity". Management is really good at spinning things. In the interview they mention that people have worked here for years. The reality is that 80% of the workforce turns over every 12 months and the other 20% are the lifers that get the leads and phone calls pumped to them on a priority basis. A few other gems....if you sell a deal and submit it but that client calls customer service (without your knowledge because customer service doesn't notify you) and moves their first payment date or their payment doesn't go through because of insufficient funds then guess what, you don't get credit for it! The company will still collect on it but you just don't get paid anything for it. If you meet your sales quota and things happen that are out of your control (like a customer moving their payment date or just not having the money to make their payment) then those deals don't count and you miss your quota and you're written up. So you get to sell the deal AND become a babysitter to make sure that people that are already bad with their money end up paying on their program start date. Nothing like adding a little administrative/collections work to an already stressful sales job. You get micromanaged at every turn. Compliance reviews, call reviews, one-on-one manager meetings, team meetings, meetings about other meetings, you get the picture. I made a mistake coming here but I did my homework and bought into the "Phoenix Business Journal Top Companies to Work For" award that Freedom talks up and I took the job based on blatant lies, omissions and half-truths that were told to me in my interview. I've never worked harder for less in my life and the constant threat of missing quota is always there. Soon I'll also be fired because like so many of my colleagues I can't meet quota. This job is like so many other sales jobs these days: just bring them in and work them until they burn out or continue raising the minimum requirements until everyone is gone and bring new people in. That's the mentality here too. None of the sales people here know each other because they have one focus: try not to get fired. People disappear every week and you don't know about it for a while because nobody talks to each other. It's just heads down and get on the phone and that's it. If you take this job you'll regret it. Maybe not immediately but definitely once your "ramp up" period is over and the actual real monthly quota requirements kick in that's when it gets real.

Achieve Response

12y

Freedom Debt Relief would like to respond to this posting by first saying that we have an open door policy and would like the opportunity speak to this employee to find a solution to their concerns. I would like to address the issues that stand out in this post: 1. We fire people almost daily during the holidays. 2. Sales quotas are not adjusted during the holidays. 3. 80% of the workforce turnover every 12 months. 4. client moves their programs start date or NSFs the AE does not get paid however FDR does. 5. Once your "ramp up" period is over and the actual real monthly quota requirements kink in that’s when it gets real. 6. FDR Sales is very scripted 7. Lies during the interview about salary expectations for average sales agent. 1. We fire people almost daily during the holidays. The FDR Sales group has not had a termination, either voluntary or involuntary in 2 months. 2. Sales quotas are not adjusted during the holidays. This is correct. Just as we do not adjust sales quotas higher during peak times. At the close of our last commission month over 75% of our sales staff met or exceeded quota. 3. 80% of the workforce turnover every 12 months. This is simply not true. Total turnover of staff in 2013 is 25.20%. About 75% of our staff has been since the beginning of 2013 or longer. We have 21 sales representatives that have been with the company for 5 plus years which makes us very proud. 4. Client moves their programs start date or NSFs the AE does not get paid however FDR does. Our commission policy pays agents when the client makes their first payment into their program. If the client moves the original start date we will pay at a later date when the actual first payment is made. In the case of an NSF, we will attempt 3 drafts per client and if the client’s payment is processed we will pay in that commission cycle. 5. Once your "ramp up" period is over and the actual real monthly quota requirements kick in that’s when it gets real. This statement is correct. We have a very liberal ramp up period for our sales agents. They are given almost 90-days to ramp up to a full production quota. 6. FDR Sales is very scripted. FDR has created several scripts to be used by our sales agents. Most of these are used to help new hires ramp up, however, as with most industries there is dialogue that must be either shared with the consumer or that we cannot say to a consumer. In these cases the dialogue is more scripted. We do allow our AEs latitude to sell in a manner that is comfortable to them as long as it is within the compliance boundaries 7. Lies during the interview about salary expectations for average sales agent. Because the jobs we are hiring for are commission based the annual income is as varied as the individuals. In the last analysis of our sales team we evaluated employees that worked the full year in 2012 and averaged their base pay, their commissions, and any other bonuses and the average AE earned $63,000. The range of income was from $43,000 to $126,000.

Typical high-turnover call center environment - Account Executive Achieve Employee Review

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