Netflix Reviews in Portland, OR Area

Pros

Free Netflix subscription, good compensation for what you are doing, just sitting and talking really. They also allow you to use your own judgement when compensating customers for problems.

Cons

I was ahead of the curve for a new hire, things were going well. I got sick a couple of times and then a week after my last absence, they fired me at the start of my work week. I just wish they would have said something like, you can't miss one more day or we will have to let you go, something along those lines.

Advice to Senior Management

If you have written-in-stone guidelines such as an attendance policy, those guidelines should be something shared with the people that they are being enforced on. Because how are you supposed to obey a law, if you honestly don't know it exists,

Pros

hands down pay is great 14.00 plus health care benefits (800 extra a month if you opt out of insurance) puts my pay above 2500 a month!

10 hour shifts (can be a con too) three day weekends are nice but you will need it

Classified as a hostile work environment by the state of Oregon so you get unemployment for virtually anything you may get fired for (even if you deserve to be fired). Make sure you get hired by netflix first before taking advantage of this sweet pro. It does not work if you are still on your trial period with them through a hiring agency.

Great job to go into to find a real career especially as a college graduate in this economy

Cons

Customers have no lives so they call up about stupid things and feel they deserve the world for $9.99

Dealing with stupid people all day long is very rough.

Pay is great but think about it, why do they pay so well? If it was a great place to work they would not need to pay well, would they ;-)

constantly acting like you care takes its toll at about 4 months in (like I said start looking for another job on your three day weekend no matter what you think at the start of this job, you will thank me later for that nugget of info ;-)

You will not get time off even though they don't give you paid time off

People are always getting axed around you so don't depend on the job.

Advice to Senior Management

Let people take time off! By not your allowing people time off your making them get burnt out.

Pros

Innovative company with strong growth and brand recognition, pay and benefits are good, the work is challenging and there are some great people that work there. New hire orientation was a good experience and fun to attend.

Cons

The culture sounds great at the beginning however, in reality there is no empathy or understanding of human error. People are not given the time to learn, make mistakes and grow from the mistake, instead one mistake (even small) will get you shown to the door. There is no training and even high powered professionals need some direction and guidance. There is a lot of fear and uncertainty inherent in the culture and it leads to an "every man for himself" culture which does not promote teamwork.

Advice to Senior Management

HR 101, your employee's are your greatest asset and constant turnover is not healthy for any business in the long run.

Pros

Like many of the reviews have already said, Netflix does offer some nice employee benefits, especially the employee stock purchase program (take a look at what Netflix stock has been doing, the last couple of years - you'll wish you'd bought in 2007)

I've met some great people while working there, both peers and supervisors.

For the most part, customer support is incredibly easy, because the service itself works pretty smoothly. When it doesn't, CS reps have the power to make things right for customers, which is fabulous.

Unlimited time off (within reason, and when it's available) is awesome.

Cons

Ultimately, the cons outweigh the pros. I will be voluntarily leaving Netflix for a new job in the very near future.

Netflix treats employees like they're completely expendable. I realize that no one is indispensable to a company, but Netflix uses up employees like I use up tissues when I have a cold. The turnover is ridiculous, and it doesn't have to be that way.

For CS reps, the main statistic used to determine our "worthiness" is the DSAT. Customers get asked a simple question after contacting customer service: "Were you satisfied with the call?" A "no" response counts against the rep, even if it was something the rep couldn't control (I'm sorry, it looks like your bank declined your card for this month's service fee.), or the customer was making an unreasonable demand (I got a disc that won't play! Give me six months of free service or I'm cancelling!). Netflix's stance is that we should be able to sugar-coat bad news so well that the customer doesn't hang up unhappy. This method of measurement is incredibly flawed and has led to reps "gaming" the system to avoid "no" responses.

Netflix does not give raises. Period. Not for cost of living, not for length of time employed, not even for outstanding performance. I have worked there 3+ years and my stats have been stellar the whole time. So stellar, I'm one of the people they have trainees shadow, to hear how to handle calls properly. I have *never* gotten a raise. Monetarily, Netflix considers my value to be the same as a new hire who just got out of training.

No paid time off. (Unless I want to take a pay cut and bank that toward paid time off.)

Mandatory overtime during the holidays. (They're promising it won't happen again this year, but that's what they said last year ... and we had mandatory overtime for three months last winter. And the winter before.)

Extremely limited career options - unless you want to be a CS supervisor, you're pretty much out of luck at the call center.

Narrow-focus hiring - Netflix hires people with EXACTLY the skills they need for a particular position. If that position goes away, so does the person. There is very little provision for cross-training or retraining a good employee to fit them in somewhere else.

TRaSE - one exception to the cross-training policy has been TRaSE, which is a disaster, so far. TRaSE combined the department that handles streaming tech support escalations with the department that handles loss prevention: billing fraud, shipping issues, physical inventory problems and website content issues. They all received cross-training, and even though there's more people to handle problems now, CS reps can never get a response when they have an urgent loss prevention issue. Reps have to tell customers "someone will get back to you within 1-3 business days." What happened to "one call resolution"? There's a guaranteed "no" response for my DSAT. Thanks a lot.

Workforce Management can't seem to forecast how much staff is needed; we will have weeks where they offer to let reps go home early every day, and then a couple of weeks later, they're offering voluntary extra hours and begging people to stay after their shifts. This is probably related to the fact that Marketing doesn't feel like they need to let anyone know about promotions until the last minute.

Speaking of Marketing, they don't seem to feel a need to ask anyone what kind of impact various promotions will have on the rest of Netflix's operations. The "no credit card necessary for a free trial" promo was a fiasco, much of which could have been avoided by asking some seasoned reps a few key questions.

The same can be said about some of the "tests" that Engineering sets up on the website. Isn't it logical to maybe ask a few questions of the people who actually talk to the customers before you try something out? I realize that we need to find out what works and what doesn't, but if a "test" makes the service unusable or unpalatable for a customer and they call to complain, CS reps can't remove them from the "test". Netflix is willing to lose the customer because that's a valid "test result". There has to be a better way.

The Canadian service was launched prematurely, in my opinion. Many of the calls we get from Canadian customers center on the lack of content, especially newer releases. The Canadian streaming library will grow, just like the US library, but that's not a satisfying answer to Canadian customers. Thanks for another "no" response on my DSAT, Marketing department!

Advice to Senior Management

The service works so well. Figure out a way to make your human resources department work at least half as well. You are losing good employees at a ridiculous rate, which is going to start affecting customer satisfaction, and ultimately, your bottom line. Dealing with the general public is stressful enough; your outstanding employees shouldn't have to deal with unfair treatment from you, as well.

Pros

Nice location
New management that has been brought in knows what they are doing
Free coffee and Netflix account
Benefits are ok
Pay is good

Cons

Really scary place to work. There is so much fear in the culture in the call center that it is difficult to work there. The new Director is a joke. He has no idea what he is doing and is making decisions that will hurt the call center. There are few people who respect him as a leader and we look to our Managers for guidance.
There is no clear direction and even though they talk about coaching their people it is not true. The coaching has no impact and people are fired due to not being supported properly.
There are so many other Supervisors looking for jobs because they cannot stand it there. I cannot wait to get a new job.
Attrition there is so high. You can see new people brought in and the next few months they are gone. I have never seen a place tat makes so many snap decisions on people which supports the fact that Netflix does not focus on people development.

Advice to Senior Management

Have senior management from corporate due focus groups to see how poorly this place Is being run. I have worked in call centers before and if the leadership does not change things then they will have a hard time hiring people. None of my friends will come to work here because they know the reputation. People stay away. It is the worst place to work in Oregon.

Pros

Good pay, good benefits, awesome co workers

Cons

This is one of the most stressful work environments I have EVER worked at. Seems like no one has worked there longer than a year. Everything is based on your dissatisfied percentage and its impossible to satisfy everyone. ESPECIALLY when it is a dsat about service not rep. To Netflix, its the same damn thing. My supervisor was horrible and they all just sit together and chat all day. Almost seems like arent doing a damn thing.

Advice to Senior Management

If your employees werent so stressed out all the time, maybe you would see better performance.

Pros

-All previously noted perks are accurate
-Incentives Galore
-Excellent Pay when you consider how much the majority of the world gets paid to answer phones

Cons

- agree with previous posts about how easy people are let go
- Performance/Mobility determined or based on numbers, not performance

Advice to Senior Management

Your head is in the right place using numerical values to gather data about performance, but one must consider the need to evaluate other aspects of employee's performance besides those which can be measured numerically. The most successful professionals have such qualities, and it's a shame to witness great employees let go from such a great company.

Pros

OUTRAGEOUS pay!!! [14 bucks an hour]
No experience needed! Ever worked at safeway, or mcdonalds? [no need beyond that]
Free food! [ramen, easy mac, oatmeal, pete's coffee and tons of tea!]
Feedback is excellent!
Medical and Dental kicks ASS!
8 DVD's out a time plan for FREE!!!
Did I mention FREE food, FREE movies, FREE coffee and the highest pay possible for not having a degree!

Cons

Easy to get let go.
If your attitude is not peepy, happy and excited, you can definately be let go.
Make friends... FAST! If your blending in with your other co-workers and not syncing up and having fun.. then your GONE!

Advice to Senior Management

Don't kick people out just because they don't skateboard or are not "awesome" enough people that you might not like, focus on how well people can work!

Pros

Surrounded by quality/competent people.
Immediate health benefits.
Highest dvd plan.
No script.
Encourages employees to take initiative, and is fairly open to allow employees to make judgment calls when where there are no definitive guidelines in place.
Supervisors are talented and empathic individuals, with plenty of knowledge and support to offer.

Cons

Monotonous/repetitive job. Taking on average 80-110 calls daily. If you are not a talker, this job won't pan out for you. Upper management is generally ineffective and out of touch with the common CSR. Guidelines and strategy are routinely changed, with no clear purpose for the change.

Advice to Senior Management

Give more authority to the supervisors, who seem to be more in touch (and more competent) to the duties of being a customer service rep.

Pros

Pay 14 bucks to start
Free Plan
Super Smart team mates. Leaving my team was the worst part of loosing my job. They were all smart, witty and funny

Cons

Fear based management
No rules or policies
No paid time off

My first TM (team manager) spoke to me for a total of 10 minutes during my first 6 months there. She was fired without explanation after 360 reviews. My second TM was present during all team meetings but was usually busy on a laptop IM'ing with someone else rather than participating.

Even during my firing she was on her phone texting. I was given no information outside of a prepared packet and was asked to sign zero paperwork. I was escorted from the building like a criminal and the only reason anyone knew I had left was because of a pre-written email I was able to send when I returned to my desk to gather my things. Fear for your job makes you write an exit email months before you loose your job

Advice to Senior Management

Speak to your employees! Don't treat adults like they are children. TM's should give Supervisors the ability to make decisions about their teams rather than having to go through multiple people to get an answer. Give good feedback along with bad. I only received praise about awesome statistics when I brought it up to my supe. Realize that the pool of people in Portland is dwindling and people are aware of how bad the conditions really are. No amount of free mac and cheese can bring in the masses.