Working at Teavana — Reviews by Employees

I see a lot of polarized reviews for Teavana as an employer. Either people hated being made to pressure customers and the pressure of working sales, or they love working there and can't wait to manage their own location.

Notice how many of the positive reviews highlight that this is a sales job, and even degrade those who don't like that fact. That's indicative of Teavana's overall corporate culture. You're pushed into selling as much as possible of the most expensive items, even if they're not the best suited for the customer's needs. If your sales aren't good, your hours are cut without warning. I know one co-worker who would come in on her days off to try and make up her sales because our manager threatened to fire her. He didn't help her or give her advice, just told her he wanted to give her the axe. Another co-worker, who was in her 40s, was repeatedly told by our manager that he wished he hadn't hired someone "so old".

The good news: if you're good at getting in peoples faces and not listening to them when they're shopping, you probably will do well here. The whole sales philosophy of this company is to overwhelm the customer and inundate them with things they "Need", then get them to the cash register before they can think about if they really want all this stuff. My boss once tricked a customer into buying more tea than she wanted. When she stormed out with her purchase, furious that she'd paid more than she'd expected, he beamed at us and said "See? It's all in how you phrase it." That's pure dishonesty, plain and simple. So if you have "morals" or "opinions" don't work here!

A recent customer compared coming to Teavana to entering a used-car dealership, and I can say that-at least for my store-this is very true. When someone enters, you're supposed to be pinned to them, lead them through the store, put together a tea set for them to buy. On several occasions, I would approach a customer who would shrug me off, saying that they were just looking around. I'd respectfully give them their space, only to have a co-worker jump on them and take the sale from me. For this, my boss called me "Standoffish", and on more than one occasion, brow-beat me for doing things like measuring out the exact amount of tea the customer wanted (we're supposed to try to toss a couple extra percentages of ounces where we can to "maximize the sale"). It's especially frustrating, considering 75% of customers just wanted to try our heavily sugar-blasted iced tea samples. This causes a lot of resentment, because you practically want to yell at someone who's not interested in buying but let you show them half the teas on our wall. It shouldn't be like that; you're supposed to be out to help the customer, not force expensive crap on them.

Especially at my location, the feeling was of sink-or-swim. Big sellers got more time on the tea counter, where the potential for big sales was biggest, and weekend hours. If you weren't as good, you'd get less time on the counter, and less weekend hours, which only hurt your sales, thus making it less likely to get on the counter to raise those numbers, and so on. In addition, our manager would cut our hours if we didn't do well, which made it even tougher to perform.

Teavana sells some excellent tea, don't get me wrong. And I know that retail involves making money, I'm not dumb. But the corporate culture behind Teavana is ruthless. The ones who rise to the top are the most dishonest (a good example of this is a fellow salesman who would tell flat-out lies about family members with health conditions fixed by our teas, or when he claimed that we were a "go-green" company in order to sell a tin to someone). Because of this, the management is full of people who got where they were by treating the customer like a chump, like an enemy. There's no room for customer care, or listening to what they want or need. It's all about "overcoming" the customer and their objections. I'm glad to be out of there, because in nearly ten years of being of working age, I've never before been made to feel like such a bad employee as by my teavana manager.

I should also mention that I'm now working at a different store that sells tea, and find it easier to sell-in fact, I sell more there. It's quite simple, really: I ask a customer what they're looking for, and they tell me. Then, I make suggestions based on what I think will fit their needs, and show them the product. I ask them what they like. The customer then decides what might best suit them, and I make suggestions as to other new things they might like. When the customer says that'll be all, I ring them up and send them on their way with a smile. And surprise surprise, they always come back!

I have been with the company for sometime now, and I love it! People who want to work here need to understand that this is a SALES JOB! You are told this up front at the interview. If you don't know what that means then look it up in the dictionary. This company cares about its team members and it is up to the
GM of the store to create the work enviroment. For all the negative reviews that I am seeing I can only assume that the GM's of these stores don't have a clue on how to successfully run a store and how to properly train your employees.

I am SHOCKED at the negative reviews here. I just don't get it. I love my store and am treated wonderfully by the company. I have felt a "family" vibe the entire time I've worked here. The other posters are incorrect about promoting from within. Almost 90% of the home office has worked in a store and has been promoted. As for the sale model, it is right in line with other retailers. To make a buisiness work you must turn a profit. We BELIEVE in our higher priced items as you should NEVER need to purchase another pot again if you go for a Cast Iron. The quality is amazing and it's worth the investment. Of course a buisiness is going to try to add on to each sale...besides everything we have is beautiful and I consider our products works of art. Totally worth it. My store is organized and we all get along so well. We play fun contests and have dinner get togethers a few times a year. I have been offered three other jobs since working at Teavana this april and I love my job and haven't considered leaving. I hope I get to grow with the company. As far as upper management, I have seen nothing less than ultimate professionalism and I know for a fact the owners care deeply about the associates in the company. The owners put on an apron when visiting stores and work the cash registers. They spend time educating guest just like they work in the store too. I hope if you are considering working for Teavana you see past the negative comments as I KNOW they are unfounded.

Never work for Teavana!!! NEVER! Not even if you are desperate. I would have wanted someone to tell me this before I accepted a position with them, but no one did. The higher ups at the company are rude, disrespectful, and pushy. They will cut your hours without warning, leaving you with no livelihood. And the company itself fosters a negative work environment based on pushing people to buy expensive things they don't need/want, and pitting co-workers to compete against each other.

I am a huge tea enthusiast so I thought Teavana was a perfect match for me. I couldn't have been more WRONG. From the beginning the new store coordinator, Stephanie Kale, yelled at us constantly and treated us rudely. She was far too emotionally immature for her position and did not know how to handle the stress of her position without taking it out on the Teavana sales associates. Even customers complained about her, and my manager quit because he could not take working under her. My assistant manager at Teavana was openly racist and made a very offensive racist statement to me.

Beyond that, this company has an AWFUL business model. They say they care about customer service but really they do not. They care about 1 thing: profits. That's it. All retail jobs require you to hard sell people and upsell. But Teavana takes it to a whole new level. Pushy pushy sales people who will pressure customers to buy things they don't want. My store was reprimanded for 'sampling' which actually violates the mall's rules of the mall I worked in. I was the one who got yelled at by security, but if I didn't sample every 5 minutes I would have been fired. Sampling to people who have no interest is pushy and unnecessary. Teavana did no advertising at the time I worked there, it all fell on the under-paid sales associates to 'sample' as advertising. It's the most painful thing ever.

I worked at Teavana during the recession in the US and it was difficult and/or impossible to meet their absurd sales goals. Thus, they cut my hours. I went from working 30 hours a week to 4 hours a week! They cut my hours to the point I had to quit because I couldn't pay the bills anymore. This is standard at Teavana. If you don't make your sales goals every week they will cut your hours drastically until you quit. That's how they force people to quit without firing them. My whole staff turned over by the time I quit.

Teavana may seem like a fun job. But it's too good to be true. I have no doubt that as a company they will begin to flounder due to their poor business practices. All of the regional managers are completely brainwashed by the company and they lose their human side. You do not want to work for this company.

The company could care less about you! All they care about is more sales no matter how great you do! You can get the same tea Specialteas.com or the teafirm.com for half the price!

I'm love it, and can't wait to get
my own store, (as a gm)

when i started with teavana i had no idea what i was getting myself into.i have been with the company for half a year now somedays i love my job but if i have a bad sales day (even though i'm in M) i fear my head might be on the proverbial chopping block i love my gm but live in constant paranoia that my am will appear out of nowhere and ask me why i'm not perfect. sigh....

Yeah Right! What can anybody say abt a company like this!!!!!

While on vacation, my girlfriend and I went into a Teavana store in Atlanta, Ga. We liked the place,
bought some tea to sample and left. Fast forward, a few years later, a Teavana opens in our area.
My girlfriend has become madly in love with tea, gets hired at this place, she is totally happy about
her new career. She and a friend (who were hired at same time) go through a few weeks of on the
job training. " Taylor " my girlfriend has lots of intelligence, has a friendly, outgoing personality and a
great sense of humor. She can handle most any situation with grace and humor, everyone comes
to her when they are bummed out or stressed, even her older family members. Taylor's " friend
" Alex" and co-worker is happy, smart, and the artistic sensitive type.

Fast forward, about six weeks into new job "Alex" is becoming sad and depressed. It turns out the
store manager has been picking on her since she is not comfortable with "pushing tea" the hard
selling Teavana trains the staff to do. The store manager ridicules "Alex" since she believes in giving
really good customer service to the stores' customers. It also turns out the same store mgr is picking on
other employees when their sales are not up to Teavana "standards": The average sale should be
over $50.00., preferably in the hundreds of dollars. The employes are also graded weekly on a scale of A to F.

Ok guys it's late(after midnight) and I gotta get some sleep. I'll finish in the next day or so. It turns out that there are some freakin weird things, happening to nice, normal, motivated people who only want to do a good job for Teavana. Don't take my word for it, go to sites that rate or review companies like Teavana.
More later.

I LOVE MY JOB!
I hope to work here until I retire.