Looks good on paper - Customer Service Representative Wayfair Employee Review

2.0
Mar 24, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay is good company wide. Insurance is also extremely affordable with excellent coverage that is hard to find this day and age. Company offers free coffee and water as well as a very wide variety and free snack selection.

Cons

As the review title says, it looks good on paper. This review is about customer service. In the interviews, recruiting and interviewers tell you “this is unlike any other call center”, “we don’t treat our customer service department any different than we treat any other department”. Both are lies. I’ve worked in various customer service roles and call centers and this is the worse. Not once is it explained there is a very strict and unforgiving point system for attendance. When I asked in my interview how the attendance policy works, I was told to work with my manager regarding any schedule conflicts to work them out. That’s an inaccurate answer because although yes I need to work with my manager regarding schedule conflicts, I will need to work with them AFTER there are assessed points that I won’t be aware I am accruing until well after I’ve started. It’s also important to mention that the point system is only applicable to customer service and no other department. So, contradicting the original statement about treating all departments the same. Twice we had a blizzard here in Maine. One of which was extremely icey conditions. Both times all other departments left between noon and 3pm so they could get home and off the roads before dark and didn’t have to be driving for safety reasons as conditions were to be significantly worsening in the dark. However, customer service was not allowed to leave. If we left, we were assessed a point for leaving early. When the issue was addressed with top management as to why safety concerns weren’t an across the board dismissal, we were told customer service is held to different standards and unfortunately we need to be available for customers. I’m sorry, my life is not worth the sale of a pillow. Bye. Customer service is looked at as this desolate, disgusting section of the building. An email accidentally went out to the wrong group from a specific department picking fun on customer service. It stated “customer service be like...” and had an image of the elephant graveyard from The Lion King. It accidentally went to several people in customer service. When it was reported, nothing happened. It was made to be a joke and the attitude received by those who reported it was basically that they needed to get over it. The moral in customer service is terrible. Management is fixated on the phones and metrics and exceeding their goals that they can’t take 5 minutes to step back and ask their team what they want to see done to make the 8 hours a day spend there better. They offer pod outings, or after work get togethers with your team paid for by Wayfair. No thank you. 8 hours a day is enough. I get it though, it’s a job, not recess, but no one deserves to feel like they are chained to a desk with the sole purpose of cranking out numbers. IF YOU PLAN TO LEAVE: They ask you always for a 2 weeks notice, however! Be prepared for the day you turn in your notice to be your last day. Pay ends immediately but insurance continues for 2 weeks. Their answer as to why “we are an at will company”. Well that’s correct, but don’t ask for a 2 weeks notice then.

Explore other reviews about Wayfair

5.0
Apr 6, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Smart colleagues tackling interesting, business relevant problems.

Cons

Long-term projects sometimes significantly modified in response to short-term business needs.

5.0
May 12, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Wayfair is a fantastic company if you're a software engineer who's looking to keep quiet, and not speak up when management treats you like garbage. And it excels at finding leaders who are willing to go the extra mile to be untrustworthy and make you feel like your job isn't safe (and for real, it's not).

Cons

Let's talk. The company has been growing like crazy, and one thing that was never thought about was "can we actually hire at a sustainable rate, and scale accordingly?" The answer was no on both counts. Software engineers at Wayfair have a history of disappearing. People who enter labs have an especially low success rate (70% make it through, and less than 50% last a whole year). It's basically their way to run people through a burnout gauntlet, and see who survives. And then you have the stories of the people who come in to work and are just asked to resign. You'll see hints of it here on Glassdoor if you dig, and it's even worse than what you read. They actually gathered all the engineers for a big meeting at the beginning of this year. And they said that they were sorry that people felt scared and were sad that people felt like management didn't care. Which is exactly how we felt. They promised that their door was open, and they were going to work hard to set things right. One person out of 500 stood up and asked a really cutting question. AND THEN THEY FIRED HIM! And there were 3 completely different official reasons given about it. It's crazy. The leaders also started up an engineering meeting to keep everyone on the same page and answer anonymous questions. One time someone asked why we couldn't get snow days off, because it was tough to shovel for 3 to 4 hours and still work an 8 hour day. So the leaders proceeded to talk down to us and reprimand us for even thinking about asking a question like this. Turnover has been high over the past year, and the best people are leaving. This worries management, but they still have no idea that the problem is actually them creating a terrible environment. So if you're a good person who cares about the person next to you and leaving things better than you found them, don't bother applying here. But if you're not, and you just want to keep your head down and not question anything, then this is the perfect place for you. And if that's what you want, Wayfair gets 5 stars. Amazing career opportunities if you want to have the same job forever. Incredible senior management that value untrustworthiness. A fantastic culture of watching people next to you disappear. It's truly a perfect company.

915
avatar
Wayfair Response
8y
First, I wanted to thank you for providing feedback. Second, I am very sorry to hear that your experience was far from ideal. I know it can be hard to give feedback if you feel management is the problem, but leadership would love to learn about these issues to refine the Wayfair employee experience. We do try to create an open and transparent environment; one thing we’ve started doing is department-wide anonymous surveys. This has been helpful in identifying issues where people don’t feel comfortable speaking up for whatever reason and pinpoint where any issues may exist. As you noted, the company is growing very quickly - our Engineering team alone has grown tenfold over the past five years. I won’t pretend we get it right all the time, but we do aim to scale our teams and our systems reasonably to meet the rapid growth of our business, and we rely on employee feedback to refine these processes. To that end, we’ve put a lot of time and energy into our interview process. And, we closely track our voluntary and involuntary attrition rates to make sure we are keeping high employee retention and so that we can immediately nip any potential issues in the bud. For Wayfair Labs, we’ve made huge strides since the beginning of this program, and our average success rate is now over 90%, with several classes at 100%. We also run management trainings on giving, receiving and soliciting feedback. In these trainings - and in general - we encourage respect for all teammates and partners, communication and collaboration, and we try create opportunities for people to take on new challenges. I am very excited about the work we’re doing to solve tough challenges and there’s an exciting opportunity for our employees to do big things – our goal is to build a team that feels encouraged and empowered to do so. I’m very sorry you didn’t have the experience we try to cultivate. Once again, thank you for this feedback.
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All