retail sales associate

outbound sales representative

Custom Cellular

Wonderful work environment. The stores I worked at had a very friendly environment with light-hearted competition. I got along with all but one of my coworkers, the management team was understanding and patient with me whenever I got sick, and my direct supervisor was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful. If I was ever unsure of what to do next, I had several different channels to ask for help and assistance. It was a lot of fun following the tech industry, and learning ins and outs of devices to help customers. The pay is partially commission, and there were periods where I personally didn't sell enough for my own liking, but I had some busy months leading to paychecks that were almost double my normal amount. It is minimum wage plus commission, so you're paid as well as you sell. There were times where I got stuck for a while performing customer service or dealing with Telus over the phone, but everything is ratio based. . So while I did spend time stuck, if I sold well the rest of the week, there was no worry about losing out on pay. And because it's ratio based, there was very little "sharking", or bad blood for lost sales. I was more than happy pitching someone a phone and sending them to another location for the exact device they wanted, because I knew the same would come around. The upper management does pay attention, and I got several shoutouts as well as them recommending their personal friends to see me to get them set up with a device or provide tech support. I was offered tons of opportunities for extra programs for bonus commissions, tons of friendly competitions and contests (I was SO CLOSE to winning a trip, but a rep from Edmonton outsold be by just the slightest bit), I was also offered a trip to one of our newer locations to help get them set up with included hotel room and paid travel. Unfortunately, I am leaving for a new opportunity, but I could see myself staying for a number of years. I had several regulars that were always fun to see, and got to work at multiple locations so I felt connected to the entire city-wide team. I will miss this place.

First, I must say that my coworkers were amazing and made Custom Cellular. 
But getting into the actual review about Custom Cellular now. There is a reason why large well-managed companies are not recognised as family run businesses. If they are large enough to have their families work for them, the family members are permitted to work under each other. The family members are also placed into positions that they are deserving of. This is not the case Custom Cellular. This leaves employees that aren't friends and family feeling vulnerable and unable to defend oneself. This causes a huge turnover at the store level. 
Custom Cellular is also commonly recognised as the "joke of Telus" at Apple Masters, by sales reps at corporate stores, and even slowly by their customers. 
When you start at Custom Cellular, phone reps ridicule you and say, "This place is cursed. No one ever stays here." (Which is absolutely true. I should have listened). 
The biggest problem is the upper management. It's really important to educate managers on how to manage. It's not something that just comes to a long-term employee who is good at a sales job. There are ways to motivate and work with the different teams. These things are learned at seminars and through education. This is completely disregarded by Custom Cellular. I truly believe that this is their biggest downfall. 
I'll also note that I'm not talking about the store level managers. They are put into terrible situations and this trickles down to the sale rep level. The stores are set up to fail. Employees are set up to fail. There is never any clear direction with anything, and it's always changing to work in Head Office's favour.  If the employees fail, Custom Cellular treats them like a number and dismisses them. Don't expect to go to HR either; they aren't there in the employees best interest. Questions seem to fall on deaf ears until they can use your words against you. 
Custom Cellular has tried to clean up their image on social media, and even here, by adding good comments. However, you can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig. Hopefully they read this and take it to heart. Employees aren't replaceable. Your actions will catch up with you.

The overall experience at Custom was not bad per say, but was far from great.

The company provides very little to no incentive for employees. Management will proclaim you can make so much money (especially around the holidays), but the pay is honestly the worst in the industry. You can sell LOT'S of phones, but if you don't up-sell; you get literally nothing.
Custom Cellular only pays you commission on certain sales, and has sales minimums; compared to other Telus stores and dealers which pay you for every sale.

They call their managers "Team Leads" which I find quite degrading since they do the exact same tasks as a manager and the pay for the position is humiliating. 

Training for new employees has a sharp learning curve. They are "taught" how to do nearly everything in a couple days (after your complete Telus's online modules with no pay) and throw them on the floor with their co-workers and expect them to learn and be proficient in all aspects of the job. The position is far from hard, but if you don't have any experience in cellphones or even sales for the matter; your gonna be in for a brutal awakening with this companies training procedure and unrealistic goals. I didn't encounter this particular issue personally, but I seen it happen way too frequently while I was employed. It all depends on the manager at your location. If you get lucky you may get a caring knowledgeable "team lead" willing to teach you everything, but that's far from the majority.

I was able to sustainably work for the company, but it's not the right fit for many people. The high turn-over rate is one clear example. It seems every 3 months the company is doing a mass hiring campaign to fill in deserted stores with one or two employees remaining. In the meantime surrounding stores have to go work at the location to pick up the slack which is very unprofessional. The company can't seem to find a way to keep their employees after a couple of quarters and are always scrambling to fill positions. The company runs very lean and hires the minimum amount of management possible; leading to overworked executives which leaves stores with no support and long delays in solutions that can only be solved by them.

There’s an inconsistency in the management process and a lack of leadership in the district. While the store is busy and I had amazing coworkers, there’s a lot of gossiping among management. I overheard a conversation where they were spilling personal details of another employee, making fun and laughing, not even caring about being heard by the staff. This speaks volumes about the management’s lack of professionalism.

I knew I was at the wrong place when I found out that most of the staff were looking for other opportunities, such as school. Fair enough and understandable, as most of them are pretty young. But when I found out that even higher management were actively working on their next career path, this explains the lack of leadership and the lack of consistency in management processes in the district.

Colleagues told me to keep my head down and avoid reaching out to HR at all costs because they would never be on my side. The narrative is controlled and manipulated by whatever version of the story the District Manager hears. While some managers take care of their own job duties, the one assigned to our location delegates managerial duties to minimum-wage workers, including inventory counts, shipping devices, and even training new staff. All management does is gossip with others and doesn’t help out with their employees. You can’t trust anyone, even HR lets things slide.

Money isn’t worth the stress you go through. Upper management is so disconnected from what’s happening in the store that they don’t seem to care about employee health and well-being.


Sales team in store: great.
Team lead: great.
District manager: great.

The problems come from head office. You constantly feel watched and micromanaged by them. You will get emails constantly focusing on the negatives. Head office say they are always open to feedback but they’re only open to feedback if it’s something they want to hear. They don’t like change saying they have done the same thing for years so why would they change anything. Stagnation breeds complacency and prevents growth but they don’t understand that.

Custom Cellular is a mediocre company because they don’t listen to good ideas to make them excel. They hear them but they don’t listen to them. The amount of rejection of ideas that could seriously help and benefit the business is extraordinary.

The people in high positions at Head Office are only there because they’re either related to the owner or have known them for a long time. They are not the right people for the positions they are in. The disorganization and lack of transparency at Head Office is astounding. The director of sales has a bad habit of lying to employees to make them compliant with her wishes (of which many people have recordings of phone calls vs messages received proving this). Head office complains about high turn over but won’t do anything to prevent it from happening. They always need to have stranglehold control over every little detail and refuse to hear how this is a problem.

Save yourself the trouble. Everything seems great at the start but the issues become more glaringly obvious as time goes on and it will eventually start to chip away at your happiness and mental well-being until you absolutely hate your working life. 

Management is mess and very biased, every district manager has been their since the start and many managers and employees have been let go, or wrongfully dismissed due to biases, dislikes and much more.

If you have any issues I’d direct your concerns to HR directly as you’ll face consequences for bringing up a concern to your immediate manager or district manager. You’ll always be at the short end of the stick.

With how the work flow is they make you prey on vulnerable customers, that being from ignorant or to older clients. They don’t care who it is, you must push every product down their throat or you’ll get scolded if you don’t do so. There is an understanding that custom has overhead that is telus if they don’t meet this targets and goals but this mess can be avoided and done differently so the work environment isn’t so toxic and such a mess.

For all the ground floor employees they were amazing to work with and I praise the work they do. That would be the only highlight from working at this job for as long as I did.

If you wanna work here I’d recommend looking at other dealers or providers to work for as working here will stress you to point of no enjoying a day of being there.


Don’t be fooled by their promise of making great commission, they pay out the worst in the industry. The only way to make commission is to push products on vulnerable customers and to use scare tactics (ie ‘oh you don’t think you need home security because you have a dog? well what if you’re not home and your house is on fire, what is your dog going to do?’ Yeah. They said to use that as a selling point). Upper Management is so disconnected from what customer service is and micromanages worst than you can even begin to imagine. The turn over is never ending, they can’t even keep store managers around. And it’s not just employees leaving it’s them firing employees for no reason other than their clear dislike of the employee. If you want to be treated like a worthless piece of garbage, take advantage of every customer you help, and constantly have your commission be nonexistent then this is the job for you. But if you have even a sliver of respect for yourself you’d be better off applying to WalMart. 

The training is like the pay, minimal. They throw you into positions and expect you to figure it out on your own. And there may be weeks where your "days off" are working 4 hours, so you're actually working 12-14 days in a row.
Not all stores are set to the same standard and the code of ethics depend on the staff member, so depending where your work, your experience with management is different. I hope this changes with a new DM but the new DM also has no training, most staff are currently scared for their jobs since so many people have been fired because "it's not working out." Seeing so many good sales people getting the boot makes it hard to be here. 
Head office only cares about their own because they are all related. ( Yes, this is true) 
Team Leaders say the only way to get through the day without having a mental breakdown is to come in half an hour early UNPAID and get your work done so you can babysit staff all day. Do you really wanna do that to yourself? Personally, I cant wait to get out.

I feel this company has made huge leaps to overcome negative feedback from prior employees.  Although most feedback has been exaggerated or untrue, I truly feel that head office has made it a top priority to take all feedback seriously and ensure changes have been implemented so that every staff member feels valued and supported.  

I really appreciate the room for career growth within this company. I have seen roles or job titles specifically created just to better expand the company and individual employee. I personally was able to advance my career in less than a year of employment. 

Theres a lot of coaching/training for every employee and extra attention for any targets that a team member could be struggling with. My work environment is welcoming and I have a lot of fun at work. I enjoy working at custom cellular. 

After an interview to which I was told I in fact, slayed it, even told that I had done a very good job and in fact stepped up my game until this one day two of the higher ups came to the branch, printing something which turned out to be a notice of my termination there. I was then called into the back room with them telling me I am simply not needed there anymore, now after all that I tried to do my job the best I can, earned some encouragement from my trainers (who did a half-hearted job I must say) I was suddenly told, in a letter that had barely even a paragraph, yes, barely a paragraph! That my services are no longer required! I felt so disrespected and I felt I was treated sub-human! Those two weeks were good (for my learning experience). higher management is nothing short of mediocre!

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Retail sales associate 21 salaries reported	$23.05 per hour
Outbound sales representative 1 salary reported	$17.00 per hour

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