Pitney Bowes Reviews

Pros

Vacation time....Our clients are pretty good as well.

Cons

Pay, Recognition......Training. If you work in the Bay Area your forgotten.

Advice to Senior Management

You get what you pay for. If you pay someone 10.00 and hour you shouldnt expect to get a high level of customer service

Pros

1) Good Pay
2) Challenging every day without being overwhelming
3) Many good people there
4) Integrity from many key players such as Risk Management

Cons

1) Class stratification. The thinkers at corporate neither acknowledge nor appreciate input from what they perceive to be the working class.
2) Poor judge of talent. As they downsize, they do not stack rank and keep off loading the most talented and team oriented leaders. It lends the appearance of "team play at your own risk."
3) Senior leaders love flattery. It will get you anywhere. People advance on their ability to flatter which kills the business. The culture has led to a VP - Director level team of "me first" non leaders.
4) Culture pits one group against another making necessary global changes very painful and high risk.
5) The key to why they absolutely cannot survive is a most peculiar refusal to encourage cross functional collaboration. Every person stays in their own silo. They call them Centers of Excellence but it's really "my turf."

Advice to Senior Management

C-level Leaders must figure out how to see through the flattery and figure out which people actually care about the future of the organziation rather than their resume's. Here's a tip, when some leader you like keeps telling you things you like to hear and the numbers don't support it...figure it out...you are being flattered again. This spring and early summer, not by coincidence, you just blew out the people who networked with or without silo interference. You blew out your team players in favor of "me first" self promoting politcians. Be bigger than that. It's probably too late, the self promotors are entrenched, the collaborators and networkers are gone.

Pros

variety of service calls daily
Ability to control schedule
Management listens to concerns
Customer focused
Good benefits
Good support from peers

Cons

Customer support is too spread out
No set office to report to
Sometimes not enough work
Physical support is too far away

Advice to Senior Management

I think management is doing fine overall. I think they could base more decisions on where economy and companies are going with mailing/shipping solutions.

Pros

They provide work/life flexiblity. Techs are very helpful. If your immediate manager is an old timer you are golden because of the knowledge they can share with you.

Cons

Number manipulation is rewarded. Its quanity verses quality in the Sales Executive position. Consultative Sales are what they preach but not what they want. You can make 20 sales monthly at 1,000 per and one sale at 20,000 and the 20,000 in not acceptable because it is viewed as lack of activity

Advice to Senior Management

PB has a reputation of hiring and lay offs. If hired dont expect it to be long term. They will and have gotten rid of people in four months after hiring them.

Pros

Flexible work schedule and decent benefits.

Cons

No support or brains left anywhere.

Pros

great entry level sales training

Cons

poor money, low commissions, low company moral

Advice to Senior Management

listen and encourage employees

Pros

Friendly Employees and relaxed nature.

Cons

Tons of layoffs, need to have a broad spectrum of experience.

Advice to Senior Management

Always be proactive with assignments.

Pros

One of the most ethical, moral and charity focused companies that I have ever been associated with.

Cons

Company is challenged with transition from old economy (postage meters) to new world (customer communication management).

Advice to Senior Management

Clarify where we are going...and let's get there.

Pros

Most people within the company are pretty special. The employees are trying to make the transformation process goes smooth. PB just needs to get back to the basics.

Cons

Getting back to the basics has resulted in many of the good people within the Company have been transitioned to other companies.

Advice to Senior Management

Pitney Bowes has many good people that can make a huge difference during the transformation process, just make sure you keep some of them around to see the new PB.

Pros

Sales training, good resume builder, Solutions team is great, classic sales job.

Cons

One of the worst work experiences I have ever had. Ridiculously complicated/poor compensation plan - it starts you off at a 1% commission with the slight possibility of earning up to 11% commission if you reach sales revenue numbers that take 6 months to reach. The trick is that at 6 months your compensation plan gets set back to zero, and you are back to earning 1% commission . Management tried to explain that you can earn extra $$$ with the quarterly incentive bonuses which are designed to be difficult to obtain - again, another cruel practical joke. Let's talk about the slashing of the sales force in 2010. Over 50% of the sales reps were let go while the management that drove the Seattle district from the #1 spot in 2009 to the lowest ranking in 2010 were retained/rehired. The performance management process is brutal and unrealistic. If you are below 80% in your first 6 months on the job, you will be put on a PIP (performance improvement plan) and then a CAP (corrective action plan) and then fired. Management tries to sell the performance management as a positive thing - we CARE about YOU here at Pitney Bowes and about your SUCCESS. I don't think any of the sales reps bought that line. Management is more preoccupied with self advancement than connecting with the sales reps. The disastrous Conquest Channel is a good example of the disconnect. District Managers were instructed to hire competitive sales reps across the country to convert competitive accounts - these people were hired and without a manager for several months, given poor quality account lists, little/no support had their accounts stolen by the regular Pitney Bowes reps - the reward they received were massive firings across the board when they could not produce the numbers needed to satisfy the shareholders within a ridiculous 6 month time frame. All the while, the reps had to sit through bizarre district meetings where the District Manager told us how great things were, how awesome our opportunities were if we would just work for them (meanwhile most reps I knew were partially living off of credit cards to support themselves). It was like the fairy tale, The Emporer's New Clothes - the disparity between reality and the pep talk sales meetings was quite staggering. Management clearly had their favorites. Overall I would recommend avoiding this company, the industry is in decline and Pitney Bowes is stuck in 1987 and has failed to transform itself with the times......

Advice to Senior Management

Your salespeople are one of the greatest assets to the company. You need to treat them as such instead of numbers. Give District Managers more autonomy so that they can manager to local market appropriately. Set realistic sales goals, allow more than 6 months to pass before you decide to kill a campaign/start firing people. The Performance Management process needs to be abolished - it does not have a positive effect. It is simply embittering and demoralizing. Develop and invest your sales people instead of just throwing them away or firing then rehiring them at lower compensation plan.