Deluxe Corporation Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Deluxe Corporation full-time

Pros – The company provides good benefits and pays well for most positions. I don't know of many companies that provide so much vacation time, discounts, etc.

Cons – There is a communication disconnect between some departments. Deluxe owns a lot of companies that are trying to work harmoniously together, but it seems as if the different departments have no idea the other exists.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Deluxe Corporation full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Good salary and benefits, including a bonus program. Location and parking is very convenient. The company is trying to redefine itself from being just a check printing company.

Cons – Difficult to advance in career. Everything is financially based. Diffucult to get paid training or seminars. Consistently hire for new positions instead of training and promoting from within.

Advice to Senior Management – Build an employee growth program which includes a career ladder and management help to get ahead.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Deluxe Corporation full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – I work for the Deluxe Corporations personal checks division, aka Checks Unlimited, Direct Checks and more currently listed with the BBB as "Direct To Consumer". This division of Deluxe gives you the opportunity (in Colorado Springs only) to provide customer service to existing and potential customers in a call center environment which is very well managed. You can expect to be treated with respect and well-trained. The main focus of the "phone rep" position is the selling of the company's personal and/or business checks along with other products and services.
The management is intelligent, college-educated, professional, friendly, and very helpful to call center phone reps. The company promotes and enforces it's policy of respect for everyone,
professional behavior, encouragement and motivation without intimidation or bullying.
The management routinely shows appreciation of the efforts and hard work of the call center
reps by celebrating with free meals, small gifts, summertime barbeques, potlucks and
other nice ways to say "thank you for all your hard work". They seem to understand and
sometimes say that our jobs(phone reps) are not easy. Though a structured environment
with a lot of micro-management, it's nice that I can wear very casual clothes, even shorts and
flip flops, and hats!. They still have restrictions on some types of clothing. They don't care if you have tattoos, nose rings, purple hair, they still will hire you if they believe you have the potential
to do a good job and are suited for the call center environment. This company really promotes
and respects it's diverse culture and EOE policy that does not allow discrimination of
sexual orientation, age, handicap, religion, etc. People of all ages from 18 to perhaps 70! work
here and everyone is respectful of their peers. One can even get medical coverage for a
same-sex domestic partner. This is a great company to work for if you are not "conventional"
don't like wearing business suits, and like your flip-flops year round, but....you can handle
the discipline and hard work it takes to succeed in a micro-managed call center.
Another major pro is the fact that this company does not force customer service reps to
work shifts or days they don't want or forced rotating shifts. Employees have opportunities
to "shift-bid" when it is offered if they want to change their work schedule. There is rarely overtime
required and when it is, it's usually for one extra hour on the regular shift.

Cons – The "phone rep" position can be very stressful because there is a lot of pressure to sell and one must not only meet minimum requirements that involve many stats such as revenue-per-order, talk-time average, conversion (requiring minimum 80%. That means that ideally it is expected that at least 8 out of every 10 calls result in a sale), and constantly strive for better results as the company is routinely raising the expectations for revenue and job performance. They have a strict attendance policy and breaks are too short and infrequent. Meal time; only 30 minutes giving virtually no time for a walk or exercise. This is a "desk job" where one must tolerate a sedentary physical position except for standing. It's very hard to obtain promotions to higher grade levels so one can get a raise and bigger monthly bonuses. Some will disagree, but it has been my observation over the years that no more than 25 - 30% of all the people who have worked here in the last 7-9 years have been promoted to at least one higher grade level and that does not even give the phone rep a 80 cent hourly raise.This company has a history of a high turn-over because so many employees burn-out quickly or get too stressed with the restrictive structure of call center phone work as well as the difficulty with achieving grade level promotions and sales bonuses. Some employees just discover that they are not cut-out to be salespeople. The management routinely monitors phone calls for compliance. You either pass or fail. One must follow closely a scripted presentation which is somewhat too wordy and achieve 90% scores on 2-3 audits per year. The work can be tedious and too routine. Selling can be very challenging. The company demands a lot for what they give in hourly pay and bonuses. One must work extremely hard for a promotion and hope they are lucky too. The limitations on increases in hourly pay and monthly bonuses regardless of the amount of time one works and number of points one earns per sale can become discouraging and weaken one's motivation to work hard in this position. To avoid termination, most phone reps will exceed minimum requirements, but resent the lack of
monetary reward.

Advice to Senior Management – I believe it's time to restructure the monthly incentive payouts and give your phone reps a better and more motivated reason to strive to be your best employees ever. You should value your long-term dedicated employees with bigger pay increases and automatic promotions. You
should offer your new employees a higher starting pay and motivate them to continue their
employment with you as so many leave before one year or even sometimes <six months. Promotions should be easier to achieve as well as bonuses. This is what really drives a sales rep the raise the bar and beat the record again. A sales rep looks forward to the bonus or commission. This job is very demanding and requires a high level of accuracy and superb customer service focus and skill. It can take several years to master the skills you require and want every new rep to "aspire"...to. I have been with CU long enough to see that we have the best customer service reps than ever before now, but you need to consider what they need to really motivate to the highest level of performance , more now then ever....and it's getting a lot harder to keep that car running and food in the fridge. The reps appreciate the "Thank You" and free meals and treats, but money is the biggest driving force to get people to pull out of 3rd gear and into 1st gear and keep us on the highway to profits. Phone reps need to wake up each day knowing there
a reality to those bonuses and pay raises. Thank you if you took time to read this.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Deluxe Corporation full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Close to home, decent hours

Cons – Gift cards are part of my hourly wages - $5, $10, $20 - show me the $

Advice to Senior Management – Figure out a way to pay your employees what they deserve or move out!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Deluxe Corporation

Pros – Deluxe has a very strong business model, building on their relationships with small businesses and financial institutions to provide them with new products and services as their traditional products (checks and forms) decline. They are getting into the online marketing space at the right time through a number of key acquisitions. They have some great employees who really want to make this company transformation work.

Cons – The senior leadership team is not equipped to motivate and drive the change needed. The CEO, when brought in, was a super fit for what Deluxe needed at the time: driving a turnaround, cutting costs, streamlining the organization and putting a clearly defined business strategy in place to transform the old check printer.

It is now time for someone to take over that can inspire and motivate change. The current method is through fear and threat. Unrealistic demands on revenue growth without the support and time needed for new businesses are put on new leaders as they are brought in, setting them up for failure. This has unfortunately resulted in declining moral and constant churn at very key leadership positions.

I really liked working at Deluxe, and feel they have a real chance with their strategy. They just need to do some cleaning at the top.

Advice to Senior Management – See my comments above. I would say that leadership needs to change. It could be as simple as replacing the CEO, bring in someone inspiring that gets the digital space. More focus on living up to the culture of Deluxe - one that is connected to both customers and employees; and more aspirational in its reach to move quickly to deliver the value its customers expect.

Current Employee – been working at Deluxe Corporation

Pros – Deluxe provides a good benefit package and senior management is making big strides in changing the image of the company from a check printer to a company that provides marketing options for small business'.

Cons – Opportunities for advancement are reserved for a select few. Many talented employees in mid level positions find it difficult to receive opportunities for growth or add'l career advancement. Most opportunities are lateral, or job expansion. Many in Finance stay at same grade for 5+ years.

Advice to Senior Management – Contradictory to the previous Con, mgmt does a great job of pulling talent from the call centers to provide intern opportunities within the office. Deluxe does a good job to recruit those who take advantage of the college education reimbursement, but lacks for those who've joined the company further in their career. Mgmt should also focus on creating a more team oriented environment as there is little team unity.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Deluxe Corporation

Pros – There's some really nice people
Benefits
Challenging

Cons – The politics are bad
Lack of go to market strategy
No promotion opportunities

Advice to Senior Management – You can't continually flog people based on getting more revenue. Establish a go to market strategy based on data and stick to it. There are some really incompetent leaders who have mastered the art of deflection. It's hard to work here and feel good about yourself because regardless of what you accomplish, it's never good enough.

Former Employee – worked at Deluxe Corporation

Pros – performance goals are easy to achieve

Cons – company downsizes each year
company is trying to transform to stay afloat - lots of stress, confusion, fear of change

Advice to Senior Management – align your actions with your messaging
ensure your priority is your clients - not cutting costs

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Deluxe Corporation

Pros – Management has in place a good program for growth opportunities and recognizing talent within the organization for promotion.

Cons – Experience has been that most growth opportunities have been job expansion/horizontal, instead of true growth and additional responsibilities/promotion.

Advice to Senior Management – Deluxe does a great job of promoting out of the call center, but falls short at promoting mid level employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Deluxe Corporation

Pros – The best reason to work at Deluxe is the people. Many of them seem to care about the business even though there is not a lot of motivating factors for them. Deluxe’s best asset is the people; to bad the company has done layoffs for the last several years.

Cons – Unfortunately unless you work in the finance area there seems to be no place to move to. They will talk about succession planning but no one ever moves up. Where you start is most likely where you will stay. Deluxe has also not given any pay increases since March of 2008.

Advice to Senior Management – Take a hit from the shareholders and actually give employees raises. Employees hear from management what a tough economy it is and the company can not afford to give raises. Guess what? Working class families can’t afford not to have an increase. It’s a bad economy for us as well.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend