customer service representative

seasonal associate

retail assistant manager

cashier

stocking associate

Williams-Sonoma, Inc.

It starts with paid training which is tedious but not so bad.

Then, you'll be on the phone for most of your 8-hour days, 5 days a week. 

After work and on your days off, you'll possibly be too burnt out and tired to do anything, including look for other jobs.

Customers range from pleasant to nightmarish. Sometimes you can't even blame the angry ones because the company really did do them dirty, but you still have to take the heat that they bring due to mistakes in their order that result from the company's shoddy logistics, which you are empowered to do little to nothing about.

For that reason, learning the art of polite but empty-sounding 'corporate fluff speak' will be an integral skill of the job, and WSI is a great place to acquire that skill as the entire company culture will immerse you deeply in it.

Interactions with coworkers are generally friendly in a sterile 'please don't let me accidentally offend anyone and get fired' sort of way, but the people who work there are mostly nice, at least within the very limited capacity that you will ever interact with any of them. Mostly, you'll be on the phone with customers.

When I say that interactions with coworkers are limited, I mean its the only job I've ever had in which I could go a whole week at times without interacting directly with anyone else in the company, yet simultaneously knowing that my fellow workers in the analyst department are watching my every move, timing me, and eavesdropping on my phone calls with customers. 

The interactions you do have will be mostly text-based with no real idea of who you are talking to or what they look like, so if you are a generally lonely person or enjoy being social, this may not be the job for you.

If you are like me and would rather not interact with people that much, you still have to talk to customers all day so it's still not the job for you.

It's a work-from-home position, which is probably the best thing about the job, although their cutting-edge proprietary virtual office technology has perfected the digital recreation of feeling like you are sitting in a real-life corporate office, being monitored by a faceless team of analysts who track and record your every move and compile your adherence to rigid, down-to-the-second pre-set scheduling that you have no meaningful part in creating.

This allows them the ability to compile the sum total of your efforts as an employee into metrics, and reduced to a number that you get at the end of the month which decides if you still have a job the following month. It's quite a heartwarming way to spend most of your waking life.

If you are lucky, you'll last long enough to apply to one of the many other positions in the company, some of which don't require you to be on the phone as much. That's certainly a step up if you manage to get there, but don't get too comfortable because the moment the stock prices show any signs of volatility, 'business needs' will dictate that you move back down to phones where you'll stay until... well... Hard to say, since upward mobility depends on 'business needs' first, and your performance metrics last... but possibly years. They won't actually tell you. (see part about no real interaction with coworkers.)

The company would *almost* seem efficiently run if they learned how to retain the majority of their employees for more than a few months by maintaining employee morale instead of making you feel kinda like automaton cattle, but instead, they prefer to spend untold amounts of money on hiring and training new people as their more seasoned veterans figure out they are treading water at entry-level positions, quit, or get eaten up by mass lay-offs due to 'business needs.'

One great example of what I mean is when they hired a ton of new people for the busy season. 'Business needs' determined that they should offer many of the seasonal employees permanent positions, so they did.

A month later, 'business needs' determined that they can 180 of those same people,  so the called 180 ppl into a chat room and informed them all at once that they no longer have a job... Oh, and that was literally on Christmas day.

Yes. I literally watched as they fired 180 ppl all at once on Christmas day due to 'business needs.'

I envied those people in a way, but still, if you want a job that makes you feel like you matter in any sort of significance to a company, WSI is here to tell you "Sah-ree! Business needs, so no, you don't."

Don't think managers or supervisors are exempt either. They'll too get demoted back down to phones with the rest of the plebs if 'business needs' demands it.

Basically, take this job if you are desperate and don't plan to stay long, as the vast majority of people who get hired either quit or get fired within the first few months.

Also, be sure to keep looking for other jobs while you work here, because even if you do manage to stay on for a long time (as a few people do,) let's face it: you are better than that. You are a human being with real thoughts, ideas, hopes, dreams and feelings, none of which are likely to include being yelled at over the phone by people who can afford more expensive things than you for 8 hours a day with a 30-minute lunch break, and you can do better.

Yes, you: The one reading this review. I'm talking to you.

Consider going back to school and getting a high-value trade skill. Maybe learn how to work with AI, since business needs will probably give most of WSI's employees jobs to AI soon anyway.

Maybe sell the belongings that are weighing you down and learn to play a musical instrument, then go backpacking through Europe, or get a boat and pursue being a professional treasure hunter, cause at least that's kinda interesting and cool.

If you are considering this job, I wish you luck, but seriously, you can do better. You deserve better.

You deserve better.

If you've never worked a call center job before or a work from home job before, you're in for a treat. 

It's certainly an update from the monotony of fast food or retail, however it is extremely tedious, and strict.

You're expected to follow certain quotas of productivity which is PERFECTLY FINE, if you don't suffer from any attention deficit disorders or breath in between calls, or go to the bathroom, or drink water, or anything until it is your break time. 

Some supervisors are amazing, some... not so much. Some are extremely condescending, even people in other departments and physical stores can be hugely condescending and rude. 90% of my calls with customers always ended in, "I'm really glad I got you, every other associate I spoke with was either rude or didn't seem like they knew what they were doing" - when all I was offering was what I was trained to offer!

Customer Service representatives aren't really allowed to do follow-ups on orders without affecting their statistics which is super important when you're trying to be hired on for a permanent position. In turn, customers call back extremely escalated and leave bad reviews for no follow-up. 

Furniture Associates have a much easier time of it, we're allowed to offer compensation for distress and a bit more freedom in what we can and are trained to do. We're given time almost every day to follow up on previous orders with customers and allowed to request (and actually granted) extra time if the queue permits it.

Delivery HUBs are a nightmare, half the people don't seem to know what follow-up means and the rest are super rude about it. As a furniture associate, I've been transferred back into the customer service line and had to explain to a confused associate what happened all while they kept trying to transfer me to furniture and I've got a customer on the other line. I've been hung up on, I've been put on hold for more than 15 minutes (which is a huge no-no and a huge waste of time) and I've been transferred to other people at the same HUB and made to explain the same thing multiple times in hopes I won't get transferred again. 

We drop the ball as a company SO MUCH, and I know it's probably due to the bias I have since I deal with customer issues all day, but certain vendors are impossible to get a response from, as someone previously stated - the system we're made to use is antiquated, January orders are ALL delayed because apparently vendors give their workers 2 weeks off (which is totally cool of them and all, workers deserve a break) and don't update the online systems with a new time frame or even update their customers with an email. Half of January's calls were literally "Why did my furniture get delayed? I ordered it with this express purpose and now it won't arrive on time!" which is totally understandable why customers would be upset. We don't email for delays, half the time the back-order emails don't get sent properly and customers are made to wait months. There is no real follow up if the associate handling your order is let go, so a lot of times customers are calling back about follow up and I've got to see if I can get someone from a different department to take the case again. 

As an employee, if you're seasonal, you have to be on your toes constantly in order to get a permanent position. They let you go with essentially one day's notice where you'll work the first 2 hours of your shift the next day and then call in to a meeting where you're let go. You don't know if they decide to keep you right away and no matter how many times you ask for the date of your last day, you're always met with a "we don't know at this time", so it makes transitioning OUT of the job extremely difficult and cumbersome.

The good I can say about this job is, we can give compensation - makes 99% of people happy. Once you learn your groove, it's pretty easy to satisfy 50% of people. You have multiple avenues to seek assistance. You will meet some awesome people/supervisors. You will meet some awesome customers who will just make your day. If you do good, you get to read the good things customers say about you (if you do bad, you get to read the bad). You will see some wicked awesome/beautiful furniture/items. You will learn a lot. You'll become a pro at the customer service voice. You get an employee discount even if you're seasonal or part-time. You will be trained in basic salesforce, which is a crazy important avenue for work from home jobs. 

On a slightly comical and light-hearted end-note, you will find yourself struggling to remember how to use your computer normally. I still hit ctrl when my keyboard won't type and try to tab to various things. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just give the job a try and you'll see why. It's overall not a bad job - the few pros make up for the cons, you'll likely have fun at times, even, when working here so don't let a review stop you from trying it out. It's a legitimate job, no cat-fishing here, so give it a shot and remember to learn as much as you can from this job and any job in general. :)

The Job Listing is only a part of the story of this job, along with with the information that WSI provides. 
The training was the WORST that I have ever had in 15 years of retail, more so for a job that is VERY complicated. You are rushed through the training "you will have more practice the faster you finish" - which wasn't true. 
The training is NOT very clear at all, and worse jumps all over the place and makes even less sense! You are told not to take notes "you don't need them" and they don't explain why- there is an internal search help which you are supposed to use to solve issues, which you are not trained on how to use, or even to make it easier on yourself to know what terms to look for. 
YOU DO NEED NOTES! There are way too many terms, too many issues, too many things that you are judged on with customer feed back and supervisor feedback. Training does not walk you through an average call at all! The training is very unrealistic about calls in general. Issues are usually more complicated than they are portrayed in the training. And yes, if you rush through the training they do throw you into the deep end with live calls with no actual practice at all. 

Listing for FULL TIME is actually 30 hours, sometimes 40, sometimes up to 50 in high demand periods like back to school/ holidays -schedule is only guaranteed for 4 days, even through you are given 2 weeks at a time. (Example - one week is shown as 40 hours, and then is changed to 28!) You are asked to give either a 6th day to work, or to add 2 hours after your set hours. This means you can be still scheduled 6 days, but 4 hours each! Or 5 days, one 10 hour shift, with 4- 4 hour shifts! Shifts can be all over the place, it is NEVER a set schedule and really work life balance is not great due to the massive swings of scheduled hours.  (Example working 6 days and 4 hours each, but no day is the same hours!) 
(And in times like now, you are messaged all work shift to take Vacation time for that day or week. There should be a "Flex day off" policy for slower times!) 
Listing shows "plus bonus" this was NEVER discussed at all, so don't count on anything more than the listed pay. Benefits are ok, but not clearly defined passed vague wording in listing and in paperwork. Listing shows "3 weeks of Vacation' this is "UP TO" you earn each pay period a fraction of what you work. Keeping your hours low, will equal lowered vacation/ sick time. This is the first job that I have had that does not have set Vacation/Sick time that you WILL get. (Past jobs being full time you had a "bank" of what you earned each week against what you are going to total get- such as "earn 3.5 hours per week, for total 80 hours Vacation for the year. That is not how WSI works at all. You are NOT guaranteed any actual amount of time off or sick pay) They have a simple attendance policy, you earn "points" for being late, leaving early, or calling out sick. After a set amount you are terminated.

WSI creates most of the customer issues with their policies and the lack of setting correct standards for customers results in very stressful work environment. Most calls are about items missing, not being shipped, the wrong items entirely, and worse, orders that are delayed "backordered" over and over again. 
I would go weeks without any feedback from supervisor/management. You are COMPLETELY on your own with most issues.  There needs to be weekly/ bi weekly feed back, more so at the start! All through out the training the "up to termination"  is a threat and you have no idea if you are doing things right or wrong, without any feedback. This is the first job that I have ever had where there was little to no feedback.

You are expected to solve even the most complex issues on your own, with next to no supervisor for help. Getting assistance can take up 45 minutes and customers are even more enraged having to wait.


WSI would be better to be honest with hiring, training that is more realistic and supportive.

( *training needs to updated from the prospective of a new employee, not someone in corporate office of how they think a call should go, it has way too much of company lingo for new employees -the entire training program and process is horrible and needs to be overhauled. Training needs to have more simulation of a call from beginning to end, more detail about the systems you use, how to set expectations for customers, what verbiage to use to customers, and a lot less of "you will learn that later" - and there is never a later!!*)

There needs to be more team building moments, where team members have a relationship with the people they work with, and more than just the chat on Teams, and there needs to be set schedule meeting between agents and supervisors. Agents should be able to schedule talk time with supervisors to check in and even for training and feedback.

There is a LOT of room for improvement on WSI's handing of the hiring, training, benefits, and day to day functions of this position. 



•	Involved in gathering business requirements from the end users and management.
•	Performed Requirement Analysis by gathering both functional and non-functional requirements based on interactions with the process owners & stake holders and document analysis, represented them in Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM). 
•	Created high quality functional requirement specifications and supporting documents for business systems. Identified and retail procedures for emerging retail chain
•	Assisted developers with website support in regards to Content Management to take control of the Web pages by managing the content as distinct from the design.
•	Created Physical Inventory process for retail stores, consisted of data integration and inventory processes with third party vendor.
•	Responsible for establishing and maintaining positive business relationships with IT managers and clients, and ensuring that business objectives and priorities are aligned.
•	Designed and developed reusable class libraries, implemented those classes using Visual C#.
•	Actively involved throughout all steps of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
•	Facilitated Change Management across entire process from Project conceptualization to Testing through Project Delivery, Software Development and Implementation Management in diverse Business and Technical Environments. 
•	Interacted with department heads to finalize business requirements, functional requirements and technical requirements and also created Business process model. 
•	Responsible for successful delivery of Business Intelligence Customer Data Integration and/or Master Data Management (MDM) technology initiatives.
•	Conduct detailed analysis of supply chain costs and service.  Build and execute logistics and supply chain models.  Analyze findings and document recommended actions.
•	Involved in the complete SDLC system-providing SOW to the client notifying the client about the work to be done in detail, specifying both hardware and software involved Scope of Work.
•	Designed and developed Use Cases, Use Case Diagram, Activity Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams, Data Flow Diagrams using Object Oriented Design (OOD) concepts and UML using Rational Requisite Pro. 
•	Used the Unified Change Management (UCM) tool, Rational ClearQuest to maintain and track the stakeholders requested enhancements and changes. 
•	Assigned tasks among development team, monitored and tracked progress of project following Agile methodology.
•	Analyzed the business and functional requirements of the application and developed detailed test plans, test cases in Test Director.
•	Involved in designing and developing Data Models and Data Marts that support the Business Intelligence Data Warehouse.
•	Set up market data including zero curves, correlation matrices, dividend curves, etc., and the underlying financial instruments and then set up derivatives pricing parameters and trade capture options that drive the valuation of trades based on the market data to configure and test the system.
•	Involved in set up of testing methodologies and improvement of process model. 
•	Used ClearCase for creating documents repository and sharing the documents across the team.
•	Created traceability matrix to ensure that the requirements are traced to the test cases.
•	Ensured that extremely thorough, effective and organized test process is implemented and delivered the highest quality product.
•	Use HP Quality Center to house all test documentation and report/track all issues and defects (Defect Management).
•	Conducted user interviews at client locations, gathering requirements, providing analysis/functional specifications as well as Liaising closely both Front / Middle Office, and analyzing requirements.
•	Involved in assisting the development of functional requirements, static testing the applications by preparing and developing the Test Plans and Test Rules, editing and writing Test Cases, Test Scenarios and Test Scripts.
•	Executed the test cases manually for various job submissions in batch processing by using the Test Director/Mercury Quality Center.
•	Parsing high-level design specification to simple ETL coding and mapping standards. 
•	Did the regression testing using pre-existing test cases besides integration testing of various modules of the application.  
•	Worked closely with the project team in planning, coordinating and implemented QA methodology on various phases of the application. 
•	Analyzed results of Regression Testing as performed by Testers using QTP and held meetings with Developers and Testers. 
•	Interacted with the developers to report and track bugs using Test Director.

The workload on a manager in this company is the worst I have ever experienced. The expectations are so high and the amount of hours given is so low. God forbid you should have a GM who is a little disorganized because your work life balance will be non existent. I was the Visual Manager at my store. My typical day was coming in seeing a store that was not closed properly the night before and having to push back all the tasks I had ready for my staff to do, iso that I could get the store ready for opening. While helping my crew recover the store, I had to stop about 20-25 min before opening to race through opening procedures reading emails and scanning through any recent price changes that might have occurred without warning. During the week there is a promo sheet in which you are supposed to not only change the prices on many items but also disassemble some displays to build new ones on the same payroll you would have during a normal opening. Twice sometimes three times a year you are required to repaint walls in the store with no added payroll. Here is the part about the GM being organized. The GM has to play with the regular hrs he is given to run the store to give you your floor set hrs. No extra hours are given for floor sets. Floor sets are to be done throughout maybe a week and a little before store opening and a little while the store is open so that the visual team can also help customers to save on payroll. The visual team most time includes just the Visual Manager and 2 visual team members. The visual manager is usually the opening manager when it comes to floor sets so as soon as those doors open he or she is dedicated to running the store and helping with little tasks for the floor set. Usually one person is scheduled to open. God forbid again that there be more than 2 customers in the store asking for help because you will never be able to continue tasking the floor set. Then of course there is lunches and breaks. Did I also mention that during the week of the floor set closing managers feel the need not to close the store down properly. I can't blame them too much though because it was probably just the manager and one or two associates closing the store down. Stores that are huge. At least the ones in So. FL are. Expect maybe the Lincoln Road store. That one is half or even a quarter of the size the rest of the So. FL stores are. Did I forget to mention THERE ARE NO CASHIERS? The two sales people you have on the floor are supposed to help customers and then ring them up. If there is more than two customers in the store at the same time what is a manager to do? 

1. Ring on another register (wrong)
2. Help customers in the store while leaving the front door unwatched. (wrong)
3. Stay in the front greeting customers while trying to explain and not to point from the front of the store where the item is (ugh...so wrong)
4. Bring out the one stock associate to ring (wrong). At times there was not a stock associate scheduled.

Before I started working there I would have easily picked number 4, but after having angry customers call the store asking for a manger from the pick up area so they can chew your ear off about the amount of time they have waited for their furniture, I know that is the wrong choice. Now you have an angry customer, and you have left the front of the store empty with no greeter and no theft deterrent.

There is no real answer to that question.

One person in the stock room lol. Mind you, at times this one poor unfortunate soul is loading a whole dining table, desk, more than one dining chair, 8x10 rugs into a car. While trying to organize and place similar pieces of furniture that came on the morning shipment into the correct place within the stockroom.

Did I also mention the store ships out lots of merchandise so the morning stock team has to, and I use the term "stock team" loosely because there was only two in my store (a male stock associate and a female shipper receiver), wrap then pack the ship out items into boxes at some point between truck and stocking the sales floor? I had a team of about 6 stock associates at the same time in a similar volume retail clothing store without the ship out process.

I don't know who these happy managers are that are writing glowing reviews, but they are either lying or chewing on some amazing happy pills.

The two things I enjoyed more than anything else was my team and my coworkers because despite everything we still had smiles on our faces. We muscled through it. 

If you don't believe this review ask for the associate opinion survey in your interview and watch your future DM's face melt into a puddle of embarrassment on the floor or wait and pick it up on your first day.

Training is currently 3 weeks with 1 week of "nesting," or what many other places call, the bullpen. Generally, you have easy access to trainers during nesting, but not here, so be prepared to do it all by yourself and figure it out without anyone's help. It takes between 30-90 minutes to reach a lead and it's not even holiday season. You will be told that your trainers will all  be available for you, but you will likely never speak to them, but rather random leads who have no idea you're new and expect you to have all the answers... they also will not take even the most escalated of calls unless they absolutely have to. 

During the initial week of training, be prepared to be in a room with 100+ people who have clearly never used a computer before. The entirety of the first week will be plagued with technical support issues and people  who haven't even gotten the necessary equipment. So, realistically, the first week of training doesn't exist. 

Upon your classmates, who somehow made it this far but have no basic computer experience, being able to actually sign into anything.... you will then train yourself. It is completely self-lead and it is a LOT of information. So much information that you will want to bang your head in the wall. They will tell you that all of this information is easily accessible in their systems, but believe me.... it isn't. You will stumble upon real issues that have zero guidance, no PDFs, nothing to help you....did I mention it takes over an hour to get help?

Week three will be more, self-paced learning with the threat of possibly jumping on the phones to help with call volumes, even though you've not even finished taking the most ridiculous modules and tests on earth. You have to get 100 percent on every test in every module with a test and if you miss even ONE question, you can't just restart. You have to do the entire test ALL over again. So, best write the correct answers down, otherwise you're going to be hitting "take again,"  a thousand times. 

Once the fourth week rolls around for nesting, you will have no general access to trainers, your classroom, etc... you will literally be thrown to the wolves and again.... over an hour hold times. It's not the holidays, so imagine a non-holiday seasonal volume multiplied by Black Friday sales. Oh, did I mention that you will be trained the first week on sales, but you will probably be thrown into their furniture division which doesn't consist of sales.... but lots and lots of returns and replacements. 

More than 75% of your calls in furniture will be upset Karen's and Greg's who have multi-thousand dollar orders that need replaced, have been replaced, etc.... You will come across issues you cannot solve and notes that make no sense from other reps. It's basically like working in collections, but at least in collections you don't usually have to put people on hold for an hour. You cannot "small talk," an angry Karen. That's just impossible. 

I should also mention that while you sign up for flex-time and they have reasonable hours/shifts.... your day-to-day schedule can change at any point. You may have planned your next week out based on what was on the schedule, come back in on your work day and your entire week's schedule is completely different without notice. So, don't make plans to do anything, ever if you work here. 

So... if you like training yourself, being completely and utterly ill-equipped to handle real world and real time situations, trying to work through a broken system, having zero access to trainers during nesting and while actually working, but you're really hard up  for that 20 to 40 percent discount that you can only use while logged into the system.... it's a great place. Otherwise.... look elsewhere. 


This company is a mess. The apathy here is deeply engrained, and a part of their “culture”. Even the supervisors seem resigned to the fact that, although many processes are flawed, that’s just how it’s always been done. There are no clear SOP’s, and misinformation is a regular part of your day. Important information that you need to do your job will often times be poorly or incorrectly communicated, which often times makes the job a lot more than just helping the customer. 

The pay is inadequate. Considering the amount of angry people you consistently have to deal with, the compensation is not sufficient for the kind of performance they demand.  

Training is short and covers only the very basics. Say bye to your friends in training, because 90% of them will be gone within 6 months. Some of the systems are truly archaic, and the ones that aren’t are riddled with problems that will often times go on for months. Convoluted solutions to these issues result in a lot of added work and pressure.  

You will be surprised to learn that orders are frequently delayed or lost without explanation, and you are responsible for the solution. This is especially important due to the rating system you are held to, which allows the customer to review your interaction. These reviews put 100% of the responsibility on the representative; regardless if the customer clearly indicates their dissatisfaction is related to the company, the delays in their order, or something else entirely. You have no recourse, so once the bad review is entered, it is considered your personal failure. These reviews are emails sent to the customer after they interact with customer service. Often times these reviews are blank or do not refer to your interaction with them at all, but the company considers it your responsibility to turn the customer around and get a positive review. 

The solution commonly presented is to call and apologize, but they seem unwilling to train for the inevitable escalations you will encounter. The other solution commonly suggested is to personally own the issue. This requires you to regularly check on the orders progress and continually update the customer. This is expected to be done on top of your regular work, with minimal time offered to complete the extra tasks. Many representatives are not trained in everything, so if you are one of the lucky ones trained in furniture, you will get most of the more challenging orders with no additional compensation. This can also make getting assistance on confusing issues an uphill battle. 

Much of the support you receive is from other representatives. Nobody is on the same page with any policy or procedure, so you will almost certainly get a different answer depending on who you ask.

Supervisors seem to be there primarily to point out your failures, and don’t provide much support for improvement or professional development. Don’t dare voice your frustrations, because it will be perceived as negativity. 

The primary tool you have  is a promise of partial credit once delivered, which often times provides little comfort to an irate customer. 

All in all, I would never suggest that someone work for this company, let alone trust them with an expensive purchase. Don’t let this one review be the judge, check nearly every consumer reporting site. They maintain a 1 star rating on both consumer affairs and the better business bureau, as well as an embarrassingly low score on both Yelp and Trustpilot. 

If you’re looking for a low paying job with high expectations, then you’re in luck, because they are always hiring. The turn over rate is astounding.

This was the first job I ever had working in a call center.  I looked forward to finishing the training and beginning to actually work.  The training was very good.  It lasted 5 weeks.  My instructor knew the system inside and out and was very good in helping those of us who were a bit slower than the others in the training class.  The training software had a number of glitches.  It did not always reflect the real results of searches and other order checking issues.  The software used in the call centers is about 30 years old.. an antiquated DOS based program.  Very cryptic, very unforgiving and not very much in the way of help.  That said, the Williams-Sonoma Knowledge Base is quite good although it takes time to find the information you really need unless you have been working with the system for months.

After the training period the actual job became a nightmare.  Mainly due to very demanding and often very rude customers.  Once you log into the phone system you receive a constant stream of calls.  Rarely did five seconds pass before another call was coming in.  The upside is there is no time limit in which to help a customer.  You can spend as little as two minutes with a customer or an hour depending on their needs.  Williams-Sonoma is all about customer service but the bad thing is that the training really does not prepare you for the "Real World" of working in a call center.  No amount of training can prepare you for every possible curve a customer might throw at you but add the outdated software to the mix and you have the potential for disaster if you are new to the system.  The single thing Williams-Sonoma could do to improve customer service is to ditch the current software used for orders and move to a more efficient and user friendly Windows based system.

Co-workers and team leads were great.  They helped when they could and offered encouragement.  Some were more helpful than others.  The less helpful suggestions were to "Check your resources." which did not always provide a timely solution to a customer's problems.. more often then not looking for the answer to a problem resulted in the customer being put on hold numerous times... which resulted in extreme frustration for both the customer and myself.  This did not reflect the world class customer service that Williams-Sonoma wishes to project.

This is an extremely stressful job and the $11 an hour is simply not worth the stress.  You must have a certain disposition to work in a call center with demanding and sometimes abusive customers.  I could not handle the stress and quit.  It just was not the job I hoped it would be.

Co-workers who had been there for a while kept telling me that "I would get it.. eventually."  I wanted a job I looked forward to but I soon found out that working in a Call Center was just the wrong choice for me.  Your mileage may differ.

I love the products of Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn and West Elm and will remain a customer.  I am thankful for the opportunity to work at Williams-Sonoma but I was just not cut out for the job.

Reason for my Resignation
As of today, after one solid week of training, I am resigning. I didn’t want to because I absolutely needed this job and had high hopes of becoming a Williams-Sonoma employee from home. In summary, Williams-Sonoma provided poor training, outdated applications, confusing procedures and no sympathy from trainers. The training feels rushed, and you are intimidated from taking notes. My trainer said that taking notes slowed you down. 
Much of the exercises was on furniture parts and sofa labels. The focus should have been on providing TRUE customer service training addressing the numerous aspects of telephone service. On Friday afternoon, November 1st, I was informed that I had fallen behind in my training (of the modules) and that to be prepared to train on live sales calls sometime next week. At that notification, I knew I was not ready to engage in that part of the training. My supervisor gave me the impression that I was to be an expert in sales, shipping, guidelines, merchandise, and home décor by completing only one week of modules. Being rushed to complete the modules did not provide the education needed to handle phone calls in one stressful week. Computer program installations were a nightmare due to the fact that the directions supplied were outdated and differed from what the trainer had instructed, leaving you confused and frustrated. The software modules should have been taught first before actually uploading it. This caused considerable confusion when trying to utilize the software. Training should not be less than 2 months. Before being placed on live calls, you should be practicing with your partner and trainer for at least 2 weeks.
	
Attendance Points and Breaks
Getting penalized for every occurrence DURING training is very discouraging. Excessive militaristic strictness of monitoring your attendance, with no real grace period is stressful. For example, the breaks barely allow you to go to the restroom and stretch before beating it back to your seat to watch the clock for your punch in/out because you don’t want to be late and accumulate a point. The intermissions provided (30-minute lunches and two 15-minute breaks) do not allow for the flexibility of any kind. There is no time to use the break. Much of the time is spent watching the clock for precise punches in order not to be penalized. Therefore, you feel like you’ve served 8 hours without a break. 
It Is With Deep Regret
I definitely expected better. This was the worse experience I have ever had in a customer service training environment. I need to make sure it is reported and that they are aware they are losing valuable assets, such as myself. This is the shortest employment I’ve ever encountered customer service career of over 12 years. Having to experience this unpleasant backend has dissuaded me from ever shopping with Williams-Sonoma ever again.

The work from home position for Williams Sonoma will not be what you expect, if like me, you thought they were a good company and a big company. You would think that they had it all together and were top notch. Not at all. You would think that they would treat new hires decent and want to keep them around for at least a little while. Not at all. Very weird company. Very weird training. It seemed like a very hostile and angry environment and I am not talking about the customers. I don't understand why they take the time to hire people and make us send in videos about customer service and fill out all the paperwork and then when we start they treat us like they don't want us around. They hired me. I thought they needed to fill customer service positions. I was ready, willing, and able and they had me dreading going to work by the second day with the way they treated me. And, they over complicate training. Just tell people how to sign in to the systems they will need to use for the job. Give them a "cheat sheet" of the steps. Don't make modules on how to sign in. That should be one of the easiest steps. Sure there will be technical issues sometimes, but other jobs just tell you how to sign in and let you sign in and click around to get to know the system. They have these useless outdated modules that have information that the trainers will tell you to not use or do.
Williams-Sonoma really was a disappointment. I just did not expect what I got. I have worked at a call center before for a national retail company and it was wonderful and I thought I had found something similar to that but it was not that way at all. I know things are different now and most people only call to complain now rather than like back in the old days before the internet when they would call to place orders, and ask and talk about merchandise, but still I don't get why Williams Sonoma can't at least treat the people they hire for their call centers well and be respectful towards them. I think at this point they should let applicants know the percentage of trainees that get dropped/fired from class and the percentage of trainees that quit voluntarily from training class. Applicants need to know what they are getting into so they won't waste their time or be disappointed and shocked like I was. They need transparency and brutal honesty because what they are doing now just does not meet any kind of standards of decent work place practices. 
Williams Sonoma needs to learn from other retail call centers how to do it right. If they only want temp employees to avoid having to pay for benefits/raises or something like that, then hire temps only. Don't waste the time of people looking for permanent full time work.


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