Groupon Reviews

Cons

Quick shifts and changes in policy, must be adaptable to change

Cons

Space in Palo Alto office is kind of cramped. Annual review procedures seem to change every year, so it's hard to take them seriously.

Cons

None I can think of

Cons

there really are no cons

Cons

The promotional process is not clear and it doesn't feel like working hard and taking on more responsibility is always the path to increase your compensation.
Everyone talks about issues and retention, but it doesn't seem like there are actual actions being made to change these trends.

Cons

Getaways doesn't really fit into the overall strategy of the company and there are a lot of growing pains that come along with it.

Cons

Hard to chart a career trajectory

Cons

Management doesnt seem to know what they are doing

Cons

None. Well, California is really expensive. But that's not Groupon's fault!

Cons

It's unfair for me to list a bunch of "cons" and make it seem like the "cons" are representative of the company as a whole. The "cons" that I have experienced were mainly found in the Merchant Development department.

1. In MD, you start as an MD rep and you can get promoted to higher positions. The issue is that there is not many opportunities available to get promoted within a single year. As a result, the department experiences high turnover at the "rep" level. Interviews can only happen once every 6 months or so and while up to 5 or 6 reps can be qualified to interview, there is usually only 2 or 3 spots available. So for most reps, it does not make sense to stay committed to the MD department, since they cannot be guaranteed to experience consistent growth in their careers.

2. Groupon is a data driven company. However in MD, it seems that leadership does not understand the context behind the sales data that they are working with. This results in reps being goaled on accounts that are either "out of business" or are just too small to handle the number of customers that are required to hit their specific revenue target.

In addition, management looks at the number of accounts that leave Groupon within your book of business and uses that to determine your overall performance. Churn is a standard way to determine how well an account manager is doing in their job. However, since we do not offer a membership and allow merchants to leave at any time, then reps have no way of being able to control this metric and are put at a disadvantage when compared to other reps who might not have had as many requests from their clients to leave the site. At the end of the day, this sets you up for failure.

3. Another reason for high turnover has to do with the non-competitive pay and commission structure that's offered to MD reps. Many reps cannot justify waiting 1-2 years for a small promotion when they can find easily find another company in Chicago and make a lateral move and still end up making at least 10k more a year.

4. Finally, this is something that bothers me personally but there is no reason for managers trying to control exactly when reps come into work and leave work. If an employee is consistently coming in 15 minutes late to work or always leaves early then that should be addressed with the employee. However, if someone is 10 minutes late or needs to leave at 4:50 pm then it is unreasonable to expect them to make up for the 10 minutes on another day. We're all adults here. We understand that punctuality is important but life happens and this job does not justify us being treating like we're in high school.