This company has been heading in a terribly negative direction within the past four years. As a once loyal and currently unhappy employee, my day now consists of worrying about maintaining my employment long enough to find a different job. Selling enough isn't always the issue, it's the redundant paperwork you have to do to prove that you are actually doing your job. It's like mommy and daddy don't trust us to clean our rooms every morning so now we have to show them proof we can do it.
The recent trend of not trusting their adult employees enough to do their jobs is insulting. The upper management must feel that the lower-level employees (store managers and below) have absolutely no idea what they're doing. Lower-level employees are required to fill out "non-negotiable standards" that hold the employee to a certain degree of integrity (the company's favorite word to use when firing someone for inane reasons.) These are not only done in store in the form of paperwork that must be done AFTER you clock out due to INTEGRITY (it asks if you've successfully clocked out before completion) reasons, but also online. Yes, the company expects that you provide two forms of "yes, mommy, I cleaned my room" at the end of the night. Not only is it degrading, but upper management uses it as a form of thinning the herd. If you're not performing to their unrealistic expectations by lying and cheating your customers into buying things they don't need, they simply comb over your paperwork and fire you if you accidentally marked that you swept the floor when in reality it wasn't necessary, so you left it alone for once. It's basically two forms of "you're stating that you did this today to the best of your ability and if you didn't, we have the right to fire you, sign here that this proof of your work-ethic has been completed." Not only is that standard for each individual employee, but there's one that must be completed for the store, too, and each rep HAS to contribute to it or guess what? Fired. No exceptions. I've witnessed fantastic salespeople forget to do their paperwork once and get fired, despite having numbers regional managers would salivate over if they took the time to look at who they're getting rid of over nonsense. I've seen decent employees fired over not taking out the trash at night (trash is a closing procedure) and marking that they've done it because their store's policy was always to do it in the morning.
You also have to mark on a box mix graph how many phones, tablets, cable, etc. you've sold each and every day, your numbers (how many phones, tablets, internet, accessories, tablet percentage in relation to phones, device protection, device protection gross profit, accessory gross profit, phone gross profit, new lines, upgrades, etc. were sold) for that particular day must be updated on a different employee spreadsheet, you have to actively track how many people you've spoken to on a sheet, you have to fill out "game plans" for the week every week, then you have to turn around and do it for the store, too. I get it, they want us to be on top of our numbers, but this is ridiculous. The computers track this information LIVE for each rep and store then updates it accordingly in an easy to access, easy to understand spreadsheet. The reps like to know how they're doing so they will check this and check it often, they don't have to copy it down on paper in three different places to get the message across. This is not a high school business class where notes are required by the teacher to learn anything, it's a job.
The upper-management has done nothing but micromanage to the point of paranoia. There is no trust to be fostered here, only suspicion and a consistent implication that nobody is right for the job. I could go on and on about how they belittle their employees to get their points across (8 AM conference call shouting matches every Saturday morning for no daily Dish Network sales, anyone?) but I think other reviews have beaten me to the punch. Seriously, in all my years of working retail, I've never been treated with such blatant disrespect. Some people might think that previous reviews talking in-depth about the abuse might be embellishing, but trust me, they aren't exaggerating. Neither am I when I say they talk to you like you're a child who doesn't know how to do an adult job--District Managers are trained to speak to you that way. It gets to the point where every justifiable fact as to why the traffic is down is an excuse and all you can do is nod your head and say "yes, mister" whenever you're personally attacked for a lack of sales. This is an HOURLY occurrence--be prepared to answer a call from someone in district management every hour to explain why you sold what you sold, how, or why you haven't sold anything. Be prepared for a lecture if you haven't. If you work in a slow store, you might as well quit on the spot because it's always going to be your fault the store is slow.
They'll also broadcast who exactly is doing poorly by listing the employees from best to worst in emails that display daily sales numbers, with comments like "the people at the bottom of this list won't be working here much longer" or "at least some people in the green know how to do their jobs and won't end up at the unemployment office." Not exact wording, but those are as close as I can get to actual quotes from district managers and above regarding their employees in those emails. This is also done on conference calls, in person, and on reporting everyone has access to.
The company's need to put on display the failures of their employees is another reason, among hundreds, why the reps feel they need to lie and cheat customers to get sales. There are employees working for A Wireless that are rewarded for their terrible behavior, despite receiving scathingly negative surveys from their customers. Upper-management doesn't care how you get the sale and will actively ignore complaints from other reps and managers when a certain employee does something that violates both Verizon and A Wireless policy, so long as they do their paperwork at the end of the night. Most sales reps know their behavior is predatory and often misleading, yet in order to maintain their employment and receive a laughably low commission check, they refuse to act any other way. If you try to say something to anyone in charge you're "not a team player." Don't seek employment here if small slights against other people leave you awake at night, because honestly, you're going to lose a lot of sleep. I'd trust a used car salesman over any representative working for A Wireless in it's current state. Three years ago the company didn't encourage this type of behavior, but now, it's revolting what their salespeople can get away with as long as they're driving sales. Customer satisfaction is NOT a priority of A Wireless, and Verizon Wireless needs to take notice of this.
Also, don't forget to make your 100-200 DAILY sales calls per store so you can set up your twenty appointments per week! The company will provide you with a weekly call list that must be completed within a day (no exceptions) and has about thirty-fifty customers on it, but the rest of the week you're on your own. How do they expect each individual representative to have a minimum of thirty calls per day when most don't even see that many people in a business week? Where are these calls supposed to come from? This is a perfect example of the unrealistic expectations demanded by A Wireless. You have to make an enormous amount of calls per day without enough people in the system to call or face being written up for not participating in business activities. How do you expect reps to get all of their other nonsense done in between customers if this is their primary objective? I've been told to neglect cleaning and other necessities to make time for calls... but if I don't clean, I can't say I cleaned on my paperwork, meaning I can be fired for not doing my job, but if I get caught lying and say I cleaned, I get fired. It's an exhausting game of balance that nobody is paid anywhere near enough to put up with.
There's a lot more I could say about my recent experience with this company, all of it negative. From DM's asking you to put in lunch breaks where there weren't any or them just taking hours away from you to stay beneath labor allotment, to the inability to stop adjusting how much people are paid and when, there's hardly any reason to continue my employment here. It's not a place where you can feel good about yourself at the end of the day. Verizon is steadily ruining it's retail business and reputation through this company and needs to take action before the damage is irreparable.
