Take over by Home Depot changes culture and turns the already tight screws on call center even tighter.
Pros
The coaching and training are excellent, the feedback is very specific. The performance based compensation allows you to maximize income by increasing your efficiency and skills. The remnants of The Old Blinds.com culture remain, but mostly for the non-call center employees. Being able to dress creatively and casually. High diversity in the work place. Working with some really talented and creative people who really do care about their job and doing it well with integrity and heart. The head of the company still cares, even though he has sold the company and no longer has control over the future of the company or the changes that have taken place and will continue to degrade the work climate and culture he so carefully nurtured and was one of the purported reasons Home Depot purchased Blinds.com. I would recommend this company to a friend for sure if they were applying to the non-call center part of the company, the corporate culture that wins the awards exists in that part of the company in spades, though that is also changing after the purchase. For now, the call center is still better than most call center jobs, but it has started sliding down into The Home Depot Hell it will become once the three year transition period is over. One down, two to go. Just know that going in.
Cons
Constant haranguing by call center supervisors and management to speed through calls, but still give a customer a stellar experience not found anywhere else in the industry. Constantly raising the bar for performance that is considered acceptable even though the center already outperforms the industry in sales, and constantly changing how it is measured and how compensation is calculated, creating confusion, stress, mistrust and anxiety. And presenting it as "opportunity to make more money" when it is really just demanding more of the workers to stay in place. Low walled cubicles and poor headset equipment that make it so noisy that your customers can hear co-workers conversations and you can't concentrate over all your co-workers talking loudly to compensate. Cool activities and events that the call center people can't participate in because they are scheduled always to fit during lunch or after work for a 8 to 5 M thru F work week. Call center people are not appreciated, feel like galley slaves always being told to row harder and faster, especially when the call volume blows up and supervisors freak out and run around trying to rush us off the phones even though we have to go through certain steps on each phone call to score well, and that takes more time with some customers than it does with others. Customers don't know they are calling at a busy time, they expect what we promise, an extra-ordinary experience, no matter when they call. No time to read emails and listen to voicemails from customers that came in while we were gone or one the phone with other customers, and no time to return the same. Being expected to take fresh calls the entire eight hours of a shift, and if you do answer direct calls from a client you are working with, not having those calls count toward your metrics for the day's call count. The same with outbound calls, they don't count even though you are working with a customer who is making a purchase and just needs more time and assistance, generally with a large or complex project. If you do want to take proper care of your existing clients, you have to call them before or after your work shift or on your days off, which the company says you shouldn't need to do, but everyone takes their laptop home with them so they can do so, and checks their emails and voicemails regularly when not at work so as not to miss a call from a customer with a project in process. We are supposed to build like and trust with customers, but in one 20 minute phone call, good luck with that follow up communication, we'll call you when we are not too busy with new customers. Middle management that is opaque and hostile, using ever tightening metrics to squeeze more productivity out of an already fantastically productive staff. How high is enough, already? Can we just have a breather from the constant pressure to better our performance exponentially. Their idea of adding fun to our day was to email or shout out trivia questions we were supposed to email answers back to win Bingo games, while we were on the phones WORKING. We have a dedicated room with a relaxation chair that no one can ever take the time to use.
