Needle has gone from the once outstanding business that was leading the online chat world in innovation and a stress free customer experience, to a downright laughable shell of what it once was.
If I were M.L. CEO of this company , I would seriously start to question how much longer this company can screw over it's Advocates on the front lines before going out of business. Advocates are the sole reason this company operates, without them, you have nothing.
Needle has ZERO business ethics and has lost all sight as to what it once was trying to achieve. They have turned into just another online chat rep , with disgruntled, unprofessional, un experienced , un trained, un caring people on the line. This is due to the massive
lack of management , pay , and operation
When I started at Needle , it took me 2 full weeks to get my foot in the door after rigorous testing, training, and proving that i was in fact an expert in my field. Now there is no training or screening at all. They will hire any Heartbeat as long as they agree to not be paid . One advocate even said " i have no idea what i am doing , they just told me to come here and start taking chats." This, in a nutshell, is the direction you can expect Needle to be going. The path they are on is one pointing direct to Bankrupt in less than a year.
Pay for this " job" is non existent . What once was outstanding, has now become an absolute nightmare. Leading you to question if the doors will be open the next day when you wake up, They have gone from paying cash weekly where I must say I was making good money ,To paying monthly , which certainly lead to some drastic reworking of the finances. To not paying cash at all and starting a " points system" where you can earn points and redeem them for limited products at full retail value . Each item of which you will be paying income tax on come January . You would think this nightmare of a story ends there, but it does not.
Since the " points" have gone into effect, they have raised the price on all products and lowered the points earned a minimum of 3 times in 6 months. Each time the excuse is uttered " our
research shows, human beings are not motivated by money ." or " we will be bringing you new and exciting things to come , stay tuned! " Which, you guessed it , never come. At the time of this review, Needle has once again , in a classless act ,on a Friday night at closing of the main office, Informed Advocates that they will be taking a 25% pay cut again. With a whopping 3 days notice. This is a prime example of how Needle cares for the sole reason of it's existence , THE ADVOCATES. They are losing money from Clients dropping them. This is because with the lack of payment for advocates they have no " experts " that the client is paying for. Ultimately giving the client a bad reputation and in turn not wanting to continue the contract with Needle. , So they turn to the Advocate to recoup the loss. This can only go on for so long before the money has all been stolen from the Advocate and bankruptcy is inevitable. In my time at Needle, my pay was cut in half from the start to finish dates, and you can expect this to only continue until the rock is bled dry.
They at Needle told us " this is not a job. " They expected us to look at the work as a gaming system. That we can come and go as we please, Work when we want , Leave when we want , Do as we want, in the Online gaming system. Yet there were " managers " ( i use this term very loosely ) for every team. These Managers are there to tell you how to perform, what to do and not to do , When to perform . etc. Making the whole " gaming system" a false way to not classify Advocates as Employees. Hence a work around to not pay employee tax. Very shady !
Now when i say these managers were there, i say this loosely , as the turn over rate for a group manager is very high. A new one about every 3-4 months or so. Each not knowing where the last left off. Not knowing the ins and outs and trying to rekindle moral with false promises . Which leads to failure , no respect from the group, and ultimately confusion for the group. Then the " manager " being replaced for cheaper , less knowledgeable, less caring , person to take the place. Downward spiral at it's finest . Getting in touch with ANY of these " managers" is impossible. You can not , to save your own life, get in contact with anyone , EVER ! They show up , Give you bad news and say hang in there ,then disappear. Emails and messages go ignored 100% of the time.
This leads me to point redemption. In the system you were given points based on performance. This in effect is the demise of the Needle as a whole. This Company was started by Morgan Lynch to be a way for online shoppers to receive real time , un pressured , expertise about products that they are interested in. By moving to a performance based points system that only pays on making sales. You have completely contradicted the reason for this companies existence and turned all Advocates into high pressure salesmen ( or saleswomen) . If the person on the other end is not going to produce a sale. There is absolutely no reason for the advocate to waste the time talking to them. The pay per chat is 0.27 cents. If you would like to talk to a person for an hour on chat for 27 cents, by all means, enjoy. But realize that it will take you a full year to build any points to redeem. For sales, questions asked, how fast you are , etc , you earn points. Sales being the only one that makes any substantial difference. Without sales , you are going nowhere fast .
Was ML dream of this company to be yet another provider of high pressure sales people to online customers ? If so, He nailed it !!
Now to redeem these points you have points brackets , each with a monetary value. For a product ranging in the $1-$50 range it will cost you 12,500 points. By the old math that is $62.50, so for a $4.99 product you will be paying $62.50 plus shipping, plus sales tax, plus taxes on it at year end with the Federal Govt as income. If that is is not a red flag to run away as fast as your feet can carry you, then be warned that to redeem these points it is like pulling teeth . I have seen it take literally 2 months for one order to be redeemed. Excuse after excuse pours out as to why your orders are not being received by you . There is no management to respond to your personally , just blanket excuses. The system was promised to allow for orders whenever you chose. But as you guessed it , another lie, and that has changed to one single day a week . Which is mind blowing as the orders are never placed anyway ,so why does it matter when they come in ? In short , if you are one of the lucky ones, you may see the $4.99 item that you paid $62.50 for in about a month .
A little info for persons thinking this may be an opportunity for them , the 12,500 points stated above will roughly take 9 hours at first start. Once you are comfortable and taking up to 5-6 chats at a time. You can see that time cut in half or even less for the power players.
Now I was an Advocate for a company that in the most polite term possible, treated us like garbage . We would spend all day helping customers with sales, giving promotions, offering discounts , cross selling , up selling, pulling teeth to get the sale for the company. This company would set so many rules for our points redemption that it was on the verge of Hilarious . Almost like they wanted to see what they could get away with from Needle. As a Sales Advocate making the company easily thousands upon thousands in sales weekly. You would think there would be some perks . Wrong ! They would not allow us to use any promotions, buy at any sales prices, and a slew of other outrageous stipulations , leading you to only wonder if they did not want you to have their products . Again, this is where the 2 months time frame comes in , literally 2 months from product order to product received from the company that you bust your butt in the trenches for to make them money . It always baffled me why Needle would even allow them to make rules. It was a simple situation that was made remarkably complex for no reason at all. The company is an online retailer. Needle gets our order and places it , the company sells the item to needle on our behalf and ships to us, just like buying online anywhere else in the world. Yet Needle felt it ok for the companies to make a mess of this and make rules and stipulations on how we could make our purchases. We should have been seen as a regular customer placing an order, but instead Absolute Absurdity at it's finest .
To sum this up , As i could go on for days as to how this Company has lost all sight and will be out of business by year end. It is absolutely imperative that i strongly caution you against getting involved with Needle. They are in the business now , not of providing exceptional customer expertise with zero pressure, in a fun and interesting work environment that you would be happy to be a part of, but instead, of throwing a monthly wrench into the gears of the platform with sole directive to screw over the advocates that perform the job to recoup their losses for mis-management .
Run as fast as you can away from Needle. You can thank me later . Let me also add that any of the "Good" reviews you see about this company on here are obviously from the internal Needle Company and should be disregarded. After talking extensively with Needle Advocates. Not a single one thinks this company is great , treats its employees good, or is on the rise to better things. On the contrary, without the added internal Needle boost reviews. This company would be rated where it really stands , at 00 !
