West Corporation Reviews

Pros

1. If you like to talk, this is a call center so you'll be doing alot of that.
2. Bonus parameters are very easy to reach(calls, payments, up to two latenesses per month)
3. Not at all labor-intensive
4. Better than being unemployed, I guess.

Cons

1. Management changes rules often without rhyme or reason
2. Bonus parameters are very easy(Why is this bad? If it's very simple then almost eveyone does it: My team had 15 ppl and every month 8-9 bonused which cut into monthly pool of bonus funds so everyone got less)
3. High turnover
4. Management is by and large incompetent and your cubicle neighbor usually knows more than they do.
5. No fault-attendance policy.
6. Favoritism to the degree that supervisors will take gossip as fact and discipline you for it.

Advice to Senior Management

If you(glassdoor reader) look as all the West Corp reviews they're quite consistent. They should 1) Promote more competent managers. 2) Address the turnover, 11 out of 15 rep on my team were there less than 10 months. Your company is like a revolving door and that should raise red flags. Management was quick to use the: "If you don't do X, you get placed on a PIN" for nearly everything...that's infantilizing. Your site managers think they only way to motivate people to hold their jobs over their head. 3) It's unlikely that employees clocking in one minute early is going to ruin this Fortune 1000 company's profit margin.

Pros

Trainers try their best, but they only have two weeks to try and teach material that requires at least a solid month of training for the trainee to even hope to grasp it all. The people you work with are pretty cool. Pay is higher than average and there's overtime if you want it.

Cons

Training is wholly inadequate. Instructors have no teaching qualifications, which makes learning about the process from one of them kind of like trying to get your snotty twelve year old cousin to teach you how to use a new smartphone without having them sneer in your face. People are treated like disposable commodities.

Advice to Senior Management

Get a couple of new divisions in there. There's no reason one group of people should be trying to do two or three different things. Hire one group of people to do one thing, than a second to do the next and so on. All you get by doing it this way is barely-qualified and completely overwhelmed workers.

Pros

The money is great. That's the only positive thing I have to say.

Cons

Upper management is only about production and making their numbers. They use intimidation techniques to make you scared for your job.

Pros

flexible hours; lots of overtime sometimes; some of the team leads are great to work for; the wages are ok to start with.

Cons

they have a revolving door (lots of firing); constant nit-picking & everything gets monitored; the health benefits are not worth the cost.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop with the nit-picking: especially having team leads telling employees to "tuck in your hood" when a hooded jacket has been worn - absurd!

Pros

You learn many different things, about many different topics. There are many people to meet. The building is well maintained and you are paid on time.

Cons

The staff are underpaid, and there is an air of arrogance in much of the management. There is no real hope of making a career, and the majority of employees do not get health insurance.

Advice to Senior Management

Get a raise and be more respectful.

Pros

The job pays well considering what you do. Lots of co-workers to build working relationships. Usually an abundance of hours to be picked up if you need the extra money, relaxed attendance policies.

Cons

I was laid off and west hired me (Thanks) however with a BA degree and management and 7 years of management experience I am still sitting behind a desk answering phones while agents with less tenure and no higher education get promoted, if you dont kiss butt you will not get promoted, support is minimal when you need additional assistance and you can count on about 3-4 meetings a year with your immediate supervisor and usually that is to inform you that you have done something horribly wrong.

Advice to Senior Management

Encourage site management to promote based on merit, education, and skill not who's the funniest or who knows the most members of management.

Pros

Some great people to work with

Cons

Awful management- lazy to be supportive of reps questions or helping out in general- mgmt could not multi-task their job tasks, managers complain during change causing domino effect in cust reps., no business action in order to get ahead and achieve personal company goals within the center- reason described if one call center can do it we can- but no follow through on the "how-to" in order to get ahead- possible trainings or one-on-one action plans with team leads may help.

Advice to Senior Management

Learning to multitask and complete All job-related tasks for your position, better morale and support.

Pros

Salary isn't too bad. Extra hours are usually available and you can post your hours and mostly expect your hours to be taken.

Cons

Team leads are nice depending on who you have, senior management is deceptive and most people are cut off within a year unless management really likes them. Their "quality assurance" reps are foreign and don't know English well enough to do a good job of monitoring calls. Scripting for calls is also very lame as well as their idea of how a good call should be. If you follow their guidelines 100% customers will likely think you are an idiot.

Advice to Senior Management

Have your QA reps in the USA. Stop laying off employees for stupid reasons.

Pros

I needed a job so statred working at WEST

Cons

Not fexible in work schedules

Advice to Senior Management

You are doing a good but you just need to make it more exciting and provide more on job training instead of in class traning.

Pros

Due to certain legacy technologies their sales force has access to many many companies

Cons

Complete lack of direction. management seems to follow the "let's be everything to everybody, but do it poorly" model of business. Heavy handed IT rules the organization. To say IT was looking to cover their own tracks , and stifle the production of the people who actually a make the money that pays their salaries would be an understatement.
Most customer facing employees have literally no clue as to what the company does or sells, but its not Thier fault , as the leaderless ship steers itself, and the industries they play in changes daily
the growth of the company has been thru acquisition , and there are literally dozens of organizations within the main corporation. Making all the peices fit together is not something they do well

Advice to Senior Management

pick a strategy and execute it . grow organically , not via acquisition. Force IT to serve their customers instead of trying to handcuff them