Armstrong Cable Reviews

Pros

Full Time Employee Benefits:

Free Cable TV, Internet and Telephone (except for Pay-Per-View)
Paid time off: 10 vacation days (15 after 7 years) , 5 floating holidays and 5 sick days. These can be scheduled on a per day or per hour basis. You are not forced to use an entire week off at a time.

Decent pay raises: .50 after 120 days and about 1.00 annually up to the $20.00 hourly salary cap.
Relaxed work environment
Casual dress code (not sloppy, business casual)
Paid training and ongoing on the job training
Tuition assistance is available
Multiple discounts Including: % off of Verizon wireless bill and % off of food purchases at Ponderosa Steakhouse.
Choose between daylight or night shifts
Opportunities for voluntary overtime and voluntary holiday overtime
Free parking and a short walk to the building

Cons

Stress
Repetition
Angry and sometimes abusive customers
Pay not as high as other companies in the Pittsburgh area
Salary cap at around $20.00 per hour hourly
Paid time off not used at the end of the year does not roll over. You use it or lose it.
It can take a long time for an employee to receive full time and benefits, even if they are skilled at their position

Advice to Senior Management

Reward your skilled workers who know technology and are good with your customers with a more competitive pay rate. Raise the bar and the pay rate to attract smart college and technical school graduates. You will bring in more qualified candidates and the employee turnover rate will be lowered. Raise the hourly salary cap and offer incentives to top performers. Offer more full time positions more often. Your employees want to feel like they have a secure future at your company and that they can provide for themselves and their families.

Allow paid time off to roll over to the next year.

Listen to and implement ideas for changes from employees on the front line to help improve both their jobs and the customer experience.

Update the computer systems and software and stop blocking websites! Computers freeze up and we are blocked from a large number of websites on a regular basis when we are trying to help a customer on the phone. It is embarrassing to explain to a customer that our computers are slow and out of date and that I can't try to go to a website because our company has "net nanny" software installed on our computers. It's 2011 and we are running old Dell PC's running Windows XP and using software from the 1980's. There has to be a better and more efficient way to help our customers and ourselves.

Improve communication company-wide. Corporate, local offices, ATC offices and the CSC all seem like we are separate entities. We are one. We need to communicate as such. We can better understand each other and work together to improve things for the customers as well as all ourselves.

Please come down to the Customer Service Center and spend a day shadowing us on a busy day. We know that you listen to calls from away. But please, come here. Spend a day listening to calls, watching the software we use and understanding what it's like to be in our shoes for 8 hours a day. You will see what can be improved and will truly value what great assets you have working for your company. I gained a lot of respect and understanding for our service technicians and installers while doing a ride out with one of them a few years ago. I think you call would feel the same way after sitting with us.

Armstrong is a great company and does alot of things right, but there is some room for improvement that would make things much better for both the customers and the employees. I highly value the fact that you have not outsourced your customer service and technical support jobs overseas. It's great to also see the support that the company gives to local causes.

I would recommend Armstrong service as well as Armstrong as a place of employment to anyone!

Pros

The company offers free internet and phone as a perk once you have passed probationary period. Most co-workers are genuinely helpful and friendly.

Cons

There is no opportunity for advancement, at least not for a new comer. Promotions are not based on qualifications or experience, but rather who has outlasted the high turnover rate the longest. It is a "good ol' boy" mentality that drives the place. If you want to get ahead, be sure to always invite all coworkers to your wedding, a night at the bar, play touch football, etc. Also, the company will always back the most irrational customer over you, the worker. If a customer becomes irate, screams obscenities about you, your family, threatens to beat you in the parking lot etc, you must grovel to them. The company would rather give freebies to the screamers than tell them to find an alternate service if they cannot behave.

Advice to Senior Management

Better training would benefit all workers. When the callers exceed the phone reps, have the supervisors take a few calls instead of looking out the windows or playing on their phones.

Pros

Part Time Cable CSR getting all Cable channels, one DVR box, and free phone line. But you must pay for any additional boxes, as well as internet service. Only Full Time Cable CSR's get free internet. (TSR, which are the technical for the internet if part time get free internet and phone but must pay for the cable service, full time TSR get everything free like full time CSR)
Usually casual work environment with clothes, only Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday are Business casual and there are a lot of times when they waive that for a whole month or two in the winter.
Popcorn Fridays
Most customers are really nice to talk with and don't complain too much.
Can put in to go home early and if available get to leave early if approved by workforce. Unpaid of course. Also can swap shifts, put up hours to give away to other employees etc.
Pretty much unlimited overtime if you want it, it is there.
Do try and have fun with the employees and getting freebies from cable networks are extra perks, fun pens, calendars, mouse pads, bonuses at times, etc.

Cons

Pre-hired you will be told you will be "part-time" working only about 25 hours a week, in training you will be told you will be working more like 30 hours a week, then when you start talking to the reps and get to bid for your shifts, you are pretty much working full time 37.5 with no benefits.
Pre-hired you will be told that CSR's that are part time pretty much move to full time within a few months to a year, but most have been there 3 years or longer before they get offered a full time position unless you are a TSR there seems to always be postings for full time TSR's.
Training is a joke, spend way to much time on training you on billing and like no time training you on the technical side. Spend a lot of time on fluff stuff too. So you go out to the floor not knowing much and go by the rule of fake it till you make it. Have a lead line and half the time would get forwards from them on tech issues from years ago and how to solve it, things never touched on in training. Learn much more on the floor then in training even touches on.
None of the supervisors are on the same page, everyone has different things they like to do and say and how they want you to answer things and note the accounts and what you must have open on your desk etc...all over the board.
No benefits, no paid time off, pretty much working full time, 8 hour day with one 15 minute break and one 30 minute lunch. If you stay late must work an extra 2.5 hours before you get another 15 minute break.
Low Low Low Low pay for what your doing and dealing with. They have been paying the same rate to employees for several years to start, since early 2008 at $9.50/hr to start and bump you to $10.00/hr after 90 days if you are meeting the metrics and performance goals. Taking calls at if I remember right 5:30 minute talk time and adherence and everything in check. They do babysit you on this, come back from break one time a minute late and your report the next day will have that in red. Also you will be give a stop watch to use to make sure you don't go a second over to use.
Shift bids, shift bids shift bids, no rhyme or reason be ready for it to change about every 2 to 3 months.

Advice to Senior Management

Offer your Part time Employees better pay, benefits, etc then maybe the turnover would not be as high is it is.
Get on the same page for how things should be done, don't have things be different from one team to another.
Base things on performance and not seniority more.
Better training, better resources for employees to use, follow up training.
Less shift bids let schedules stay as they are for longer.

Pros

Doing contract installation work for any cable company requires a self motivator with a level of personal pride in ones workmanship along with a ability to focus on customer satisfaction. Being left alone with minimal to no supervision is a job plus. You are given your work load for the day and as long as your jobs are completed in a timely and professional manner you can work at your own pace without someone standing over your shoulder like a time clock nazi. Going to a dissatified customers home with poor wiring and poor quality of service and having the opportunity to clean up a previous poorly done install and make a eyesore look clean and neat and a customer happy with their service brings no small amount of personal satisfaction and pride in ones workmanship.

Cons

YOU ARE NOT APPRECIATED, YOU WILL BE RESENTED BY THE COMPANY, EMPLOYEE'S, AND CUSTOMERS. YOU ARE EXPENDABLE. You will be blamed by the install manager for ALL problems at the service location, to include plant problems or design problems which are beyond the install techs control. In the eyes of the inhouse I.M. its better to blame a contractor than admit to a problem on there end.

Advice to Senior Management

You expect contract employees to show the same level of professionalism that your inhouse techs show yet you exclude the contractors from all meetings, training classes, ect. That shows seperation on your part which carries over to the way your techs treat the contractors. Then your suprised when your contractors don't show any company pride or loyalty. Why should they? You have made it perfectly clear that you don't care about them so why should they care about you or your customers?

Pros

No shortage of work or threat of losing job.

Cons

The pay is below market value, and vacation/sick time is a joke. 7 years to get three weeks.

Advice to Senior Management

Loosen up, a few extra days off would go a long way for employee morale.