Lyft Moves Customer Support Team to Nashville to Combat High-Priced SF Market

http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/26/lyft-moves-customer-support-team-to-nashville-to-combat-high-priced-sf-market

by mtviewdave • 11 years ago

102 85 11 years ago

meddlepal2• 11 years ago

I think this is going to become more and more common. There are not a ton of great reasons IMO to locate anything but your core engineering team in tech hot spots like San Francisco, Boston and New York.

ghshephard• 11 years ago

It's absolutely the case that having technical support, technical delivery, tech pubs, QA, engineering, all sitting close together and interacting has a lot of value.

Harder to make the argument for expert-tree customer support though, I'll grant you that.

collyw• 11 years ago

The distractions can certainly take away valuable devloper time as well.

someear• 11 years ago

Why are there a ton of great reasons to have your core engineering team in SF? Biggest concentration of talent seems like the main (only?) positive. Super high cost of hiring + recruiting these days, difficulty getting candidates to accept offers, quick turnover are just a few reasons not to.

wyclif• 11 years ago

Distributed teams are where it's at. There is no need to make your most experienced people with the deepest knowledge (often the married people with children) go through all the drama and hot mess that is the Bay region. The taxes. Finding an apartment (or house!). Finding a school for your kids. The cost of living. Parking. The NIMBYism, political correctness, and hatred of engineers a la the Google Bus. The overhead of homelessness, and the aroma of shit and piss on the street.

At some point, companies are going to have to get with the program if they want to keep their best people. That will happen once enough of them can't fill senior roles. They'll respond to quality of life issues—those are getting more important in hiring, not less. You don't need to locate your engineering team in SF and force them to put up with all that bullshit. Make life easier for them, not harder.

walshemj2• 11 years ago

Having a large pool of potential employees to draw from and also you have to be close to the VC firms.

afarrell• 11 years ago

Nashville has a fantastic python community, so there is a strong argument to have some engineering staff there too.

superuser22• 11 years ago

Moving to a more employer-friendly place is a losing startegy if you're good enough to get offers in SF. Good engineers will by and large figure out that being in SF is better for them in pay and mobility, and so will not follow you to the middle of nowhere.

On the other hand, I would like to see development of "minor" tech hubs in other more livable cities. I'd give anything to have access to SF-type employment in Chicago, as long as it didn't turn the Chicago housing market into SF's.

Shivetya• 11 years ago

you would think by this day that the advances in teleconferencing could reduce the need to be located all in one area, let alone in expensive areas. I know tech support doesn't have to have a central location, have many vendors who support persons work from home and most aren't near their hq.

If anything having core members in a tech hot spots is just asking them to move to another company when the mood suits them. Yeah you might miss out on some hot shots but you open the door to lose yours

meddlepal2• 11 years ago

I used to think remote work was the key then I worked on a distributed team for 18 months and I found I hated it. I like working with my coworkers.

joelrunyon• 11 years ago

The Lyft customer support team was informed that the move includes a lower pay in salary after one year in Nashville, according to sources.

Sort of a big ask, no?

Move to another state, take less salary or be fired.

Not saying it's not the right move for the company, but it's sort of a raw deal for the reps.

BurritoAlPastor• 11 years ago

If the pay cut isn't too large, this could still work out to a net increase in real income, just because the cost of living in Nashville is about half of San Francisco.

Let's do a hypothetical. Glassdoor suggests Lyft support makes about $40k a year. Let's suppose a cost of living in SF of $35k a year. (Our imaginary support rep is young and spends a little recklessly. Ah, youth!) Now, they up and move to Tennessee, and take, say, a 15% pay cut. Now they're down to $34k/year; how will they make ends meet? Well, their cost of living is halved (18k/year) - they can take a little bit of a lifestyle upgrade and still have $10k in their bank account in December.

Moving across the country is a rough proposition, but unless Lyft is asking for something like a 30% pay cut, the salary is a carrot and not a stick.

rodgerd• 11 years ago

If the pay cut isn't too large, this could still work out to a net increase in real income, just because the cost of living in Nashville is about half of San Francisco.

So long as you don't mind being stranded there.

tallanvor2• 11 years ago

I suspect a lot of their team will choose to find other jobs rather than move to Nashville even if the pay stays the same. Having lived in the south, I think I'd have to see salary at least double to make up for the drawbacks of living there. --And I'm talking real dollars, not double from the drop in the cost of living.

blisterpeanuts• 11 years ago

That's highly unlikely and I question the accuracy of the Tech Crunch report. A pay cut is too much to ask, unless the whole company is going through tough times and needs to tighten their belts to avoid Chapter 11. Much more likely is that the regional pay scale will be lower, so if you move to Nashville with an $80K base, and the new hires are coming in at $50K, it's going to be a while before you get a raise.

switch007• 11 years ago

Is /anyone/ actually going to move? Low ish salaried positions, moving thousands of miles to the other side of the country??

Is this just a case of them saying "well, we offered the the choice, they chose to quit"?

hkmurakami2• 11 years ago

Toyota Engineering is moving from LA to Detroit. They gave the staff 2+ years' notice. 2/3 of the work force is expected to leave. There's severance and whatnot involved (they seem to take care of their employees very well). With enough transparency and lead time, though not ideal it's manageable.

tedchs• 11 years ago

Nashville has some of the nicest people in customer-facing roles, in my experience, and coupled with its low cost of living and the area's desire for a more diversified economy, this sounds like a multiple win.

codeonfire• 11 years ago

Wow there are going to be...culture problems both ways.

robbrown451• 11 years ago

If you are going to live in the South, Nashville is the place.

hugh42• 11 years ago

In my limited experience of the South, I found Nashville a bit dull. I'd much rather live in Charleston or Savannah or Mobile or Asheville or even New Orleans, personally.

ChuckFrank• 11 years ago

I so agree. Glad to hear someone just say it out loud.

CardenB• 11 years ago

It's gotten a lot better lately. East Nashville has become pretty cool.

simoncion3• 11 years ago

Mobile, AL?

peckrob• 11 years ago

Others that should be on any list: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charleston, Charlotte, Chattanooga, Huntsville, Raleigh/Durham/Research Triangle, just to name a few.

mbesto• 11 years ago

I second North Carolina. Super cheap, high quality of life living. Sprawling business (and tech!) ecosystems. Great year round weather.

gjkood• 11 years ago

Siting call centers in cheaper locations has been a norm in the US for years. If it couldn't be done that way, it would all have moved to India or the Philippines.

Most call center staff (non-technical) are easily and quickly trained on the job. There is also very high turnover in the industry, so quickly ramping up trained staff is part of basic operations. The recruits don't have to have any specialized skills other than being literate.

The CRM systems in place are also designed with a lot of call scripting in place to guide the conversations based on target companies and customers. Generally a single call center handles the customer service operations of multiple companies and teams of CSRS can be reconfigured to support different companies at different times.

hkmurakami2• 11 years ago

Was the Zappos move to Las Vegas (though this is a while ago) driven by similar motivations?

ennuihenry3• 11 years ago

Right. Urban Outfitters moved its customer support, sales and warehouse jobs from Philadelphia to the Augusta, GA area in 2005.

johnhkg• 11 years ago

Asking employees settled in a place to move to a different state, and then take a pay cut, seems like a big deal.

151554• 11 years ago

When you aren't paying a 9%+ state income tax, CA SDI, or more importantly: some of the most expensive housing prices in the nation, it's a much different deal.

Lot of speculation, but, it's entirely plausible these employees will come out ahead in take-home pay. Their net worth will likely improve if this is the case (you can feasibly own property in Nashville.)

I would imagine they'll also come out ahead in quality of life.

yardie2• 11 years ago

Didn't Garmin do this to their Spot watch team. I believe basically everyone working in that product left rather than move to Utah.

jzwinck• 11 years ago

They definitely did it with the Garmin Connect team. Used to be Motion Based, then acquired, then told to move, then quit. Garmin Connect stagnated for about three or four years after that, with no new features, Strava took off, and now Garmin has to integrate Strava.

yardie2• 11 years ago

Is Strava the old Connect team then?

I'm not surprised they let it stagnate. I use their instruments on our sailboat. They have an iPad app that works pretty well and integrates with our onboard navigation. But it is so limited compared to other navigation apps.

vinceyuan• 11 years ago

(I am not living in the US and never heard Nashville.) When I read this title, I thought Lyft is moving customer support team to India. OK, now I know Nashville is the state capital of Tennessee. :-)

sabujp• 11 years ago

google fiber and nashville has been lyft friendly

adpirz• 11 years ago

Having just moved form Nashville to the Bay Area, I can say that you actually get a lot of the wonderful cosmopolitan bits in the city without the overcrowded mayhem. Also, Nashville is an upcoming GFiber city. I've heard it described as the next big Austin in terms of being another tech hub of the region.

works_remote_• 11 years ago

Seems a bit rushed. I'd be curious why Lyft wouldn't open up the new office in Nashville and let attrition take care of the SF roles that they wish to eliminate, or even offer increased responsibility, and therefore career advancement, for those that move to Nashville.

If it really is rent costs, as techcrunch seems to suggest, then they could allow their more senior members in the SF office just work remotely.

Finally, if I were working for Lyft at this point, despite what department I may be in, I would be looking for a new job immediately as they have shown a complete lack of respect for the lives that their employees have and are building. This move has definitely tarnished their brand in my eyes and would make me question having them as a potential employer.

ohmyiv• 11 years ago

Even with senior members working remotely, they'd still have to pay for an office for the non-senior members. It might be smaller and maybe a bit cheaper, but it's still a high cost. As a business owner, what looks better: $70/sqft or $22/sqft?

If I were working for Lyft, I'd be thinking about moving to Nashville. The cost of living is better and my money will go farther. There's also the whole not-in-a-drought thing. The move also shows me that the company has the insight to not run the company into the ground paying ghastly overhead prices in SF. (I'm not saying it won't run into the ground other ways, but at least it won't be by paying outlandish SF rent prices.)

pbreit• 11 years ago

I suspect this might not have been reported correctly. I doubt anyone was given a "move or leave" ultimatum.

krschultz• 11 years ago

This is an incredibly common move for startups that reach a certain size. Once you have about 50+ customer service reps the math makes sense. In some companies the customer service department is 50% of total headcount.

One thing to keep in mind, turn over in customer service is pretty high. You could open another office and with natural attrition make the move without layoffs in ~18 months.

nell• 11 years ago

Good to see a startup (unicorn?) taking costs and expenses seriously.

The biggest let down to employees is running the company into the ground burning your money all the way. Good job Lyft!

dmourati• 11 years ago

You don't suppose this has anything to do with Uber's announcement that they are doubling down (or more!) on the Bay area with the Sears building in Oakland?

http://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/Uber-is-com...

No, probably totally unrelated.

ennuihenry3• 11 years ago

Eventbrite and Warby Parker have opened offices in Nashville in the last year for customer support, so it seems like a trend.

jleyank• 11 years ago

It's not mentioned elsewhere, so I'll do a top-level comment. Think hard about moving from SF to Nashville, as the social and political differences might be quite a surprise. While the tech work might be similar, the people you'll see day to day will be rather different...

It might not matter, but don't go into the South unless you understand that it's different in the Red State areas vs. the Blue.

Lyft Moves Customer Support Team to Nashville to Combat High-Priced SF Market

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