entry level retail sales associate

outside sales representative

sales

entry level sales representative

retail sales associate

Spectrum

Being that my tenure at this company is likely coming to an end, I thought it might be beneficial for those that have hired me to have some feedback from the eyes of a new hire; regardless of my own experience, I hope that this will help future new hires in this business.

My tenure at Spectrum started on January 21st of this year. As much as I want to find positive words to describe the experience, the initial disorganization perhaps was a foreshadowing of what was to come.

While our class was in training, it more than the entirety of a month for my class to have access to our necessary order entry systems (CRM/CSG) in order to do our future occupations. We did a great deal of role playing (which was actually very helpful) and activities to pass the day. When we did get access to those systems, though, we had about a day with them on our own personal login before we were put on the phones. Truthfully, this was the most enjoyable part of the whole experience.

Soon afterward, we were assigned to teams, and we continued honing our skills at outbound telemarketing. At this point, about half of our class had left due to pay issues, and some had left simply because they did not like the occupation. With my depression and anxiety, I was a bit hard on myself when my selling was initially not so great, but I kept on pushing, and I like to think I became a much more proficient salesperson. I think I was perhaps a little bit too self-critical as the result of being recurrently preached "only the strong survive" in said environment, even though there were some glaring red flags about the organization of the individuals that were preaching said motto. 

When I was finding my stride in outbound, we were randomly pulled outside one day and told that we would be making inbound calls. We were given a four hour training session before being put on the phones. All the while, COVID-19 was becoming much more common in the United States. When one of my classmates asked what precautions were being taken for those with deficient immune systems, a jumble of words without any real reassurance was given as a response. Those that were longer tenured at the building were allowed to go home, and the newer hires were obligated to stay.

My initial supervisor (who I shall not name) was oftentimes not at the building with us. While he did Skype us, it had its limitations. This led to us receiving a great deal of supervisor calls, and while we awkwardly sat on the phone with the customer, our lack thereof training became increasingly transparent. Furthermore, actually getting a supervisor to attend to the call was noticeably difficult. On three separate occasions, it took me thirty-minutes to obtain a supervisor when one was being requested, and I observed the same thing happen to countless other agents. When reaching out to a supervisor, they would likely redirect you to another supervisor, who would continue the cycle by redirecting you to someone else. Any requests made in the agent assistance chat were oftentimes ignored, and it was honestly a waste of effort. The agent assistance telephone numbers we had available to call for order entry support often had a hold time of over twenty-minutes, and it was becoming increasingly common that sales were being stolen by the assistance agent on the other line. 

During this time, I practiced my skills with the order entry system that I did have access to: CRM. Although I was receiving calls for CSG, it took me three months before I actually obtained access to it. With that being said, since my teammates knew that it was a fruitless endeavor to reach out to a supervisor or mentor for assistance with an order, they began to ask me questions. I actually enjoyed helping my teammates very much, and I thought we bonded quite well. Even though I was taking CSG calls that I essentially could do almost nothing for, I began to become confident in my abilities with our order entry systems.

When things seemed like they might settle down, my team was notified that we were switching supervisors, and I was on a new team the next day. I was fine with it, and my new teammates and supervisor seemed welcoming. What became an issue was that I was continuing to help my previous teammates and those around me with their order entries. I began to receive warnings that this was a sign of "call avoidance," and that continuing to assist them could result in corrective action. I had already received a written warning for attendance after receiving a NCNS (no call, no show) for a day that I had verbally verified with my previous supervisor that I was not scheduled for. Furthermore, an agent that I was acquainted with had an incident where, even though he had notified his supervisor that he was taking his breaks a certain time and was approved for it, he was not compensated for both of his breaks on a given day. Miscommunication was oftentimes used as an excuse; however, it was becoming transparent it was just collective ineptitude from management as a whole. 

I began to become despondent with my position; all the while, Spectrum continued to advertise insincere rates to customers that regularly called in to take advantage of what they thought was a great deal. Once they found out about the myriad of hidden fees that were attached to said deal, they oftentimes became upset, and the agents took the brunt of this displeasure. Even more perplexing is the decision by Spectrum to send promotional rated advertisements to existing customers that are ineligible for anything lower than a standard rate, many of them already possessing all three services. This company-augmented torrent of dissatisfied customers did little to help with my depression, OCD, and anxiety; in fact, on a personal note, they were flaring up and are still noticeably prominent as of writing this.

Then, through our emails, all of the agents working inside of the building were then informed that an employee working in the Florence location had tested positive for COVID-19. I had asked if there was a chance for us shorter tenured agents to work from home, being that the threat had increased; this inquiry was obviously dismissed. There were then warnings of corrective action for not pitching certain services, and being that it was commonplace for customers to find unwanted services on their bill (I have removed unknown Voice service more times than I can count), it became increasingly apparent that Spectrum was much more interested in reaping funds from their customers rather than actually giving them a respectable, dependable service. There was a larger focus on checking off a series of boxes per call than there was listening to what the customer was saying. 

At some point, this all became too much for me, just as it did for every former employee that makes up Spectrum's seventy-five percent turnover rate. It became too fatiguing explaining fees or one-time charges to customers that make little to no sense. What ethical business charges a $9.99 fee for a customer's own labor (self-installation), masking it as an "activation" fee? Why do we charge $13.50 (which has since increased) for channels that most customers get for free through an antenna? Why do we advertise with Spectrum Mobile that there are no additional fees when the very first thing we charge is one of our infamous $10 one-time activation fees? 

Feeling both exhaustion and frustration, I decided to write this letter. I am hoping that, regardless of whatever happens to my employment, this feedback will allow for some positive change for future employees. Hopefully they will have a much better experience than I did, as I have lost all confidence in any of the products or services that Spectrum provides. 

First let me start off by saying this is in fact a Sales Commission based job. When I initially started I was drawn in by the initial commission they offer for free in the beginning of employment. What this means is that they pay you commission for a short while when you start, then it's up to you to keep it going. They do this to "inspire you" to keep that money flowing. However that is not enough to make the job worth it. When I first came aboard I was told I was to be paid my full commissions for my first five paychecks. What they did not tell me was that you get three full commission payments, and the last two are cut basically in half. Commissions are taxed very high as well. What's worse is that in the environment I am going to be telling you about, you have to make a minimum number of sales to even QUALIFY to receive commission. What this means is if the commission sales requirement is 32 sales for the week, and you make 31 you will not receive commission, meaning you will not be paid for those hard earned sales.  I was also told employees were given two weeks pay if they were to contract Cov19 because of needed sick leave. I contracted Cov19 and was only given five days. Now to the worst part. Every morning you badge in, clock in, count your cash drawer and spend 10-15 minutes getting your system to come up properly, so you can be prepared for all matters of customer service issues. There will be a minimum of 5-10 people waiting outside the doors to get in and 90% of them are usually upset because they thought coming by early would be beneficial. It's not. Most customers have to wait 30 minutes to two hours to be seen by you, and by that time I can promise you they're not interested in buying anything, because they were just there to return equipment. They have a partnership with a large shipping company so customers can return equipment at that large shipping company location of a specific type, because even then some of the shipping company stores will not accept returns, and customers do not find that out until they've left a Spectrum store after waiting an hour, only to drive to the shipping company and be turned down.. When people walk through the door employees will be shouting to find out if anyone is returning equipment and to just "go to the shipping company store!" then customers say "well I'm already here, so I'll wait". If you're a customer... You owe it to yourself to just go to the shipping company but be sure to ask what kind first. (It is a popular chain company btw). The Customer Service Line Queue is not friendly. The sign in system at the front is the first thing the customer should see, but sometimes they don't, and they just sit down. You wouldn't believe how many customers waited over an hour only to be told to sign in first, and then they have to wait another hour, because they didn't know they needed to sign in. It's the DMV of all retail / tech sales companies. People fall asleep on the couches, ask to use bathrooms but one is not offered. People even drop equipment at the front and run. They have three separate systems software tools needed to be used based on legacy customers, and new customers. This is really bad. There are constant errors within the systems and nobody ever knew what they were. You have to call customer care from your cell phone, because in the store half of the in store phones did not work. These errors can take days to weeks to fix, and its based on communication with you, and the rep you had to personally call, all the while your customer is standing in front of you.  So in the middle of an interaction with a customer who was excited about getting a new apple or Samsung phone, we often had to tell them there was nothing we could do, and they would have to make a phone call to get a refund. Yes that is correct, we often could not even offer refunds in store, and the customer would have to call on their own to get their refund which takes at least a day. They'd leave with money taken out of their bank accounts and no phone. We had customers without phones for weeks because of how bad the systems are, and I don't mean a NEW phone I mean we went through the process of transferring their old phone number to a new device, shutting down their old service, trying to transfer it to spectrums service, then telling them there was an error. So then they leave with no communication. I'm not making any of this up, every single day I worked there, there were always errors of this nature in several areas of the customer experience. Not to mention most of the customers coming in are just trying to exchange their old equipment for a multitude of reasons outside of your control, and they are already angry because they have no internet or cable. Customers often come in trying to find out why their Internet or Cable is down, but nobody there is a technician, and we have to give them a phone number and wish them luck. You can pay your bill in the store as a customer with a rep or the cash machine which looks like a shoddy atm. As a rep you're expected to sell those customers new services as well, while they're just trying to pay a quick bill. While all of this is going on you're expected to sell them new services or cell phones, switch them from Verizon or others, or upgrade them to high speeds, or sell them cable tv. Most people just want to get in and out, but it's your job to keep them there and sell them something. Oh and by the way - If you sell them internet which is the most difficult thing to do because of the coded user interface, and then they want to buy an accessory for their phone, you have to do two different transactions on two different systems software. Not to mention all the people coming in for a new phone when the company doesn't supply proper inventory so you have to tell customers you just don't have the phones on display. We kept a phone on display for the whole time I was there knowing we would never have it because it had been taken off the official inventory list at corporate. After I left this position I felt like I aged 5 years. 

Spectrum does not care about you at all. If you are a call Rep in the Tech dept your working conditions will be terrible. While you are working extremely hard sometimes taking back to back calls for hours you get the pleasure of watching the managers and supervisors do nothing.

The Customers when they call aren't just upset, they are angry and rightfully so. Technicians don't show for client appointments.  If they do they don't complete the job or show people how to use the service such as wi fi that seniors are clueless about.  A lot of our calls is “We just got the service installed today and it doesn’t work.” When I hear that I ask myself why didn’t the technician check this before he left, or why didn’t the customer check everything?  So as Call Center Technicians we must take the heat for another departments fowl ups. To make this fair you can’t totally blame the technicians the company’s priority is time and the techs only have a hour window to install or repair. So basically, a customer can call 3-4 times a month after techs have been out to repair the issue only to say their problems are not fixed and they are angry. 

Rules to abide by or your fired avg handle time 9 min, which means you must get the customer off the phone in 9 min on AVG in a month.  You must stay at your desk 92% of the time you are there.  A new rule they just came out with is you must record why you transfer a call. The troubleshooting you do is basic; however, you must use there over cumbersome data base to solve a simple problem with an avg of 20 questions that may not have anything to do with the call. If you don’t use their database (sort of like flashcards or a flow chart without shapes) it can cost you your job even if it slows you down or you know what you are doing since you have done the same fix a hundred times. You must track every call (again) in another database and in a cumbersome way. The computers are often not in working condition. The training is horrible you sit in one room there is no hands on or anything they just explain the new item fast to you, It's very hard to find the info in the database.  When you do it's written like a book and you must work fast. To verify a customer is overkill.  When I call my bank and if I don't know my account number all they need is my mother’s maiden name SS and address. with Spectrum you need a customer code that's only on your bill or a first welcomed e-mail (that most people don't take notice of) you must be on the phone that is listed as your primary number or know the e-mail you gave us upon signing up for the service.(even 20 years later)  If you don’t have that information we can’t help you. If you are home, you can look at the mac address of your modem. That’s a task for an 80 year old lady or man.  So If you are away on vacation and you want to use your spectrum TV App and you don't have your primary phone with you or can’t access or know your e-mail, and you don’t know your code (no one takes note of)  you will not be able to get your password so you can log into your app that hardly works anyway.

Let’s talk about Adherence if you are late because of traffic on I4 they don't excuse it and it's your fault. If you are beyond your 92% adherence (meaning at your desk 92% of your time and accurate on your schedule) and you need to go to the restroom you better hold in or you will be in trouble. You are considered late if you don't show up exactly on time. if you are due at 9am if you are there 9:01 you are late. Another thing. Lets say your break is at 6pm. You get a call at 5:54 Pm and your call ends at 6:10 you are 10 Min out of adherence and guess what it's your fault. (even though the company makes you take the calls)

Most of the time no one knows what they are doing. In our department we take the heat (or get the complaints from customers) about the mistakes other departments make. For example, porting a number. Most of the time the port won't go through because the sales dept doesn't check if it can or they don't do the right procedure.

This is not a job I want. Spectrum treats the people who do the service for them like garbage, I feel the company doesn't do right by their customers or their employees. An agent is treated like a child and can't think for themselves, An agent is bound to a very stressful metric system that is un reasonable on top of which we are not trained property. our customers are furious due to the poor customer service provided, the mistakes made, and the techs that don’t show up. One thing to me that is appalling is if there is an outage for a long time, we don’t have the information to tell the customer about when it will be back up or at least what is wrong. So, as agents we must hear about that and other things for 8 hours a day.   

one thing I’d like to stress in some areas you have had techs come out more than 2-3 times during a month. They replace modems and do other minor things, in some areas the infrastructure really needs to be looked at or rebuilt we hear the screaming customers due to the companies lack of investment or caring

Time is more of importance than quality of service everything is about time. Perhaps there would be less calls if 'WE HAD THE TIME" to fix the customers right the first time. It takes 2 to tango you have your employees, you have management. For a company to work the 2 have to work together. one can't be against each other. The employees can't work to full productivity if they are feeling a noose around there neck for not being allowed to be human. The company needs to pay attention to their customers by providing proper service.  Employees must also be taken care of. Train them properly and make them feel good for the people they work for. Nobody wants to work for a tyrant. For our customers we need not to provide band-aids to get the customer off the phone we need to fix the root of problems which might cost more but, in the end, that investment will save the company and the jobs. I'm sure the CEO of this company Thomas Rutledge would NOT want to work under these conditions why do insist on putting us in this position?

TL;DR, Spectrum is a very glamorous looking opportunity with a high starting wage ($20/hr) and great benefits. It's fun for the first few months while you're training, but then you're thrown to the wolves and you become the number of your desk you're assigned to. This job will eat you alive unless you regularly see a therapist for the duration of your employment.

When you're hired at Spectrum, they're going to make you feel like the star of the show. Quite literally. They will open the front doors of the building with a red carpet for you to walk down as a big group of the managers cheer for you and welcome you in. You'll be placed into a class of anywhere from 15-30 people who were hired at the same time as you, and you'll sit at your first of a few desks in a large training room. For the first few days, you'll be meeting everyone in the building from maintenance to the director. They'll give you presentations on the building itself, an overview of your job and the roadmap for your training over the upcoming months. Yes, months. They'll be a blessing.

You and your class will engage in various training activities ranging from "e-learns" to improv skits to group posters. They'll encourage you to meet all of your new peers, become friends and start building that "family" feeling. This all leads up to the day you take your very first call, then debrief about it as a class. 

Once you've taken that first call, the magic of the job begins to fade. It isn't all colored markers and stickers anymore. It's meetings, then an hour of calls, then meetings, then calls, then you leave. That's when you're in their BRIDGE program, which is your last few weeks of training before going out on the floor at your permanent desk. You move from the training room to the far corner of the production floor where you get your next desk. They'll gradually dial back the amount of time spent off the phone until eventually the only thing you're doing all day is taking calls. Once those weeks are up, you're out on the floor with your supervisor, calls from the moment your shift starts to the moment it ends with your new team and that's that.

Not all that bad, right? It was the job you signed up for. Taking calls in a call center. What could be so bad about sitting in a comfy chair, allowed to eat snacks and have drinks at your desk, decorate it, etc? The answer isn't the job itself, at first.

The manner in which Spectrum's customers across the country behave themselves is depraved. Absolutely horrific. Not a shred of kindness to be seen. It's disgusting. You work in the billing department, and to them, you're the company, not a person. You're the voice of Spectrum who is just absolutely robbing these people of every cent they have, taking dinner away from their children, withholding critical internet access from someone's mother's heart monitor, preventing a mother from being able to contact her children while she's at work, ruining the old man's night because he can't understand why you people keep changing the input on his TV. You can't do this to people! You agree with this? How do you sleep at night, you monster? The conversations are maddening because no matter what the issue is, it's YOUR fault and you're going to fix it NOW or you'll be hearing from the attorney general. If you don't have excellent mental health and emotional maturity/security, these conversations will wear you down and go home with you. The issue is that there is little to no possibility of escaping it. 

Unless you intend on progressing from a simple billing agent to a "progress partner" or a lead, you'll be sitting in that chair taking those calls endlessly. The calls will always be back to back, and whether or not you're actively taking/avoiding calls is constantly being monitored by every supervisor in the building. Sure, you're allowed to take a personal break after a call if it was particularly rough and you aren't ready to take the next one, but don't even think about taking any longer than two minutes to gather yourself after a man in North Carolina just screamed violent profanity in your ear, called you slurs and threatened to find out where you live and hurt you. A supervisor will physically approach your desk to check on you and see why you're not taking calls. They're supposed to be looking out for you and genuinely making sure you're okay, but most of the time, they want you to stop backing up the queue and start taking those calls. "Call avoidance" is a no-tolerance behavior that will get you fired on the spot, unless you're lucky and have a particularly close relationship with management. 

It is stressful. It is exhausting. Contrary to popular belief, it is also physically taxing. There is literally nothing else for you to do other than sit there and take calls. That is, again, unless you have a particularly close relationship with your supervisor. Sometimes if the queue is slow, they'll be able to put in a request to give you scheduled non-phone time where you can do side projects like approving/denying your team's large credit requests or creating presentations on how to increase your metrics. These blocks of time are never guaranteed and no more than 2 hours of your day before your supervisor starts to get into trouble for it. The surveillance even extends to them, and they take it out on you if you make them look bad in front of their boss. Your success is really their success, and if you don't have much of it, you'll be made abundantly aware.

There is a reason there's a high turnover rate in call centers, but especially this one. If you can last a full calendar year at this job, you will have lasted longer than at least 75% of the people you started with. New hires notoriously drop like flies. and you owe it to yourself to not be one of them.

This review is of the Indianapolis branch. When I started out with Spectrum as an outside sales rep it was my first sales job and I was very excited to start working. When had me so excited was the local leadership and the commission plan. I was able to make six figures within my first full year here which was money I had never seen nor thought I would see for another 6 years. 

Typical word day

When I started we were told we were to work from 1 pm to dark or when we made a sale. It was very flexible in that regard because if you make a sale and need to go home early, you could. It's hard work because you generally deal with people who might want service but don't have the money to pay for those services at the door, so you really have to hound people for payment and check in to see when they get paid. Over time, they started making the start time go from 1pm to 12pm, and now 11am. This does not include the conference calls you have to do almost every morning an hour beforehand, so your workday is actually starting at 10 am. The most frustrating change though is Spectrums HUGE push to sell mobile service at the door. This was something they had going on since I started more than a year ago but it is now something they stress sales reps about to a ridiculous degree. So much so they are critically watching your metrics and want proof you tried to sell one every day if you haven't sold one for the month. This is what makes the job almost unbearable now because you have to sacrifice your core sales (tv, internet, and home phone) to basically increase your chance of getting a mobile. At the same time, you now need to sell at least three products every day (which wasn't always the case when I started) but this is not always feasible when you're leading with mobile (there are other approaches you can take of course to try and sell mobile service, but you don't really have that luxury when you go two weeks without getting one and they are laying on the pressure). The last thing is weekend work. When you start you are told that you don't really have to work weekends unless you are behind on the sales goals the company has set for you. The problem is, you can't use paid time off (PTO) to take off a weekend. So every mid-week your supervisor has to get your weekend goal from you but if you are behind on your goal you are pressured to say that you will work that weekend. I guess that "technically" you can still say you are not going to work the weekend but you will feel guilty or might have a passive-aggressive supervisor as a result. It's just not healthy.

Management

For my branch, local management is, despite what I said about weekends, absolutely fantastic. I have to say that the supervisors and manager of the sales department are the most understanding and supportive management I have ever had. They really do care about your success and want to help you as best they can. Any stress that you feel from this job is usually a direct result of the management above them. They really want to hear what their sales reps are experiencing and feeling and do what they can to pass that up the chain of command to make change happen. They are very down-to-earth and legitimately care about you. 

The Hardest Part of the Job

Outside sales is a grind at the end of the day. You really do get out of it what you put into it...BUT, sometimes that is not always the case. I have a lot I could say about the territory available to sell to that an outsider considering this job just couldn't understand without working there for some time. But if I could shed some light on some issues with territory, there was free internet made available to many people through the Federal Communications Commission that was pushed aggressively by Spectrum and was accepted by the public quickly. This made probably a thousand homes or more unsellable because they are already customers (since Outside sales reps can't sell to existing customers). This free internet is probably gonna last for three or more years because it comes out of a 14 billion dollar fund. This makes it much harder to sell now because those homes use to be easier sales because they had more affordable internet available to them before the free internet. 

Most Enjoyable Part of the Job

Making GOOD money. The best month I had was 10k after taxes. If you are good and lucky you really can make some serious cash. Some of my coworkers were probably making almost 200K a year based on what I saw week to week from them, but don't get your hopes up because those guys have to be onto something they aren't letting anyone else know. Chatting it up with my supervisors now and then was pretty enjoyable too since they are very laid back.

Benefits

If you live within the Spectrum footprint you get free Spectrum TV Gold (All Spectrum has to offer for tv), Internet at 200mbps, and home phone service. They match on the 401k up to 6% I believe depending on how long you stay. Great health insurance through Anthem, Eye insurance (Eye Med), Dental Insurance (Anthem), Disability insurance, and Life insurance. 
You get reimbursed on gas for your work-related drives, you do have to drive your own vehicle. They do take you out to lunch and have quite a few incentives month to month but incentives are mostly raffle incentives that you only get entered in if you meet the goals they set for the incentive. 

Overall it's a great company that does seem to care about its employees but currently, the sales division has a lot of mounting pressures that make work pretty uncomfortable. If you decide to give it a shot I wish you the best and hope you can make a killing!

I am a long-time employee going back to the pre-merger days. Since the merger there have been a number of thing that the new company has done to change us from an enjoyable place to work into a "Well, at least the check clears" environment.

1) A top-down approach to management makes everybody work the same across the company whether it makes sense or not. I work in an environment where there are certain times of the day that are way more busy than others during certain times of the year because of weather patterns. Rather than allow each region to adjust for the influx of work at certain times they believe in a wholesale shift change over the course of a half hour which leaves the second shift holding the bag for the work left over from days and then adds to their misery by having them deal with the afternoon storms and the 5PM everybody-else-wants-to-go-home surge. It makes no sense to not have this be managed locally.

2) Silly dress code policies. While I understand business casual being the norm on a weekday it doesn't make a lot of sense for someone working overnight on a weekend in a department where you don't even deal with customers come in in slacks and a dress shirt. Even when our local group wants to allow it we can't unless we get approval from an EVP, and that won't be granted because the largest group in our building (which is under entirely different management) doesn't want to allow jeans. (This is especially funny as people there consistently not only violate the policy by wearing jeans, sneakers and Snuggies but they also offer jeans as an incentive for motivation.)

3) Loss of incentives in the name of shareholder value. Back before the merger we would get a small bonus both in the summer and winter but no more. We would get a gift card to get a turkey for Thanksgiving but now we don't. We used to have summer and Christmas parties but now we either can't do that or we can but it's at the office and non-employees are not invited. They are always happy to offer you a (non-monetary) pat on the back but we all know from which that is 18 inches removed.

4) There is no respect for the old company or its culture. When we got bought we were told how much they loved the culture of the old company and wanted to bring it into the new company. I, for one, was unaware that love meant "smother until dead, then paint over, scrape off, and hide any evidence of existence." We were told we couldn't wear anything with the old company's logo. We couldn't drink out of cups with the old company's logo. We couldn't have an award on our desk with the old company's logo. If you mentioned how it used to be done you were told that was not the Charter way.

5) Employees fear telling it like it is to management. In fact, if they knew I was submitting this, rather that talk it out like reasonable people they would fire me. We used to have an EVP that would come and sit with us, even on the overnight shift, to see how things were doing. If something was broken he wanted to hear about it. Now if I'm set ablaze and being put out with a golf shoe I am expected to thank management for wetting on me to put me out instead.

6) We are provided with tools that either don't work or are forced to be tinkered with until they do a barely passable job. Anything that worked before had to be scrapped in the name of bringing all departments into the fold so now instead of having three groups doing great and seven doing badly they give us all the same mangled software so we can all fail equally. Why? Because what worked was made by the old company and the heck with that.

7) When employees do tell it like it is nothing is done. We all got pulled into a meeting to teach us how to cope with stress from change. Of course none of the answers to that is to get rid of the stress. Instead we are told that we will all get used to the changes and become happy little drones.

8) Bad news is buried because they think we're idiots. We just got an email telling us all about the savings we would get from the new mobile plan. Never mind the fact that it doesn't come to less money when you consider that you also have to buy a new phone from their limited selection that is all flagship except for one reasonably priced phone with worse tech than I have in a phone three years older. After a heading in an email and at the top of the page to which it directs you along with four paragraphs repeating the word savings they finally telly you near the bottom that you're getting the same rate as Joe Burgerflipper. Why not tell you that at the top unless they think you're too stupid, too inattentive, or too addle-minded to get all the way to the bottom?

9) On the plus side my local management is cool as all get out. They know that we're constantly being given a raw deal and they do try, usually, to make it easier.

There is an extreme lack of communication which results in a very negative, stressful and confusing work environment. This goes hand in hand with being only a number to the corporation, unreasonable performance requirements, decreasing pay opportunities, little to no room for advancement.

Two things you can expect are inconsistency & bad communication. In policies, enforcement, from one supervisor to the next you'll receive conflicting answers. You'll have to know more about your job than the person managing you.

You are a strictly a number, management couldn't care less about you as a person. For example, if someone in your family dies and they are not immediate they will not approve time off. It doesn't matter how close you are with that family member. If you have a family reunion planned and request over 1 year off in advance, chances are extremely high that you will not get granted time off.

Upper management consistently under staffs the call centers. In the 5+ years I've worked here they never figured out that under staffing leads to a negative impact on not only their employees, but most importantly customers.

Because the staffing is so bad, mandatory overtime is required all the time. You can not opt out. This will impact your family and personal life. When you are at work it is so busy that you do not even get 5 seconds between one upset customer hanging up and the next one on the line. It is back-to-back to back calls, non-stop.

Your every move and minute, down to the second is held to strict time schedule. You can not take your scheduled break late, even if you are on the phone helping a customer unless you want it to negatively affect your stats. Which affects your ranking, pay & schedule. If you have to use the restroom or get sick and go to the bathroom not during the scheduled allotted time this has the same negative impact.

The pay is just a hair above most entry-level job opportunities where I live. Every year I take a pay cut, even though my skill set and expertise have flourished. Even if you meet or exceed the requirements to meet above the target pay the commission opportunities are set in a way that you can't make much. I made more my first year, not knowing what the heck I was doing than what I make now 5 years later even though I am now an expert.

This goes to show how much you are NOT appreciated. You're monetary compensation should increase, not decrease the more dedicated you are to a company.

A couple weeks ago I (along with 200+ fellow employees) was advised my specific department in customer service was being eliminated at my location. At this time I was required to immediately decide if I wanted to relocate out of state with a new pay structure which they wouldn't disclose or decide between two job options at my location, also with a new pay structure that they wouldn't disclose.

The kicker on this, if I kept my same position and relocated OR accepted a different position THEY COULD NOT TELL ME WHAT MY WAGE WOULD BE. My decision on what job I wanted to do and the change in my position was effective immediately, but they refused to tell us what the compensation would be like.

We had to all BLINDLY decide. We have since changed job titles/departments & ect. and still have YET TO KNOW HOW MUCH WE WILL BE MAKING ON OUR PAY CHECKS. This is unacceptable and shows no respect or the least bit care for any of their employees. No joke. I still don't know. Let that show a very strong reason not to consider Charter as a place of employment.

The job itself? Well, think about it. You are taking inbound calls for upset customer's calling in to complain about their bill or a bad experience. Need I state the obvious that it is not fun? It is a job. I am thankful to at least have one . Now the nature of the job itself is stressful, the fact that management doesn't try to lessen that burden or promote a healthy, positive work environment is disheartening. You will need your health benefits/insurance. Expect headaches and anxiety. Those two words should be part of the job description when you apply.

I could continue on. It's quite sad. You might ask why I work there? What are the good things about working for Charter's call center? Free cable & internet, health benefits, most importantly money to help support my family and pay my bills. Perhaps one day they'll care about their employees and make some improvements for the better. I am a generally positive person, believe it or not after reading this when you consider applying here. I one day hope I can find an employer that treats employees right. I've put so much of myself into making this place better, but it doesn't matter how hard you try if corporate doesn't care. My advise is to avoid this place, but If you choose to work here, consider it a temporary opportunity and nothing more.

The good - 

If you have a high technical aptitude and can leverage skill sets not currently available or developed in your department or business unit, you will be praised often.

There is a large enough churn/ growth that there are often new opportunities.

Vendor/ contractor perks for food and events are decent 10-12 times a year you will be provided meals.

Your managers care about you, and your co-workers are nearly always nice. 'Team' and even 'Business Unit' employee relations are usually good.



Preface for the bad and ugly:
I genuinely believe that most of the employees want it to change for the better, and it could be a GREAT company if Charter commits to and takes real action on improving the following.

There should also be a feedback mechanism for these suggestions outside of the pre canned internal surveys that doesn't allow for it.

The bad - 

Your immediate management is not empowered to affect positive change for you and your peers. They will spend months/ years fighting battles on your behalf.
- Empower your front line managers, and take their suggestions, feedback and needs seriously.

HR designed title structure and career development feels like it was built 15 years ago and not updated. There also seems to be an active effort to create titles that aren't reflected/ recognized outside of the company.
-Flat out this needs to not be an issue in 2019 if you are going to stay competitive.

Internal pay transparency and discussions are actively discouraged, an may even be a cause for a performance improvement plan/ write up.
-This is just silly with online resources like glassdoor/ linkedin/ indeed, and until it changes you are not driving this conversation to your benefit.

The Ugly -

IT will take months to onboard employees and provide the basics without constant escalations from your management. Access and physical resources are a huge time sink. Weeks for a badge, months for software, IT ticket requests can sit for years if not followed up on, and then are misrouted/ redirected 8/10 times.
- Top talent will continue to be deterred or move on as this is a basic function of business.

Critical changes to software take months or even years to implement, and are then often no longer relevant. 'This field is freetext and needs to have validation'
- Simplicity in your systems should be paramount.

There is a % pay cap on internal promotions, regardless of the market rate for the position you are going to (you could be 20k-50k under the market rate for a NOC Engineer moving to Software Engineer and that is beyond management control to change). The common cultural statement is that quitting for a year and being rehired is the only real solution if this becomes a problem for you.
- This needs to stop. It is a terrible business decision, and tells your tenured employees that you do not care to keep them.

Quality of work is very low on the priorities, and emphasis is heavy on 'Deliver something.' While this is a common business problem it is quickly apparent that the scale is tipped to entirely far in the direction of 'something' and not uncommon to fall far outside of a minimum viable product.
- There needs to be a cultural shift from the top down on this, and focus put on quality instead of meeting poorly determined 'deadlines'

The Silos are real, have been entrenched for often years, and most efforts to collaborate cross business unit/ function end in senior/ executive level disputes/ posturing that kill the relationships.
- Short of blowing up and restructuring business units... when frontline teams/ employees agree on a change/ implementation or policy, it should supersede senior opinion on the matter. There should be a way to report this internally and fast tracked for a skip level.

Data is used primarily for the following reasons;
1) Weaponized against other teams to counter some internal 'threat' 
2) Manipulated/ 'Massaged' to tell the story that is beneficial and often far from the truth.
3) Inaccessible and held for posturing/ power.

- This just needs to stop in all respects. The data evidences the truth, and that truth is left unvarnished no matter how ugly the results.

This review is written based on my experience as an inbound sales agent at the Akron call center for time warner cable. After my experiences there I have no issue in saying Time Warner Cable is the absolute worst company I have ever worked for. Between being ordered onto a medical leave of absence by an HR person (illegal seeing as only licensed physicians can order medical leaves), to not being paid for said medical leave even though I was told I would be (even have the paperwork given to me when I was put on the medical leave documenting that I was to be paid during this leave), to them changing the length of a commission cycle so you don't earn the money you worked for. Because of all of the above and more I have no issue saying that Time Warner Cable was the worst employer I have ever had the misfortune of working for. Worse than any other employer I have ever had, hands down bar none. 

Time warner cable DOES NOT value their employees or their customers. Just take a look at what I've gone through (and that's not all, that's just the most recent items that have pushed me over the edge to the point that I am now building a case with my lawyer against them)  And as far as the customer aspect, look at how they treat their existing customers (they will continue to charge you more and more year after year while new customers get sent advertisements for better prices). Time warner also uses the bait and switch technique heavily. They will tell you they can get you this deal for X amount of money in the advertising or even on the phone,  but when you call in to sign up that price is "no longer available" and all that is available is a price that is at least double as advertised. Or, you'll even agree to a price on the phone, but when you get the bill I will promise you it's not the amount discussed.  (I would know, worked inbound sales for this corporation for quite some time and got to deal with thousands of irate customers in this same situation) Also, they will raise your rates without warning or rhyme or reason. They will also change your package around without rhyme or reason in order to increase your bill hoping you don't notice. When you call in to get the issue corrected you will be spending minimum 2 hours on the phone to get it corrected and even then all they will do is credit your account (if you're lucky, once again I worked for the company and company policy strictly prohibits lowering anyone's bill or applying any credits, only once a customer has spoken to on average 6-8 people and wasted minimum 2 hours of their time will they reach a person that has the proper authority to lower a bill without risk of losing their job or to apply a credit without risk of losing their job. This goes regardless of the reason, whether it be unforeseen death in the family or even if the account holder dies)

 They DO NOT care about their employees or their health or their wellbeing (clearly, seeing as hundreds if not thousands of dollars which I earned have not been paid, meanwhile I lost my house and am about to lose my car thanks to their greed and was told I wouldn't be allowed to clock in until I had received a written return to work approved for a high stress environment given to me by a psychologist). You would think the company would have to pay for this since they ordered the leave and the evaluation, right?  Legally they would be obligated to, however they refused to pay for any of it and even refused to pay me the wages I had earned prior to the leave. So I'm going to be letting my lawyer hash this out with them seeing as Time Warner Cable's HR department seems to think they are above the law. 

Needless to say time warner cable is the biggest joke of a corporation I have ever worked for and they will never receive my business or my labor again. Would recommend all steer clear unless you like getting taken advantage of. Just make sure to bring the KY if you accept this position because they'll give it to you every chance they get regardless of whether or not you're ready for it.

First the prices of the services provided are extremely overpriced. We are taught and trained to lie to customers, we are taught to save 80 percent of clients (even though they claim its less if you really want top tier commission that's where you have to be in order to get it), the other 20 percent are the people that move out of area (must be verified or people who are deceased). Everything is about money. Nothing about this job is about customer service. They rarely do anything to help the customer out but they expect the reps to show sympathy and empathy. And let me explain the real deal with spectrum mobile, it is not a savings okay it is not. They claim it is and it is far from it. They only use it to gain more money from customers. When customers call in to cancel either tv or internet (mainly tv cause thats the most expensive product), they expect mobile to be pitched to save that line (ex) even though in the long run its not going to save the customers money. Ive seen it firsthand it does not save money!  They want mobile before anything else, yeah it may save them on their current bill they are paying but at least be honest about it, dont but they arent and they never will be honest. They dont know how to be honest. 
They are not an honest company. Everything comes out of your commission, if you give dollars off it comes out of your commission, if you cancel the account, it comes out of your commission even if its a move out of area disconnect or regardles of reasaon it goes against you. You will not make 4 or 5000 a month unless you are selling selling, selling no matter what it is you must sell to get commission, you must not give away money to the customer even if it means saving the account when folks simply want to pay less not more but yet we are forced into making them pay more. Sad. There is so much more I can tell you about this job I would probably run out of characters. Lets not forget the micro management. Man that is the top of the cake. You get 5 minutes to log in at the start of shift to be in ready mode, you have to pull up all your applications you will need (call tracker, order billers, etc etc) and be ready by 5 after. If you are not, its considered tardy and call avoidance and you get written up, you must go on break on time if you go late to break you are out of adherence, if you come back even a split second late from a break or lunch, youre avoiding calls accrording to them, you are not allowed to clock out early if you do you are avoiding calls, I get its a call center and yes the idea is to take calls but it is not that serious, some folks need a quick break or take a drink of water after maybe a stressful call and you cant even do that. Do not go into after call work please dont, or they will be on you. Please do not transfer customers too many times or you are in trouble. You're expected to be a billing agent, a tech support agent, a sales agent, you're expected to be everything and dont transfer the call unless its absolutely necessary. Sups also dont like taking calls even though they are there to take escalated calls, we are supposed to do all we can to de-escalate the call so they can avoid them, sometimes you sit in chat for long periods of time just waiting for a sup or other form of support. I left this job because I was losing my self respect and I hated it, I would dread getting up going to work each day. I didnt even put the entire review about this company at because I would be talking for days on the horrible tactics of this company. They will forever be a revolving door because people will continue to quit or they will force out all the good people until they only have people that are willing to do their bidding 

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