Backyard Products reviews

If you work in a CSR position, or Admin position, be prepared for being berated by customers daily. Installers don't show up (only a handful are reliable), so then the CSR is on the front lines for the complaints. The customers aren't wrong. Because of the structure of the branches, the installers are allowed to cancel on a job the day of the job, with no just cause. The customer complains that there playset or shed doesn't get installed, sometimes being put off for months. When it escalates, the admins have no power to solve the problem (mostly due to installers not showing up), the branch managers don't take care of problems, so the customer complains to corporate, which leads back to the CSR getting yelled at by the customer a second time. It is a horrible cycle. The most toxic work environment I've ever worked in. The corporate CSR people are wonderful at trying to diffuse things, but it boils down to the branches and the installers who don't care. Corporate management only seems to care about making their dollar up front when they sell the shed or playset. Installation is an after-thought. They will push sales to get product sold, but their is no solid infrastructure to get the product installed leaving the CSR to pick up the pieces of angry customers.

Pay is below industry standard for how long you may have been working for the company, or hired from another with a good amount of experience you're bringing with you. Health insurance rates (especially for single households) are atrociously expensive. Bonuses are minimal or nonexistent, with pay raises clearly scraped from the bottom of the dregs. Here, you are a grunt expected to save the company on a day to day basis for people who do not know what they are doing, nor do they care. Office environment is tense, due to the upper crust constantly visiting their multiple subsidiaries' offices for optics, and to oversee the cubicles. There is also a lack of honest communication and frankly, the more exclamation points and bold font used in their company wide emails, the more you should be concerned and not take what they say, at face value. There is a thing and easily seen through facade of business integrity, and an expectation you will follow their "5 Rules" mantra and that is somehow enough for a company to succeed with. Getting responses from department heads is near impossible with several refusing to respond at all, causing jams in project approval and this backs up shipment dates and meetings with buyers. The HR department is a joke, has no idea what they are meant to do, and has responded to group inquiries about 401ks and health insurance with "Good luck!" or a .PDF of how to make an account on Voya. Unless you are in the upper ranks of the company, you can expect to be treated like a number meant to make more money for the company, than a person who probably cares about the work they're doing. Their management of their people and their products is nonsensical and confusing. If anything, Backyard Products is in the business of company acquisition, not production and manufacturing outdoor goods. If you get a job here, use your time of employment to find other work, while you have the security of the paycheck from Backyard. You are worth more than working for these people.