Direct Alliance Reviews

Pros

Steady hours, good training, good place to gain sales experience.

Cons

They will monitor every call you make and either ask you not to step away from your desk to answer the next call or request higher dials. Commissions change regularly. Most jobs pay pretty low 24k-30, a few can earn 60-75k. Some used to pay much much higher...back in the day.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep your promises.

Pros

Uncapped commission in my group. Opportunities are available for growth and movement. Good benefits. I get to leave work at work as they do not issue laptops.

Cons

They do not issue laptops :). The desktops and LAN experience network lag too often and their crm is clunky but it works.

Advice to Senior Management

Please invest in the desktops and LAN. Ours are slow and laggy..

Pros

They do provide jobs to an economy that needs it.

Cons

Not high pay and they need to have better managers.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay us more.

Pros

Not a bad place to work. Nice facilities, easy-going management and decent pay (considering the nature of the work). I would definitely suggest this position for anyone who's worked in sub-par/grimey call-centers.

Cons

They are often disorganized in terms of how they train. The computer systems are TERRIBLE, and it makes learning and doing your job much more diffacult.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve computer softwares/networks!

Pros

Easy to fly under the radar while doing no work. Easy to push management around

Cons

poor leadership, poor work environment

Advice to Senior Management

Get a backbone and a brain

Pros

Growing company which gives employees advancement opportunites. Company invest in employee development. Informal working atmoshphere/ Company dedicates a lot of resources to increase morale and motivation of employees.

Cons

Most Managers are promoted within. Very green. Lacks job secuirty due to nature of business. Wages are low compared to competitors.

Advice to Senior Management

Too many layers of management. Middle managers not trusted with improvement suggestions. Lines of commuication is closed beyond immediate supervisor.

Pros

Good location. Casual work environment. Most managers are competent and professional. HR easily accessible. Opportunities to advance and transfer. Employee store which sells coffee, movie tickets, stamps etc.. and mail room. Covered parking. Detailed employee intranet. Most employees over all are treated decent. Several on-site conveniences offered for a fee (massage, oil change, etc). Some programs are well ran while others are a sweat shop micromanaging mess. Usually hiring even in state of bad economy. Pay is decent, good in the business side, lower in consumer programs (Charter Communications, health care,consumer electronics,etc). AOM trips given to top performers. Back in the old days, fun on-site parties were held even with liquor (legally outsourced of course) but all that is now gone since Teletech acquired DAC.

Cons

Pay at DAC has slowly declined and DAC has had a fair amount of layoffs the past year. Your job pay,security and satisfaction is heavily dependent on the contract you support. One program can be ran smoothly while new start ups are usually a disaster. DAC has turned into a consumer call center, signing up programs that really do not pay very well. Insurance benefits are average and could be better, and they are not cheap. Once your contract ends, it is usually with little or no notice and you could be out of a job. Pay varies widely depending on if you are in a consumer program or business to business. Pay fluctuates and commission rates constantly change, usually worse each time. No Christmas party in 2008. Several programs closed in 2009 leaving many employees jobless with little notice. In DAC's defense though, reasonable efforts were made to give jobs to displaced employees. When DAC was owned by Insight, it was a completely different company. All the contests, spiffs, and fun employees had gradually went away.

Advice to Senior Management

Feedback to the executives does not matter as most sugar coat everything and are not honest with anyone. Judi overall though is friendly and very approachable. Her weekly blogs are generally truthful but she tends to leave out the painful repercussions of the job losses recently at DAC for 2009. In one weekly blog, she stated a contract was successfully re-negotiated resulting in a longer contract with DAC, but failed to mention that 35 people were laid off as a result. DAC really needs to bring back employee morale as it has taken a serious beating in 2009. Time to make DAC more than just a place to bring home a paycheck.

Pros

Simple corporate environment with moderate politics. Great place to gain experience. Good people in a friendly environment for peers. Good benefits and flexibility with respect to work schedule.

Cons

Poor promotion decisions, often based on personal relationships instead of ability. This has lead to high employee turnover as well as complete overhaul of senior management. However, incompetent middle managers tend to remain safe causing execution of core vision to be cumbersome.

Advice to Senior Management

Regularly review your management chain and allow 360 feedback from subordinates or areas of positive change. Don't allow entrenchment to be the norm with ineffective directors and managers. Poor leaders will lead to poor results.

Pros

The relatively unstructured environment creates opportunities for assertive workers. There are opportunities to try out new marketing techniques and analysis.

Cons

Lack of real vision, poor communications with employees, minimal employee investment. Proper incentives are not in place for marketing and other support organizations. Recent layoffs and loss of business has negatively impacted company morale.

Advice to Senior Management

Create a more agile and responsive environment. Create and stick to a sound strategy. Include key employees in that vision. Avoid rash decision making and think longer term.

Pros

Secure in the current economic climate. Lots of growth and potential for income.

Cons

A lot of promotions, etc are based on inter-office politics.

Advice to Senior Management

Working for a strong female leader like Judi Hand is actually pretty great. I respect her judgement and feel absolutely secure in her leadership. Some mid-level members of management do like to play favs which is to be expected in most office environments though.