High stress - Customer Success Guru Shopify Employee Review

Where do I even start? The training is very rushed and fast paced - you cover the absolute basics of this massive platform to then after six weeks go into “guru land” and support people on things you never even heard of. My own trainer described their first year working in Shopify as “everyday I started my shift I felt like I was driving off a cliff” and this is how I feel constant stress and pressure because each day I will be expected to support something I have no training in. THREE CHATS!! I shouldn’t need to elaborate but let me, No matter how long you’re here three chats is a daunting task and creates an extremely poor service especially as many merchants want their issue solved immediately. Imagine having to chat with three people, launch their stores, their admin etc, troubleshoot their issue or find info and then having to try business coach them towards the end of the chat it’s simply too stressful and borders near impossible for many. Some people might like it but two should be the Max and opt into three if you’re comfortable as opposed to pressuring people into three. Calls are somewhat nicer as at least then you’re only dealing with one person so you have breathing space. Throughout training and mentoring you’re given rather vague feedback and told you’re doing great to only then go into guruland and be ripped apart by your squad lead. Who will tell you it’s normal to know very little but then absolutely obliterate you for not knowing something and providing inadequate support. There’s simply no win! Escalated teams don’t work on live channels so everyone is rushing to get into those squads. This again creates a pretty harsh environment for gurus as you cannot simply escalate a problem and see it’s sorted quickly. The platform itself does seem well designed but has far too many flaws and allows dare I say too much customisation? This is fine for those who are actually able to code but 9 time out of 10 it is somebody following a help article that gets it wrong, contacts support, support don’t know how to code so are reading from the exact same help document and stressing themselves because they don’t know the answer. It’s toxic and really hard to deal with. There is zero pay for working extra hours, which is expected. Especially as you begin with the company a lot of your live interactions will be pushed to emails as you simply don’t know the answer. This in turn leads to a huge personal queue which you have 45 mins to get through, 15 mins in the morning and 30 in the evening. I have often had to stay way past my shift finish time as this “get it done” culture is embraced despite the stress and work life imbalance it creates. There is so much more I could say here but writing this even makes me stressed and sad. I don’t see myself lasting much longer in the role, the stress and pressure is too much and unfortunately this is common right across the company. Turnover is high due to the ridiculous demands and expectations.