The company structure and working environment is nothing special. It is a typical software company that is trying to maximize its profits and doesn't really care or organize itself in a way that takes into account any higher ideals other than just trying to stay in business and make money.
The mission statement and values are hyped up at the beginning, but once you get into the actual day-to-day work, it is obvious that this company is simply focused on capitalizing on a financial opportunity. I'm not saying I blame them. I'm glad they exist and are doing what they are doing... but don't expect anything special beyond a money-machine. If you happen to be in the way of that focus, don't expect to be treated like a human. You'll be ran over. They'll make promises and change their tune without thinking twice about it.
Example:
Because of disconnect between executive team and the ideals that they claim they want you to follow, you will sometimes be put into uncomfortable and unfair situations as a Product Support Representative.
For instance, instead of just cancelling people's contracts when they ask you to cancel, you have to send them to a Customer Success Manager. The problem with this process is that many times there is no Customer Success Manager, because there is so much turnover and nobody has updated these roles. You can "request" a new Customer Success Manager, but this usually takes a long time. And, a lot of times, even if they do get to their Customer Success Manager, the CSM is incentivized to not cancel the account as they have been asked by the customer. So, there is a lot of turn-over and evasiveness among the CSMs. Only about 10% of CSMs are able to successfully navigate this awkward role--and they are truly impressive people--because they are truly good people who are trying to their best to navigate a difficult job. If the economy gets better, these types of people will do better to move on, anyway. But, most CSMs struggle in this weird position of trying to serve the customer in a sincere way and just trying to get them to sign up again for another annual contract. As the cancellation request is falling through the cracks. Most CSMs will typically blame the client for 'not being able to get ahold of them' because their email was wrong in our system (which is our fault most of the time for not being able to sync their updated email from Admin to their contact card in SF), or the client was busy working on their actual business, so they aren't able to "confirm" the cancellation request, even though they already made it through Customer Support.
In the end, the client gets billed even after they cancel. The Customer Support team gets blamed through "Negative CSAT" scores for simply taking the customers' calls. Management will then try to fix this by increasing the metrics for Customer Support or some other bandaid fix that has nothing to do with the actual problem.
This is just one of a handful of very stupid process that hurts Podium's brand and reputation. And, Customer Support being used as a punching bag due to the lack of accountability and greedy business philosophy at the highest levels of the company.
