Sleep Number by Select Comfort Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Low pressure sells. Product sells itself. There is opportunity to make a decent amount of money. It's a good stepping stone into sales.

Cons – Incredibly monotonous atmosphere. Not a lot of room for upward mobility. Three person store so no real time to take off without putting a strain on the other sales people.

Advice to Senior Management – Allow four person stores to reduce strains on personal time. I would like to see Higher commission structures. More promotions from within.

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Easy selling model to follow. I like the emphasis on low pressure selling. Upper management takes the time to connect with associates and go into the stores to see what is going on at the store level.

Cons – Commission is good could be better considering how much we sell. Some associates are aggressive vs. team players. Store managers could be more qualified.

Advice to Senior Management – The company is overall a great company to work for, I think middle management could listen to the associates more when they have concerns. I also think the hourly could be a little bit more, or the commission could be a little higher.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – The sales procedure is low pressure. You guide the customer through the bed selection rather than hard sell. The beds are great, but accessories pretty high priced.

Cons – I had no training from my store manager. Trained online, which was only available at the store, and watching other employee. I later found out this employee was not following the company sales procedure and had been written up several times in the year he worked there. Store managers usually support their employees if a customer dispute comes up. Senior management and HR support the customer.

Advice to Senior Management – Make online training available from home.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Company cares about the people that work there and reward high performance with high pay.

Cons – Retail and weekend/evenings are required monthly and aggressive growth is expected.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Easy product to sell. Clean showroom and scripted sales actually works for this product. Accessories are easy to sell.

Cons – I was fed up with everything I had to do and fed up with dealing with management. I have been written up at least once every single week over petty stuff that is all in my opinion part of the learning process but of course it must be documented so that there is a bank created should I need to be terminated for whatever reason.

I made mistakes on sales and as a result lost my commission on them. Where was management to look over sales orders and insure I was doing the right thing? I do not have the support or guidance from management as I worked with customers to insure I was complying with the plethora of company policies and procedures. Of course with a degree in psychology management can state that they were simply enforcing company procedures and I am the bad employee who won't comply. This company is insane with logs for every little thing and its rules surrounding any sales. I am surprised there isn't a log for farting. No real discounts offered to owners who are loyal customers to the SN bed.

I am required to call and harass people to the point of them not wanting to answer their phone and forced to leave a voice message. What does that say when a customer won't answer? They are no longer interested or not ready. How is my calling them every week going to do anything but annoy them. If they had actually been considering buying the bed but sincerely not ready to buy, my calls run the risk of them NOT buying the bed. Since I am new, I don't have 30 people to call every single day. So I must call 1 yr old leads that are more than likely dead leads!?! Crazy! Meanwhile all during that year, the company sends coupons upon coupons out to these leads and if they aren't interested, they aren't interested. how is my calling going to suddenly convince them differently other than bug them to the point where they don't consider buying?!

I thought I could bring something different to select comfort but with a log for everything, there was no way of doing things any differently than the scripted sales corporate expects and demands you follow. If you don't there is proof you didn't. No individuality allowed from your salespeople but become robots repeating rehearsed scripts. There is even a log for that?!I have never in my 20 yrs ever had this level of micro management to deal with. It forces the manager to be a jerk to people and there are numerous complaints on the glassdoor website about working for select comfort.

The income potential is not 50-60k but 30-40k. Any bonus has all these requirements to meet or you don't get it. And BREAD, how is bread let alone 5 lbs of it an incentive plus 14 criteria that must be met or no bread. I felt like doing a Broadway rendition of Oliver food glorious food when that came in. I want more please.

I overheard management speaking to an applicant who had already interviewed with another store manager who didn't want to hire him and the store manager was telling him how he would be a great fit and all, basically lying to this man who may overlook other job offers in his quest for employment. Is this what management did to me, not expecting me to actually make the move but when I did get here, out of some weird sense of obligation since I had traveled cross country hired me anyways.

I don't think management wanted me as an employee and that was made quite clear to me on more than one occasion with comments like "had I known such and such about you, I wouldn't have hired you" and said this in front of another employee.

All in all, I think select comfort offers a great product line and selling the bed is the easy part but all the nit picking paperwork and behind the scenes stuff makes the job miserable.

Advice to Senior Management – Take your degree on psychology and turn on yourself! Be honest with employees and treat them with respect and not as a child. I don't feel I was getting the needed information in the format that has been set up by select comfort or it simply wasn't being presented to me in a way so that I could understand it. There has been allot of pressure placed on me by management to just perform when I didn't feel I had all the information to perform with. The only response I get is me being psycho-analyzed and the fact I should be doing this with all my experience. The training process needs to be followed as if I have never sold these beds before without any parts being skipped, even if it is stuff I already know. Every time the same information is given to me, I learn something more from it since it is given in a new format. I need to learn how Select comfort wants me to represent the product line. I hope management will be more patient and make sure people truly understand each step of the process and what is being presented to them. I didn't have this feedback from management and felt so pressured to just perform which built up allot of frustrations because I didn't fully understand what was being expected of me.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Guaranteed Hourly and Commission (No Draw System)
Commissions can be great if your goal is not astronomical and the up system is abided by
Frequent company updates on new products
Fairly Flexible Schedule during the week but not weekends
Usually small work crew 3-4 per store
Great health benefits
Selling By Numbers does work-if you take it upon yourself to tailor it to the individual's needs.
GREAT Product. I own one and it DOES help me sleep better.
Detailed process for advancing from Sleep Associate to Professional to Expert.
Not hard to sell beds, when someone is legitimately interested!
Ability to help people sleep better.
Few returns if you sell people the mattress they NEED and can comfortably afford instead of milking customer for every dollar.

Cons – *Note- I have only worked at one store, so this applies to it. I am not sure about others.*
Having to compete with your boss for sales. If SM doesn't abide by the up system policy then they can and will affect your ability to make money.
Mgrs can abuse schedules.
Pay scale for store bonuses are WAY out of whack between SMs and SPs.
PTO for SPs not fair, 1.4 hrs per week especially when there is NO sick time.
Mgr constantly wanting to "skill practice" which only purpose that serves is for them to bury your sales technique, especially if you are selling more than them.
Mgr will delegate his responsibilities to you (signage, inventories, checking shipments in), in order to sell more.
Limited Flexibility within Selling By Numbers. Can't treat customers like human beings.
Insane marketing ideas (telling people that there is a Sleep Number in their DNA)
Sales goals are inconsistent, you can sell the same amount one month but make WAY less.
No local advertising for smaller market stores. SMs and SP's have to get out and create own events, and find local radio sponsors.
Too Many Unwanted Phone Calls.
Will strip your commission in a heartbeat if you make a mistake, but will take ages if commissions need to be adjusted in your favor.
No advancement possiibilities if in a small market reigon.

Advice to Senior Management – Have DM's review SM's scheduling practices and their commitment to the companie's written "UP" policy.
Have DMs respond to individual store managers in a timely fashion.
Increase local advertising for smaller market stores. We can't all live in cities with 1-2 mill populations.

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Good work life balance.
Beds Sell Themselves, great product, great service after the sale.
Stress Free 80% of the time.
Low Return Rate.
Customers like the product.
The Store Managers are most likely excellent sales people (if you are lucky) and almost guaranteed to be poor leaders, due to the way they promote.

Cons – Marketing changes and price changes are implemented far too often confusing sales professionals and customers. It appears that the number one downside to this company is the fact that they hire and promote people into store management positions based upon sales ability and performance and not based upon the persons core competencies and if they can plan, organize, motivate and control. There are store managers who have no business running a store and should be sales person. Business management processes at the store level are fragmented and are constantly changing. Market managers who oversee a number of stores are spread way to thin. Many store managers simply do not know how to manage people.

Too much empahsis on managing by numbers. Conflicting messages about taking care of customers and not to high pressure customers (Macro level) and then the message is completely distorted at the Store Manager level (Micro) where Sales people are encouraged to behave like used car salespeople when customers do not buy on the spot.

The pay plan for Sales people is so unfair and has so many traps built into it that it is nearly impossible to hit the budget. It changes every month. In other words, one month a sales person can sell $50K in beds and bedding and earn a bonus, next month the number is raised just above where it was the month before, so they wont hit it. This is a very clever way of controlling variable operating costs. In short, the Sales people have thier pay plan modified every month.

These stores comp up each month and demand a 5 to 15% increase in sales each month even in a troubled economy when every consumer is looking for value driven offers. Senior Managers set budgets without every walking into a store, or knowing anything about the dynamics of the personel or local economic conditions. a perfect example of "The Dilbert Principle"

The mark up on the bedding products is over 500%. This is a compny that really can not figure out if thier priority is helping people sleep better or pushing overpriced bedding products. The amount of pay a Sales person earns is covered each month just by the bedding products sold, leaving 100% gross profit to the company for the bed sales.

The lead system is a complete joke. Store managers say they are prohibited from taking a salespersons customer. (it happens weekly, so the manager can hit his budget) and then they lie to the salesperson and make it up as they go along. They have Oracle for data management but can not communicate to a simple letter writter software program for Follow up. Outlook anyone?

Advice to Senior Management – Plan for excessive turnover once the economy turns around and good sales people leave for an environment where store managers know how to manage people. Stop putting so much pressure on the Sales staff. The numbers will work out if theyfocus on the beds and taking care of the customer. This is not Rocket Science. Customers are getting sick and tired of the relentless in your face marketing, handwritten postcards, excessive telephone badgering and pressure to buy, buy, buy........Maybe the CEO and VP's would like to be called every other week and asked if they would like to by a bed. Anyone have thier phone number?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Great product with a loyal following of customers.
Good base pay for a 40 hour work week.
Relatively stress-free working environment.

Cons – Extreme favoritism shown by district and regional managers to certain stores.
Unfair budgets based on whether or not you kiss your district managers rear end.
Too much emphasis is placed on bedding attach rates.
Mall locations, less than ideal.
Although it is a 40 hour work week, you work every weekend and several evenings each week.
Salespersons concerns are not handled seriously.
District managers not worried about developing the sales force, only about advancing "Yes Men"

Advice to Senior Management – Select Comfort needs to decide if it a mattress retailer who sells bedding, or if it is a bedding retailer who sells mattresses. When your average bed sale if $2600, it makes sense to put the focus on the mattress, not the extras. It's time for senior management to listen to their retail salespeople, who account for 87% of the company business. The sales process is too long and drawn out and easily recognizable as a process and not a flowing conversation. This lovely process comes across as scripted and is encouraged to be used verbatim. An excellent salesperson doesn't require scripts to sell products.

Last but not least, the bullying and heavy handedness senior management is employing right now is despicable! Employees are being threatened with their jobs, when the main reason production has dropped is the economy. Wake up and take a look at the real world. Most of us didn't receive the gigantic stock rewards that you have received in the past year and we are mostly trying to keep our heads above water.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Performers can make decent money, good mix of development & internal promotions with external hires.

Cons – History if incompetent Regional Directors and higher. Can't speak for now though (many new people).

Advice to Senior Management – Don't hold onto your bad hires/promotions for so long, just because they are Directors. Still clean out some old influencers.

Former Employee – worked at Sleep Number by Select Comfort

Pros – Good pay for little work
Hourly pay + Commission + Bonus(monthly is store hits goal)
Work less than 40 hours a week

Cons – The selling process is ridiculous "SBN", has to be done exactly as scripted
Beds are way over priced, almost feel bad when you sell one
Store managers receive very little training and abuse authority
No upward communication at all

Advice to Senior Management – Have district managers spend more time in stores and have more training for store managers.
I would only see the district manager about once every 2 or 3 months. This absence gives the store manager way too much freedom do to whatever they please. Move store managers around every once in a while so they don't think the store is their home.