West at Home Employee Reviews about "west at home"

Pros

As an employee of West At Home, you get to help people place orders for unique and interesting items as seen on T.V. You can actually roll out of bed, start your computer, and begin working within a few short minutes, without ever having to leave your home. You'll save on gas, clothing, and eating out for lunch. The entire concept of being an at home agent is terrific, but you will not make enough money to make it worthwhile.

Cons

The major problem with this company is the lack of hours for employees. They hire way too many agents so there are not enough hours for everyone. Far too many agents are left with no hours or hours at 2:00 AM-4:00 AM then again from 9:00 AM-9:30 AM. It's crazy. There is no way to schedule a real shift or block of hours. As a result, you have to stay at home and work 24/7 just to get enough 30 minute time slots to provide you with a decent check. It takes at least two months to get hired, and it is just not worth the time or cost of upgrading your computer and training. You will never get more than 12-15 hours a week... over half of those hours will be after midnight or scattered randomly throughout the week. There is no way to have a set schedule which makes it difficult to plan your family time. You will always work weekends because there are too few hours during the week to make a paycheck. I worked there for 6 months and never made more than $100.00 ever two weeks, although I would spend hours upon hours trying to get scheduled.

Pros

The pros to West are train at home, no set schedule and you can set your own hrs around your day

Cons

There are many who need to work from home full time and not just part time but it seems in the past year or so West is not getting nay new clients so in turn do not have a lot of work to offer

Pros

Do not have to commute to work as it is a work from home job

Cons

Incompetent Management- No one at West seems to clearly know a procedure, policy, etc. An answer to any question will vary from supervisor to supervisor. One supervisor will say to do something one way and another supervisor will give direction that contradicts the others. I have had supervisors ask their supervisors and still have gotten contradictory, incorrect answers. My questions are on procedure or policy and thus the answers should be consistent from supervisor to supervisor. This issue is reflective of poor training, lack of ability and sheer laziness on the part of the operations team who should ensure that everyone is on the same page. The bad thing is you can follow a supervisors direction and if it turns out to be wrong you will receive the write up. The fact that you sought out and FOLLOWED SUPERVISOR DIRECTION in no way saves you from receiving adverse action. Total Lack of Concern for Workers- The company promises work as much as you want when you want. That is a lie. They provide customer service support for outside companies and thus staff according to the clients needs. That would be o.k if they were upfront about it, but West is not. For example I was on a project for 1 and 1/2 years that was 37 hrs a week and 10 hr. Not bad. However due to many technical problems with West's software apps, I never managed to be able to work 37 hr. It seemed as if West made you commit to working hours and then if they did not need you all of a sudden 'application issues' would arise and kick you off the system, log you out, or not allow you to log in. You are not paid when logged out. Sometimes I would spend several hours a day trying to log on and would not be paid. Get this, supervisors INSTRUCT you to keep attempting even though the company will not pay you. I went along with the free work for a few months and then stopped doing it. They wrote me up. Demand that I attempt to log in for hours and yet not pay me, and then if I refuse to work while not being paid- write up No Financial Security- The project that I described above. ended with a few days notice. I was then offered a project that paid min wage but was told that, with bonuses ,I would make equal to what I had previously made. That was a lie. I made hundreds less a month and then after two months on this project, West stopped posting hours for us at home agents. No notice, nothing. Just woke up one day and no hours were available to work. I since found out from a co-worker that West knew all along that the project was temp, but did not tell us as they needed us to handle the Christmas rush and feared they would not meet their staffing needs if they were honest with us.

Pros

The best reasons to work at West at Home is the somwha flexibility of hours, and the ability to work at home. You don't have to worry about commuting to your job, and fitting into a certain atmosphere. You have a certian level of independence, and you don't have to deal directly with rude or mean customers

Cons

The downsides to working at West is that it is not a very profitable job as a main source of income, only good for supplimental income. The ureliability of hours that are availible. You never know from day to day whether or not you will get the hours for the week. You sacrifice a lot of time waiting for hours to become availible for you to get the hours. Have to compete for hours to shcedule. The sudden change of shceule makes it almost impossible to have a personal life. You have to keep your internet and home phone service on to be able to work, therefore if anything goes wrog with either, you will not be able to work.

Pros

The only reason why I worked for West is because they are one of the only at home companies that have total schedule flexibility

Cons

They have taken most of their jobs overseas leaving U.S. employees very little work projects. Their work hours are very slack. There are times when employees can only get 1 hour a day to work, if that many because of the slack amount of work they have for a project. They definitely need to increase they pay scale to match those of other competitive companies.

Pros

Ability to work from home and set your own hours are the only two redeaming quaities of West At Home, Inc.

Cons

Very few hours available during non-holiday time, lack of ability to contact HR, shotty training procedures, lack of client knowledge from supervisors, constant software issues which affect your ability to work and more! I was a high achieving, long term employee of over 6 years and have worked on several lines. I was terminated because I did not log into the West at Home Website for 3.5 weeks. I would NEVER recommend that anyone rely on this company as a form of supporting themselves/family as you cannot count on them, I cannot stress that enough. They do not care how good you are, they do not care how dedicated you are they will use you and then throw you away. I worked for six years, and in fact just finished a mandatory recertification on Aug. 6, 2012 as of Sept. 2, 2012 they fired me without any warning what so ever! No inactivity warning, no letter of performance issues, not even a letter of termination. I only found out when I logged in and I was blocked due to termination. I had to call HR to find out why and could not even speak to anyone,only got voicemail which now two weeks later my call still has not been returned. I finally called a number for the PAL line (help line) at which time they informed me I was fired with no elegibility to rehire due to lengthy inactivity even though I had gone much longer in the past six years on other occassions without logging in. The worst part is the PAL informed me that all termination appeals had to be hand written and arrive by regular mail and I only had one day left when I found out so I was out luck. How can a company fire you with no written or verbal communication and how can I appeal something I didn't even know happened. I have been flabbergasted over this, I cannot believe a company I worked for 6 years would do this to anyone. I never read anything, anywhere that specified you had to log in once a week to remain active! In fact when West was a part-time thing for me there are times I would only work one day in a couple months years ago and that was obviously fine. They also have horrible staff, supervisors will all tell you different things & then you will lose points on your evaluations for not knowing the correct action. They will over staff some days and when call volume is lower than anticipated they will make it difficult for you to log into your shift for hours so they don't have to pay you. A friend finished training for Toys R Us and was still waiting on log in information 2 weeks after training was finished. One week they ordered all agents work during a big sale, when I couldn't log in they told me to stay in the chat room and a PAL (performance assessment liason) would send me my new reset passwords, I was told by that PAL and the ones in chat that I would be paid for sitting there waiting. I called repeatedly for 3 days and waited in chat like I was instructed and they finally gave me my new passwords after 2.5 days of sitting there wasting my time and after several supervisors promised the time was paid I got NOTHING for it. My coach would not even look up the chat log to prove I was promised pay. I realized once I got in that call volume was so low that they overbooked agents and did that on purpose. I watched in chat that day while agent after agent could not get in for hours, all unpaid time spent by all these people! I know that not logging into work for 3-4 weeks sounds like it was my fault but what you don't understand is that there have no hours available for months! We at home agents with Eddie Bauer were starving, in fact one of those weeks I received an email asking anyone who had picked up hours to please consider dropping them and since I had some personal things going on I wasn't as concerned about looking for hours, however I knew that holiday season was coming and I was planning on working tons of hours just like last year. I sent an email to employee relations asking how they could fire me with no warning or opportunity to correct something and explained of extenuating circumstances of no hours available on their part along with some horrible personal matters that caused me to take a little time off and begged that they reconsider and they had no sympathy for a high performing long term employee. They have stood by their decision and as if I commited a crime I'm not even allowed to ever apply again. I have been sick over it but luck my husband said, why would I want to work for a company that treats poeple they way they do anyway! I urge you to think twice before dedicating any time to this company!

Pros

You have the ability to create your own schedule which is a plus. I was assigned to a client that is a famous TV shopping channel and I only take and cancel orders and update customers accounts which is great to no have to deal with the customer service aspect of the business which can get kind hectic. At West At Home, you can pause your shift at whatever time to go get a glass of water and I say this because I work for Teletech and you cannot even pause your shift because your team leads would start calling you out for doing so! You normally do no receive calls back to back which at least gives you breathing time, unlike Teletech you receive calls back to back and you can't even take a sip of water. The client I am with now at West At Home, you have very steady hours and can easily work 30+ hours a week. West At Home, you have very steady hours and can easily work 30+ hours a week. West At Home, you West At Home, you West At Home, you have very steady hours and can easily work 30+ hours a week. The supervisors in the chats are helpful, extremely nice and go out of their way to help you, and unlike Teletech, your chat coaches are just a complete joke and never seem you help you and leave you hanging ALL THE TIME! When you are chatting with a supervisor at West At Home, the chat stops, and obligates the next available supervisor to answer your question. Unlike Teletech, the chat does not stop and if you do not re-post your question about 5x you will not receive a response and it will get lost in a swamp of questions because you are no properly trained. At West At Home, your paid training is virtual and self paced, most of the time, (depending on the project/client) and not in a classroom/WebEx environment. FYI, you are NOT an independent contractor, West At Home DOES deduct your taxes. Also, for the famous TV shopping channel, they pay minimum wage - $12.00 depending on the hours you choose to work. Also, if your per minute rate of $0.17 per minute of talk talk exceeds your hourly rate, you get paid whatever is greater. The rates normally increase for weekends and closer to holidays like Christmas. Hours are available to pick up 24 hours a day and 7 days a weeks. You pick up your shifts in 30 minute increments, for example, 10:00 am - 10:30 am. I hope all of this help and please do not work for Teletech you will be miserable, trust I've been there and done that!

Cons

Unfortunately, since you create your own schedule, you are somewhat your own boss and West At Home does not provide PTO ( Paid Time Off) or Health Insurance. But, West At Home does have discounted rates for health insurance if you need it and it is really affordable, about $189 for employee/spouse per month!