Customer Service Representative | Tempe, AZ | Feb 29, 2020
Overview
Having come from a more structured management system I've found that as with most call centers, it's not about your work or being top for metrics, but more so of who you know and network within the company that puts you in line for promotions. As with today's workforce, there is a lot of hand-holding and coddling. The biggest issue is with QA which plays a major part in raises at 60% They are not in sync ( Determine whether customers’ feedback was really given for your support, instead of for the product or other experiences they had with your company. It’s a much more targeted metric, making it more relevant to the individuals on the customer support team. Look deeper into why agents handled the cases the way they did. Some customers have unrealistic expectations and leave bad ratings just because agents weren’t able to fix their problems on the spot, even if it was out of their hands. Customers don’t know your quality standards. Sometimes users are happy with the service they received that didn’t actually come close to the quality bar you’ve set for your team. Other times, customers can be disappointed with the interactions that agents actually handled correctly from your point of view), and although accuracy is a huge part of order processing your relaxation with customers and being overly friendly is not recommended as you would find in one of the many branches through the US... AHT needs to be met at the passing of 100 since there is no standard work as would be a norm
Great for right out of college, otherwise, better opportunities elsewhere
Typical day: Riding in a company-provided vehicle to at least 5-6 businesses, but must have logged at least 8 calls per day. Typical call includes walking into a company that you have in your "leads" who already uses Grainger, and seeing what they do in their company, what their company does, and how they can partner with Grainger. A huge part of your day will also be administrative work, which occurs at least 1/4 of the work day. Administrative work includes working on quotes for customers, answering calls and responding to questions/issues, answering emails/sending emails, and problem solving for customers by using resources that Grainger provides.
After over 2 years in the role, I learned that management mostly lets you do what you need to do, as long as you get your work done. There are some managers who SHOULD NOT be managers. The type of manager that you get really makes or breaks your job.
You will rarely see anyone that you work with. This job is not for someone who likes to stay inside in an "office" setting. It is great on nice days when you can get out and eat lunch in a park, but it sucks when the weather is bad and you have to see customers or you miss the office setting.
Hardest part of the job: rejection. You will get rejection in some form EVERY day and you will have uncomfortable conversations where you have to try and not take things personally--like most sales jobs. I would say rejections happen 1 out of 10 times for me and have decreased the lon
ProsGrainger car for personal use (all upkeep and gas included!), work/life balance, profit sharing, fun work functions, previously-generated leads, get to go to Orlando every year for annual sales trip, independent work (no one to look over your shoulder)
Conscompensation, high goals, poor management/micromanaging, poor training, not enough resources to get work done at times, job can get very repetitive
The benefits and pay were the best part of this job. Everything else was dependent upon what department you worked in. And trust me, the managers could care less whether you like your current duties or not. Heck, they hardly cared for their employees at all.
I'll sum up some of the benefits and pay I received:
First shift: $15.59 /hr
Second shift: $15.59 + $1.00 differential = $16.59 /hr
Third shift: $15.59 + $1.00 differential = $16.59 /hr
You can also receive an additional $1.00 /hr if you operate a multi-level, long reach, or straddle vehicle.
The benefits were pretty nice, I received United Healthcare for my health insurance. Aetna for dental. Vanguard for 401k investments. There's many other benefits that come with the job as well.
Your PTO starts the day after your first month which is: 12 hours per month.
The company also gives out bonuses every 3 months/ per quarter, so long as the company meets it's goals (Aka so long as the employees don't receive many errors).
Finally here are the shift times:
First shift: (Depends on your department) Generally around 9-10am-finished. (Generally around 6-7pm)
Second shift: 4:00pm - 2:30am
Third Shift 7:30pm - 6:00am (as far as I know, could be wrong, but pretty close)
Now onto the horrible part of the company:
The Managers. The typical manager is only here for a pay check and they show that by hardly engaging with their employees, relegating themselves to their comfy climate-controlled offices. Obviou
ProsBenefits, At least you're not homeless I guess.
ConsDismal Raises, Toxic Environment, Careless Managers, No Shift Flexibility
1.0
Inside Sales Representative | San Antonio, TX | May 29, 2019
Don’t Apply for Inside Sales! Read this review!
Grainger as a company is not bad. However, the division of Inside Sales in San Antonio is a joke. I would advise if you need a quick, temporary job, some sales experience or even starting out of college, then apply but don’t stay too long past a year. You get a territory of customers called “CSG” (Customer Sales Group) in a specific segment (Manufacturing, HVAC, Heavy Manufacturing, Commercial Services, etc) Your CSG won’t change except if they add a new business in your CSG. Anyways, the expectations are 30 dials, 100 minutes and 12 QC (Quality Calls)
Training is totally different once you hit the sales floor. They want you to hit these metrics but that’s not always realistic. You have to prep for your calls, answer emails and try to push long conversations with the same customers only to do it from month to month. It’s draining and everyone’s CSG is different. Some customers don’t want to sit on the phone with you. Some sellers have customers that don’t mind talking about they life and social security numbers. The conversations some tenure sellers have just to make minutes are out of this world. There is work life balance but when you go home, you feel like you hit your head in the wall all day. The saying around the office is “smile and dial” They want you to be a robot. If you’re not making your average metrics for the month, they talk to you. If you’re CSG is not hitting goal, they’ll talk to you. Dang if you do, dang if you don’t. You accrue 12 hours of PTO every mont
ProsHealth Benefits, 401K, life balance, NSSM Grainger Show free trip to Orlando in March
ConsStrict on time keeping, Metrics don’t mean revenue, commission difficult to meet, Management is push to Micromanage you from the RSVP, the better you perform, the more they want, Manager don’t practice what they preach
3.0
Call Center Representative | Manchester, NH | Sep 25, 2017
Full time Customer Service Represetative at Grainger Industrial Supply
I currently work as a full time customer service representative for Grainger Industrial Supply in the phone channel of their business. My typical day at work consists of receiving incoming phone calls from Grainger customers all over the country and using the resources the company has provided me to resolve their issues in the most accurate and efficient manner possible. I have developed extensive product knowledge on the wide array of products Grainger sells. I have also developed the ability to work in a fast paced environment that requires a proficiency in multitasking and time management. As far as management goes, I have had 4 immediate supervisors in the 3 years I have been in this position and they have all given me the tools and encouragement necessary to succeed. They have also given me recognition when I have outperformed my expectations and I feel like they have taken a vested interest in myself and my coworkers as well. I work out of the Grainger branch in Manchester, NH and I have built a good relationship with all my coworkers at the branch. It has been a friendly environment to work in over the years and I feel like all my coworkers genuinely care about one another and their success within the company. I also work as a remote agent for a contact center though, which means I work with a team of phone agents whom I have never met because they all work out of other locations. This has made it difficult to build a relationship with them but, regardless o
ProsGreat benefits and a friendly work environment
First off, training was fun engaging and everyone I met was awesome. Grainger has a knack for hiring wonderful and diverse people that are thoughtful and committed. On the face of it, the job sounded like and was presented as an opportunity for you to grow sales with existing customer relationships. 30 dials 120 minutes is not a lofty goal for telesales, the only problem is that this is the only metric associates have control over and Grainger treats it as if calling customers CAUSES higher sales when it is clearly just correlated with higher sales. They record calls but do not allow us to listen to them. They tell success stories about huge opportunity wins but never show us the conversations that result in such accomplishments. My guess is that what works for top sellers IS NOT WHAT CORPORATE PUSHES. They are very focused on memorizing Grainger corporate speak to try and engage customers and refuse to acknowledge that messaging needs to be tailored to customers rather than a one size fits all approach. There is a refusal at the highest levels to recognize that sellers are having to overcome objections that GRAINGER creates for them. Sure we can dial and get the minutes, but then your issue becomes "is that activity driving sales growth?" If your getting the sales, the activity still matters. I had accounts that had duplicates which were unassigned (meaning there is no seller responsible for calling/growing sales) with insane sales growth. When asked why the response was "I'
ProsJob security, benefits, Commission if you get a good CSG
ConsVery slow to adapt to changing customer and seller needs
7+ years of IT experience in all the phases of Data Warehouse Life Cycle involving design, development and analysis and testing in various areas
• 7+ years of IT experience in all the phases of Data Warehouse Life Cycle involving design, development and analysis and testing in various areas of Data Warehousing.
• Comprehensive industry experience. Have worked in Retail, Health Insurance and Pharmaceuticals-Healthcare domains.
• Good Understanding of Data warehouse concepts and principles (Kimball/Inman) - Star Schema, Snowflake and Operational Data store (ODS)
• Worked on Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCD) Type 1, 2 to keep track of historical data.
• Developed Data Warehouse/Data Mart systems, using various RDBMS (Oracle, MS SQL Server, Mainframe file and DB2).
• Analyzed, designed and developed Extraction, Transformation and Load (ETL) processes for Data Warehousing and Data Migration projects using Informatica Power Center including Designer, Repository Manager, Workflow Manager, Workflow Monitor.
• Developed Complex mappings from varied transformation logics like Unconnected/Connected lookups, Router, Filter, Expression, Aggregator, Joiner, Union, Update Strategy and more.
• Expertise in Informatica ETL tool for developing, testing, Performance tuning, Mappings, Sessions and Workflows.
• Experience in implementing complex business rules by creating re-usable transformations, Mapplets, Mappings and Shortcuts.
• Worked with Oracle, PL/SQL Stored Procedures, Functions Cursors, Indexes and Triggers and involved in Query Optimization.
• Experience on writing Unix Shell Scripts in Unix Environment.
• Commu
Grainger recently has experienced some significant changes at the top--as I write this the CEO has been in charge for about 24 months but he instigated a major reorg about 8 months ago. Morale has, of course, subsequently taken a major hit but it will recover sooner or later.
Probably the biggest shift is the recent recognition that the printed catalog that has driven the company for so long (90+ years) is no longer the primary contact we have with our customers. The fact is that Grainger is a major ecommerce site (in the top 10 in the U.S. by $/year) but it continues to fly below the radar for most people, probably because it is a B2B enterprise.
This means that the relationship among the internal teams is slowly changing; the catalog people are struggling to come to terms with their declining importance while the ecom team is struggling to shoulder the weight and responsibility of driving the business forward. There are direct, and dramatic, changes happening to the systems, resources, policies and procedures in order to recognize how important the website (and ecom app) are becoming.
There are some significant growing pains. Staggered reorgs have rolled across many major divisions, with more still to come, so there have been about 6 months of near constant personnel changes. Established team members (and even whole teams) have been laid off and new functional teams have been hired with new, more modern skillsets.
There are major changes afoot but the leadership seems t
ProsDynamic changing environment, sink or swim mentality creates opportunity for advancement, talented driven coworkers willing to teach and share
ConsHard environment to acclimate to, lots of change has created lots of sore feelings, a lot of required work is falling through the cracks because teams are in such turmoil
Upon joining Grainger it seemed like a great opportunity, I will say I had fun being in the field with my customers.
In time my opinion certainly changed. For example, Grainger would have leadership calls where the sales folks would be on Town Hall style conference calls with leadership. One of the main taliking points was that we needed to get “More boxes out the door”. This is great to want but in reality they don’t help their cause. I had several business owners reach out to me wanting to give me business. When I reached out to my leader I was told that we can’t help them, or advise potential customer to reach out to Customer Support. This is a big problem. When we as sales folks make our livings and have goals to meet based on our revenue we bring into the company and are told that we can’t help someone..Seriously a big issue. But as the saying goes sometimes the left hand doesn’t talk to the right. Decisions are made in Lake Forest IL by people who have no in market knowledge. All the “restructuring” and such going on is a bit much. Keep things simple and take care of your employees and your customers. That’s how you’ll drive revenue!.
The “Value Based Conversation” Training they send you out to in Lake Forest IL is ridiculous. It was evident that even the trainers felt the same. Big waste of time. They spend or let’s say waste money on this garbage. I had great rapport and had some amazing support by my local branch teams when I needed it. I gained a lot of kn
ProsWork life Balance was great.
ConsLeadership, To much micromanaging. Lots of people in positions they shouldn’t be in. Lots of turnover.
Responsible for growing roughly 425 account in my territory of Beverly Hills, and West Hollywood. Daily responsibilities include visiting and maintaining relationship with my customers, as well as going out and searching for new business.
I am responsible for maximizing and growing revenue and profits within his/her assigned geography by selling to existing customers and acquiring new business.
My responsibilities include:
* Selling to existing Grainger customers in assigned territory
* Creating and executing a territory sales plan that meets or exceeds stated revenue and profit targets
* Optimizing call routes to maximize time in the field and overall efficiency
* Meeting regularly with customers in sales territory to understand their evolving MRO needs
* Educating customers on Grainger offer and purchase options (e.g., Seller direct, Phone, Grainger.com)
* Expanding Customer understanding and use of Grainger's standard product and service capabilities
* Identifying and pursuing new customer acquisition opportunities in assigned territory
* Monitoring real-time opportunities at new businesses and/or business expansion in assigned territory
* Conducting cold calls to acquire new customers in assigned sales territory
* Educating potential customers on Grainger's offer and purchase options
* Building long-term, productive, and mutually beneficial relationships with new customers
* Championing Grainger's value proposition in assigned territory and brand in the local community
Pros
- Multinational company enviroment is excellent.
- Company offers great benefits to employees (health, transportation, discounts).
- Technical and infrastructure very advanced.
- Organization with good economical stability.
Cons
- Slow movements and no room for growth inside the organization.
- Salary is very low compared to the market and the demanding duties of the role.
- Too much micromanagement, no trust with employees.
- Leadership team not capacitated to be in charge of an entire team.
- If you provide feedback, instantly they place a tag to you as sign of Retaliation.
- Internal jobs interviews are pointless since candidate who is promoted was already preselected before the rest of the candidates perform their interview.
- Inconsistent feedback, most of occasions the feedback contradictory to the previous one.
**Highlight:
Put attention on the most tenure team members with more years of service who are seeking new challenges and opportunities of growth. Doesn't make any sense to name someone Top performer on Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 and they still on the same role doing the exact same thing over and over.
On Grainger Panama Services because of the terrible management and leaders in charge of this location, If you work here you must be aware that you gonna search for the opportunities by yourself.
A Leader job description includes to help their team to growth and improve in every aspect but it seems that they intereprect this responsability as schedule you 1 hour m
ProsHealth insurance, Transportation
ConsTerrible Management and Leadership selection
Questions And Answers about Grainger
If you were to leave Grainger, what would be the reason?
Asked Mar 26, 2017
Manager and lazy co workers
Answered Nov 15, 2020
I did leave Grainger, and it was because I just couldn't deal with the manager.
Answered Oct 29, 2020
What is the best part of working at Grainger?
Asked Mar 3, 2020
Grainger
Bravery Honor Loyalty Sacrifice operating in top response action to safety and productions management. Working endless tiresome day and tiresome hours to provide high quality distribution of PPE to hospital, schools, workplaces and homes. Manufacturing high quality product. Committed to bringing the best service worldwide.
Ups b2b Top Shelf Service of Excellence Class and Prestige
Hero's on the frontlines in Courageous Acts of Duty
Award Winning Company - #1 For The One's Who Get It Done
Together Making A Difference InThe World
Answered Feb 5, 2021
The benefits, the ot , and the TEAM MEMBERS are a joy to work with. Your team will motivate you encourage you and much more. I loved my team members.
Answered Oct 2, 2020
How flexible are your working hours at Grainger?
Asked Mar 24, 2020
No flexibility at all, mandatory over time
Answered May 27, 2021
You have pto which you can use but other than that almost none
Answered Oct 28, 2020
How long from first interview, to drug test is there?
Or is it the same day as your interview?
Asked Jan 6, 2017
I was required to take one within 24 hours of receiving my offer letter
Answered May 4, 2017
It was the same day I had 1 hour to go and take it.
Answered Apr 29, 2017
Does they do the employment drug test on site or go to the lab
