It started out great, but that started to change in 2017...
The bad news:
Starting in 2017, too much emphasis was placed on sales quotas. In short, this started out as a true customer service position, and ended up a true sales job. Also, they offshored or placed some jobs back into the brick-and-mortar U.S. centers, for quite a bit of the U.S.-based virtual team (check out the careers page: you'll see very few jobs for U.S. employees are virtual now, most are in the brick-and-mortar centers, and even some of the virtual jobs are limited to states with centers). The ironic aspect of this change: this started to happen about a year or so before the pandemic. Moving up is tricky in the virtual side, as well. If you want to be a team lead, or a training coach, for example, you'll likely be in that position as "interim". So, at any time, management can require an interim leader to go back on the phones, regardless of how long they've been away from the direct customer care position. Some people were interim for months, some for years. In addition, that individual will receive absolutely no refresher training, and very little notice. This exact scenario happened to one of my leaders in 2018 ("leader" is plural, because I was moved to several different teams, due to schedule bids, and sometimes restructuring, but the good news was: I worked well with every one of my leaders). Schedule bids would happen about every few years, and they had already announced that they would switch from the bids being awarded based on a mix of tenu
ProsWork-life balance, generous PTO, overall benefits, my team leaders and colleagues.
ConsSales quotas, metrics, not enough permanent growth opportunities, job security on U.S. virtual side, high-deductible medical insurance.
No growth opportunities if you are over age 40 or in current role too long
I have been a loyal Amex employee for 16 years mostly working within the corporate travel division. Within this time I have taken many steps to advance my career including utilizing the tuition reimbursement program to complete my BS degree in Business/HR as well as mentoring within Work force management and HR. Yet I have been turned down for the last 12 internal postings that I have applied for in the last couple years. I can tell from the types of questions which I received within these interviews that my length of tenure is actually part of the problem, as this seems to be viewed as a detriment and not a positive quality. For example, I was actually asked recently when I had a 2nd interview for a band 25 Account Protections Specialist position within the Fraud department "about how much PTO time do have remaining for this year?" After I told him that like other Amex employees with more than 10 years I have 264 hours per year. I was then actually asked if I believed my extensive PTO time would interfere with my ability to complete the training process. I told him that No I did not believe it would interfere as with 16 years I would not set myself up to fail within this department and also told him that I was very flexible with my remaining PTO time. Ultimately I was turned down even though I have excellent work record, many transferable skills, and was very successful within my B.S. Business program.
After this experience I then also applied for a Service Level Coord
ProsBenefits inluding health insurance and generous PTO.
ConsLack of advancement consideration if you are over a certain age or in current role too long, Also dont ever, ever question management, even if you can support it, as you wil also then be "black listed" from advancement consideration.
The hiring process is very difficult and drawn out but the pay and benefits are excellent BUT PLEASE BEWARE. When you are hired, you are told that this is not just a job; it's a career and that you are now here for life...you are now PART OF THE FAMILY. You are given the impression that you are a permanent employee from day one. Unfortunately, that is not the case. You must go through a training process and instead of basing your permanent hire on how well you did in the training process, your permanent hire is based on surveys that you receive in a very, very flawed system. You will receive bad surveys from card members you never even talked to or regarding issues like...American Express making a corporate decision to remove an airport lounge access which has nothing to do with the service you provided that card member just their dissatisfaction with a corporate decision that you took no part in but YOU will get that bad survey and they will constantly tell you that there is nothing they can do about you now being stuck with that bad survey although they listen to those calls and know that it had nothing to do with you but that one bad survey may very well keep you from getting a permanent hire. Also, keep in mind that in order to wipe out 1 bad survey, you must get at least 5 excellent surveys...yeah, that math makes no sense to me either. Additionally, with the mess they have with the company that manages their surveys, your surveys are sometimes held for 10 days
Prospay and benefits
Conshiring practices; flawed employee rating system; lies when being hired
Good
- Nice View Outside: Hudson River, Statue of Liberty, New Jersey, Upper Manhattan, Lower Manhattan & One World Trade Center
- Humble Manager: My manager works hard and over time. Sometimes provides feedbacks with the double-layer sandwich method. Supportive and helped develop my confidence and leadership style by guiding through the process and by allowing/pushing to make my own decisions.
- Team leads: Inspiring, humble, supportive encouraging. Celebrated the differences.
- Co-workers: Funny, supportive, helpful, Inspiring, and creative.
I gained more confidence, became a better individual as a person and as a programmer.
Bad
- No Guide(s) for new hires: So much confusion, disorientation, and brusque orders without any great explanation.
- Bureaucracy at its best: Vague and empty official feedbacks & criticism on performance from completely different department’s managers and teams.
- No Transparency: Possibility of getting fired (happened) when talking with someone above your manager like team director, even if he adds his own & collects all the comments & feedbacks about ones’ performance from different unrelated & unconnected departments.
- Judgments through Assumptions: Negative feedbacks on my performance by other department’s managers across the floor by their great observation skills.
- Miscommunication & Misunderstanding: Between team members and across other teams, managers and team director. And no efforts for further clarification and for
• 8.5 years of professional experience in full life cycle system development involving analysis, design, implementation, maintenance and support of ap
CCSG (Consumer card service group) targets individual customers in the U.S. markets. CCSG is responsible for developing, marketing and servicing all aspects of charge and lending card products of American Express in the United States. CCSG services are grouped according to customer status, i.e. existing card members, new card members, or card members eligible for an upgrade. CCSG offers services to three financial streams namely: Credit Cards, Charge Cards and Partner Cards. OPEN Cards targets for Corporate/Business cards.
CCSG App Redesign DTW/UA: Redesign and integrate DTW Prescreened and Non Pre- Selected applications flows for CCSG card products. The appearance of the Re-designed UIs should be reflective of the AMEX brand image and should match the existing Redesign experience for CCSG prospect flow. Existing Microsite login pages, Decode pages, upsell pages will need to be integrated as part of Redesign.
CCSG App REDESIGN (App Transformation): The objective of this project is to provide a new user interface for prospect and already card member customers applying for the American Express Cards. Digitals, a third party team, will provide the UI and back end functionality is developed using spring web flow with struts integration. The technologies used for development are spring web flow struts Json and Ajax. This application will be hosted on the WAS 6 server.
My role is Senior Java Developer and Technical lead.
• Involved in analysis, design and development
First they get you pumped up...then reality sets in!
Sadly, like most companies that hire for customer service, they get you pumped up at first. You get to hear about all the awesome benefits (not about the high deductibles just yet) and your pay is decent especially depending on where you live. You have awesome and excited fellow newbies training with you and a trainer who makes you feel amped up to do the job. All fun and games during training. Then you find out you have to make offers/sell. They don’t call it selling but it is and if you don’t offer enough and meet certain metrics then you don’t make it past training and it’s pushed heavily!
After training- you’re taking back to back calls. Most are either quick payment and check balance calls or they’re unhappy customers calling about late fees they want you to waive or charges they want you to dispute and you can’t always please but they can still fill out a survey on you and even if their beef is at Amex and they comment on survey that you’re the best person in the world but they mark it all low thinking it hurts only Amex but it hurts your metrics and nothing you can do. You’ll be coached weekly and told all the right things to say by people who’ve worked there for for years and haven’t taken calls themselves in years. It’s easy to feel like something is wrong with you when you can’t find a way to get a customer who wanted to make a payment with the IVR but got booted to you to have some sort of “relevant” conversation so you can make that offer. (Be very peppy, confide
ProsInclusive, Diverse, PTO/Sick Days, Decent Pay
ConsMetrics/Numbers Driven, back to back calls, system glitches, tons of “feed back” even during calls which is distracting
Applied for this co 4 times over 5 years before getting hired. When I started in ‘16 the bonuses were tax bracket changing they were so good, and unlimited. The culture was AMAZING! It was like a party everyday! I almost never had to bring my lunch. And they catered really nice restaurants back then, not just pizza everyday. There was always some type cultural event or rally going on every month sometimes 2x’s/mo. Just about every week there was an executive hosting a workshop and they truly embraced you. These events were great opportunities to network and meet colleagues in different departments. Then they bought the new building in Scottsdale and everything stopped. Bonus caps went from unlimited potential to $1000, but only for the top 2-3 people. My department was small, about 30 people. Annual raises are no more. They essentially said since they laid off mangers, supervisors and directors in April 2020 we should just be greatful. That’s another thing if your department under performs they’ll just outsource it. So you should never be comfortable in your position. All of the Collections departments are a popularity contest. If you’re liked you’ll move up. But If you’re in the top 5%, have the most tenure, best customer surveys, but you mind your business be prepared to never move up. I’ve seen 2 people still in training get promotions they don’t qualify for because the leads “think they’re cool”. What company allows you to apply for a new position while still in training
ProsFresh Sushi Bar, Cafeteria is a Gift from Above
ConsCheckbooks for Insurance, Cafe only takes Amex
2.0
Customer Service Representative | Arizona | Feb 9, 2015
Will be facing numerous class action lawsuits with the way they treat employees
I learned that if you truly excel at your current position, you will not be promoted. Mgt may put you thru mgt training, but you won't end up with a team. Instead, you'll be told you need experience in a different dept. Then you'll be stuck same as before.
The people that work side by side with you are awesome! It's the mgt that leaves a lot to be desired. They are automatons, spewing the same old dreck that upper mgt feeds them. Middle mgt knows that if they speak up for their employees and try to right the many wrongs done to the reps, they will either be demoted or out right fired.
DO NOT believe the dollar amount you "could" make in any job posting for this company! What they don't tell you is that nice amount included bonus pay-outs for selling and or reaching certain metrics. These metrics are impossible to consistently reach. One bad month with low survey scores, and you lose that month's bonus along with the next two following months. It takes that long to dig yourself out of that hole, that is, if you're able to do so. So, with all your hard work, you will end up making the base minimum of the position.
The survey system they utilize to rate their in-bound call center employees is archaic and faulty. You can and will get derogatory surveys that belong to another rep. Whether in your call center or a different part of the world. Doesn't matter. They will not remove the bad score from your numbers even though they can do so. This problem is getting people fired fo
ProsAntiquated phone system and survey ratings; management
Working for AM EX Investment Banking Company was Great!
It was an employment that required me to study at work and pass four National tests before I was able to begin the training for employment. Then, I was sent to another major city in another state to train with many other people that had recently passed the major national exam and we studied together and then passed two other tests and spent seventeen months in a training program. After the training together in the other major city in another state, we were to pass one more state exam and also perform qualifying duties to accomplish so that we were able to stay employed with the American Express Investment Banking company. The information my colleagues and I learned was varied and we were taught standard company training. Also, we learned from working with the employees of the American Express Investment Banking Company and the customers that called in or customers that we had called. I spent time speaking also to other cities at headquarters of the American Express Investment Banking Company, sending faxes and also using computer generated communication. Additionally, I sent out much mail to American Express customers. I had many meetings directly with clients and also planned and held many public. seminars so I began to be more comfortable speaking to groups of people. The workday began very early and I worked sixty hour work weeks. I learned to be a specialist in several areas that required much time to ask questions and thankfully the people that I worked with were peo
ProsI liked being able to learn work information and present it logically
ConsManagement was very supportive and helped make work fun
Technical Lead representing U.S. on the design, development and support of a global American Express Customer Statement system. Traveled overseas to provide technical consultation on U.S. domestic and international postal regulations, statement volumes and capacity performances, marketing functionality and assure compliance with regulatory reporting requirements
Participated in the development of Quality Control team processes and rollout of a QC team that led to a 400% improvement in change failure. Conducted design reviews, recommended process improvements, ensured applications were constructed using standardized methodologies, enforced coding guidelines/testing requirements and coordinated project implementations. Our recommendations resulted in over $200,000 saved in project implementation failures and maintained zero defects for 10 months.
Principal designer and developer of an automated testing facility that reduced setup time by 90%, resource needs by 75% and test execution time by 50%. Published the American Express U.S. Billing Test Procedures guidebook. Assigned/managed a test team to standardize test requirements, procedures and expected test results for American Express billing software. The test team supported 50% more efforts in the same timeframe than prior application teams.
Technical lead and mentor responsible for knowledge transfer to an international outsourcing team (Syntel) responsible for American Express Acquisition systems product
Trabajé para esta empresa un año, fue una pesadilla. Tienen un sistema de calificación 100% injusto para el representante de atención al cliente. La empresa tiene problemas en todos los ámbitos, las tarjetas no pasan en un 50% de los casos, el sitio de Internet se cae a cada rato, las disputas de cargos ni siquiera las leen los del departamento de disputas, que además están ubicados en India, la gente tiene que llamar como 10 veces para re-disputar sus cargos. Además hablan diario para quejarse porque estás en México y no en Estados Unidos, y la calificación que te dan gracias a todos estos desperfectos, resulta que es TU calificación y con eso te pagan y te dan bonos! Tienes que tener muy buena suerte para que no te toquen los clientes mas molestos, porque de ser así, ya saliste de la empresa!
Y por si fuera poco, no tienes tiempo ni para comer, con trabajos y logras ir al baño, yo tenía que comer durante la llamada, para eso sí tienen un carrito de comida chatarra y te la puedes comer poniendo a la persona en espera. Solo que si te cachan te pueden correr... jajaja, si no es chana es juana, pero ahí sí eres esclavo como lo quieras ver.
Pero eso sí, te lo disfrazan como ensueño, te lo hacen ver como si estuvieras en un lugar privilegiado, el proceso de contratación te hace pensar que estás tomando un súper trabajo, espérate a vivirlo en carne propia. No te dejes engañar, son puras apariencias! Lo peor de todo, tienen una lista de valores que supuestamente la empresa p
ProsSeguro de gastos medicos mayores
ConsSupervisores deshonestos, sistema de evaluaciones injusto, no paras de tomar llamadas, no tienes tiempo para comer, no puedes convivir con tus compañeros
Questions And Answers about American Express
How thorough of a background check do they do?
Asked Apr 1, 2017
Amex uses a third party known in the marketplace as Hire Right. Hire right seem like a group of very lazy people and I say that because the candidate for employment has to do all of the jumping through hoops. I think it is appalling of American Express to allow that company to create the reports. They go too far back and regardless 10 years is enough, UNLESS it has something to do with fraud, or financial type felonies.
The fact that the laziness of this company is seen as thorough is ridiculous. I spoke with a woman there that had GHETTO COMMUNICATION skills and those skills should be indicative of what AMEX is looking for in an employee. I believe that background checks are a must but Hire Right should be replaced. Horrible customer service and again, they have a hard time with their communication skills.
Answered Sep 28, 2020
They went back 16 years on my background & did not give me the job because of something that happened when I was a minor. So i believe they go back as far as your record goes.
Answered Jun 21, 2019
What is the work environment and culture like at American Express?
Asked Jul 12, 2016
Ever since leadership rushed into 'Delivery Transformation' initiative by converting Indian Vendor resources into full time leaders without proper training and HR controls in place, the culture has become more and more hostile, toxic and discriminatory. The cultural gap between US and India is a reality and poses a significant threat to the future of all American companies who employ same offshore model. It is not a matter of if but when we will see class act law suits against AMEX for discrimination.
Answered Sep 22, 2019
Been with the company for almost 2 decades. The culture in customer service used to be quite nice. But many things changed in a short amount of time and in the past few years, the culture has become quite stressful and management is more concerned about making money than the welfare of the employees. It’s all about selling. It has become a high pressure sales environment. Employees are just numbers now.
Answered Jan 5, 2019
What would you suggest American Express management do to prevent others from leaving?
Asked Mar 22, 2017
After 6 years of giving myself to Amex, one would think that they would at least pretend to care about why I left the company. I took a leave of absence and they denied my stress related leave as a reason for a leave of absence. I was stressed because of AMEX. It didnt matter if I made $100 per hour, the requirements were ridiculous and they only cared about #s and customer surveys. So please, when you top employees say they are stressed, at least take that into consideration. This experience caused me to never want to work in customer service AGAIN.
Answered May 11, 2020
Stop laying off good people
Answered Apr 11, 2020
What is American Express sick leave policy? How many sick days do you get per year?
Asked Apr 2, 2017
12 days per year. A typical sick day policy includes five or six days of paid sick leave.
Answered Jan 6, 2019
Sick time is awarded monthly at 4 hrs per month. Unlike vacation time, sick time accrues.
Answered Jan 24, 2018
What are the hours at AMEX?
Asked Mar 7, 2017
Do you have 10 hour days, 4 days a week? Do you have 12 hour days, 3 days a week? Do you offer weekends off, especially Sunday? Does this apply to work at home job? If you don't use your sick time ever, what happens with the hours? When do you get vacation time? How many weeks?
Answered Mar 15, 2018
It depends on the role. As others have shared, hours in the call centers are 24/7/365 - call centers are never closed with the exception of a few departments/functions. Exempt employees within the call centers may work weekends, depends on their role. Exempt employees not supporting the call centers work Mon - Fri, anywhere from 6am to 6pm - depends on who they're wokring with, what project their on, work/life balance, etc. I once worked 5am - 130pm, Sun to Thu, in Phoenix, when supporting call center ops. A different role, I worked 6am - 6pm, Mon to Fri, because I worked with people on the East coast (they like their 9amET calls/meetings), had that much work to do and was exempt/salaried.
"What are the hours at AMEX?" Depends on where you work (NYC has bankers hours, for the most part), what you do and who you work with (different time zones means greater flexibility; this is a pro and a con). AMEX, as a company, is never closed.
