As the title mentions, I have worked for eForCity Corporation. I have read the reviews of the company on this site, I have most likely spoken with you via the phone or email (probably many times over). The customer on this site are angry, they are frustrated, they are overall upset that their transactions were not handled properly and were unable to reach anybody at the office. To all of you out there who who wrote a review, or are planning to write a review, I would like to say one thing... You don't know how right you are.
For obvious purposes, I do not want to disclose my name on this site, as I am afraid of what may happen if someone there finds out who wrote this. I have been the belly of the beast and I bring you, the consumer, the secrets behind the curtain. Here we go.
First off, although eForCity sells at a massive rate (due to their seemingly low prices) there are only 2 people working the phones in their customer service department. If you ever tried over and over again to reach someone and only got a hold of the answering machine, that's the reason. The two don't just handle phone calls, they handle emails as well. Not only that, they are sometimes advised to personally handle one account above all others. Most recently, it is Best Buy, Overstock and Newegg customers who are being held high above the rest. I'm sorry Amazon customers, eBay users, Play.com buyers, you are not that important.
I have heard management order them to handle Best Buy and Newegg customer complaints first, the rest can wait. I sit there and watch in horror as call after call go unanswered because the company is too cheap to hire more help. Also, the company does not care anyway. I have never seen such lazy management.
The CEO Jack Sheng comes off as someone who takes on his business hands on, but we hardly ever see him. I have caught his personal assistant asleep on the job! Sure it's 11am, but we understand if you need a nap. Due to the low interest by the management, the employees do tend to slack off (myself included). You can't resist, if the higher ups don't care then why should I?
I have already mentioned the company is cheap, how cheap? Let me put it this way. I worked 2 hours of over time. I was late to work due to doctor's appointments and I agreed to have my vacation time take to make up the difference, so that my overtime can be just that. Come pay day, and I receive only $20. My pay is $11 an hour, I worked a total of 75.25 hours, I worked 4 hours of over time, and was told 3 hours of my vacation time would be taken to make up the remaining 3 hours I had left (when I was going to the doctor). All those hours together made up equals 82.25. However, according to my time card, I was only paid for 81.50 hours. My big check that I desperately needed did not come at all! I tried to explain to the HR that I was owed money, to which they explained I was late 15 minutes one day, and 15 minutes another day. I raised the obvious question "why wasn't that deducted from my vacation time, as we had agreed on?" They told me, they did not know I was also referring to that also. So I was gypped out of my hard work and over time.
What that means to the consumer? Because of treatment like this, employees do not feel motivated to perform, already knowing their hard work and dedication will not pay off. Have I mentioned there is no growth within the company? We have one person working customer service for the past 4 years another person working in RMA for another 4 to 5 years, and have yet to see a pay raise or a promotion of any kind. Mean while, anyone of Chinese ethnicity has been promoted or hired on to managerial positions. Does that come off as racist, a little I will admit. There are other people here, harder working people (of non-Chinese decent) have been passed up time and time again for any kind of raise or promotion of any kind. It does not sit well with the employees and that (in turns) effects productivity, and overall moral.
Here's another bombshell for you, the manager for customer service is also the manager for RMA. Coming from RMA, this person does not have the customer's best interest in mind. I have heard him say, to his CS team (all two of them) to deny return requests when the customer is clearly in the right. They have a 30 money back warranty on most of their items, that means once 30 days are up (regardless of whether the item still works) they are forced to deny everyone their money back. Are there exceptions, of course! When do they honor those exceptions you ask? When calls become so escalated that the CS Team can no longer satisfy the customer, and are forced to transfer the call to their "couldn't care less" manager. Does he take the call, of course not, he instead orders the CS Rep to honor the return (just to avoid any unpleasant conversations). That makes the CS Rep look like a liar and a bully, which brings down moral, and overall productivity of the the company.
As I brought up earlier, there are a lot of Chinese people working here, there are also a lot of Hispanic workers here (I am one of the ones of Hispanic descent). A big chunk of the Chinese and Hispanic workers are in the warehouse, some do not speak a word of English. Which wouldn't matter, if the products were not named and labeled in English. What do you suppose happens there? That's right, people get sent the wrong item constantly and become upset. The company offers return labels to ship the items back for a refund or reshipment, however they only offer standard shipping. That's fine, but if this was meant to be a gift for a loved one (it may not make it there in time) and there's not a damn thing we can do about it, as we are not allowed to update the shipping (even when it's our fault).
One last thing, they offer no tech support. If something isn't working right and the customer would rather work out the problem, rather than go through the trouble of shipping items back, too bad. That's not an option.
The list goes on and on of things this company is doing wrong, but they strive on the fact that they have over 2 million or so reviews and customers (regardless of the fact that a majority of their reviews are negative). If you have any further questions let me know, I would love to answer any questions you may have about the company and how they operate.
The bottom line: the company pays little attention to it's employees, which allows the employees do do really whatever they want. They encourage their employees to favor one account over the other, making customer frustrated that they cannot get the help they need.
For the most part, the employees are not to blame, but rather the management and how they function. I do not recommend giving this company any business, in fact I find myself telling people to go else where. Do not be fooled by their bargains, the money you might save does come at a price.
0 comments