Good staff - Anonymous employee Professional Music Technology Employee Review

Shop staff teams are some of the most fun, talented and interesting people I have worked with. Being musicians, most of the staff I worked with had a particular area of expertise and interest within MI and a great sense of humour. This made working in the team fun, and interesting to learn from others and find shared interests and goals. They are the biggest credit to Pmt and often the most underpaid and underappreciated by higher management. Offers good connections into MI, especially if working in one of the larger PMT stores. Would semi frequently get visits from sales reps, product specialists and musical artists. All more actively willing to introduce themselves to you than company executives would be on the odd occasion they visit your store. So much less frequently now, but depending on your area of expertise, some really nice gear would pass through the shop allowing you to get hands on and try out the latest releases from major brands as they landed. On the subject of music gear, trade-ins were probably my favourite to deal with as the items customers brought in would often be the most interesting bits of kit in the shop in recent times. The discretion staff would have over deals offered on part exchanges was a nice change to all the usual red tape around price matching, margin targets and a flawed new refund policy.

Pay was not good, and showed no sign of rising above national minimum wage within nearly 5 years of working there. Expressed more than multiple times an interest in developing my skill set in other areas of the business but the company just did not want to know. Just one example of the underappreciation and general feeling of stagnation within store sales staff. Bonus scheme for shop staff had been made almost unrealistic and pointless by the time I left. Talent and potential shown from staff within the company often went unrecognised by higher management. A disconnect and consistent lack of communication felt between in store sales, online sales, marketing and purchasing. Would often end up in frustration for staff and customers. 30 minute lunch break for a 9 hour working day 9am-6pm. Bank Holidays worked on standard pay. Experienced extremely uncompassionate and unhelpful interactions with HR Department.

I’ve worked for the company for over 5 years and in that time I’ve always felt like I’ve been a part of a really supportive team of like-minded individuals company wide. The working atmosphere in store is generally very good; you can have a very positive experience and form close bonds with the people you work with. If you put the time and effort in to learn the products we sell in stores as well as how to sell them, day to day work can become very rewarding. On top of this, the staff discount is very reasonable and as such you can pick up gear for a pretty decent price, which is always a bonus. You’re encouraged to be yourself and let your personality come through in the way you sell to people, rather than pursuing more aggressive sales tactics used by some of our competitors. This allows you to build up a trusting customer base with fairly steady repeat business which has a positive effect on your sales figures and helps propionate growth year on year.

Day to day work is very fast paced and can be stressful for some, you must learn to work under pressure to attain the level of sales expected of you.