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Leadership Team needs to wake up - Customer Care Specialist vRide Employee Review

1.0
11 Aug 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

A few years ago this company was amazing. Great people, positive outlook on the future, creative ideas, teamwork. They were aware of their weaknesses and we're working on it. Like most corporate companies there was some miscommunications between the leadership team to the lower ranks but we made it work. We would go to Vegas annually for an company meeting. We'd get to meet all the crazy fun individuals that we worked with via email/phone every day. It was great. Keyword: WAS.

Cons

This past year unfortunately the company has taken a turn for the worst. The CEO continues to talk about "reinventing the commute". However it seems that it's more like they're trying to change into something they are not. They hold an All Staff call every other month to talk about the new changes but it's starting to sound more and more like they want to be Uber or Lyft. They continue to hire upper management employees while leaving the offices to struggle with an extremely lean staff. Want to know where your budget for your new hire in your office went? It's because they hire yet another person from Maytag or Whirlpool. I didn’t realize washing machines gives you transportation/vanpool experience. They did not payout any kind of merit increase this past year. Despite the fact that their employees were working 3 times harder due to being short staffed. Not including how hard some offices worked because company rivals were invading certain markets. In addition the employees still didn't have the right "tools" to do their work properly. We pushed through the way we always did. So what did they do? They changed our bonus structure. Upper Sales Leaders will continue to receive unearned large commissions while their staff does all the work. Customer Service will now have to budget against customer retention and terms making it practically impossible to bonus. All the while they continue to move their favored employees into large salary positions that have no real impact on the day to day operations. The real salt to the wound was when the Leadership team told us that we won't be going to our annual Vegas trip while they WERE SITTING IN VEGAS!! Niiiice! Let's talk about the recent changes shall we? The company has been around since the 70s however they are just now getting into technology. So Leadership has decided to roll out new programs to help us move into the new age. They warned us that there could be some "hiccups" while we begin to merge systems. Because "If it was easy somebody else would have done it already." What a joke. They talked about how we're going to roll out these changes in phases. Do you want to know how much notice they gave us before the 1st merge? 48 hours. How much noticed was given for the 2nd roll out? 24 hours. That one was my favorite since the email didn't even go to the entire staff. It was sent only to the Regional managers in hopes they would forward it down to the offices. Great communication! The programs themselves have been extremely difficult because there was never any proper training. In fact the Trainers had received a 1 day crash course the day before they were supposed to train the rest of the staff. Do they have any how-to manuals? Nope. The worst part is Leadership has absolutely no idea. Current employees never say anything in fear of their jobs. Sure they have an anonymous email you can send your thoughts to but does anybody really do that? Or worse maybe the employees are and Leadership chooses to ignore it. At the end of every All Hands call there’s always that “does anybody have any questions or comments” part. All you hear is crickets but we’re all thinking the same thing. We’ve just bought a ticket on the Titanic.

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vRide Response
10y
This review was shared with the entire Leadership Team as soon as it came to our attention. While we will not go over every point in this submission, there are some key elements we would like to respond to as we take all reviews, and the reputation of our company—both internally and externally--very seriously. As a Leadership Team we are acutely aware that we have asked the organization and its people to embrace change on several fronts in the past two years. No business can rely on past performance as a guarantee for future success; we know we must adapt this wonderful company to meet a world that relies more heavily on technology and speed. Implementing new systems and processes are not easy things to do, and they are rarely done without some bumps along the way. Canceling the All-Hands meeting in Las Vegas was a very difficult decision to make -- and certainly was neither contemplated nor communicated while the Leadership Team was in Las Vegas. A sales meeting happened to be held in Las Vegas due to its low travel and hospitality rates. And if the writer had listened to what Ann relays about where our business is headed, he or she would know that we are not trying to be like Uber or Lyft, and that our value proposition is very different(though equally compelling). We do agree, however, with the writer’s “crazy idea” about having leadership visit the offices. In fact, after canceling our All Hands meeting, members of the Leadership Team have gone to great lengths to visit offices and have mini town halls along the way. We do want to hear what’s working and what’s not and we are committed to supporting all our teams to do the work they take such pride in, in the most efficient and effective way. Finally, I invite anyone who wishes to have a direct conversation with me about any feedback that can help the Leadership Team help all of you, please reach out to me. We are all committed to doing anything and everything to achieve great success for everyone in the organization.

Explore other reviews about vRide

5.0
18 Jan 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great product that saves people money

Cons

limited product lines to sell.

3.0
1 Jan 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good for the environment, economy and the well-being of commuters. Saves money, time and stress for those who have a long commute. Easy, flexible and reliable transportation for the fraction of the cost of commuting alone.

Cons

The communication and fair management practices are lacking. The management in my office was run by "best friends", so it was hard to relate problems or communicate effectively due to the "favoritism" and inequality of assignments. Company was moving away from the "one-on-one" individual attention and excellent customer service it was known for, to all "Sales" vision - with an emphasis on numbers. They were moving away from a "one-stop shop" to 800 numbers and further and further away from the "Personal Touch" of making each customer feel important.

5
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