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Lyft Moves Customer Support Team to Nashville to Combat High-Priced SF Market
- joelrunyon 11y 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 11y agoIf 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 11y 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.
- simoncion 11y agoNashville is one of the few Real Cities(TM) in the Southeast. If I were forced to go back, my top three places to land would be: * Nashville, TN * Atlanta, GA (Assuming that I still possess enough of my tech "fortune" to purchase a place inside city limits.) * Chattanooga, TN (For EPB internet and what appears to be sensible city stewardship, obviously.)
- wavefunction 11y agoMaybe the parent means that someone working a support job in SF might want to think long and hard about moving across the country where they presumably know noone and have no social support network or other potential employers if their job with Lyft goes away.
- fencepost 11y agoBut consider also how many of those (barely getting by?) working customer support in SF are actually locals and how many moved to the area to get into tech. Their social support network in the area may be pretty thin.
- wavefunction 11y agoPeople moving to SF specifically for support jobs? That sounds very unlikely to me. Support jobs in a region are filled by locals with limited employment options or by non-locals who have other reasons for moving to that region and just need a job, in my experience.
- fencepost 11y agoPerhaps not specifically for support jobs, but for opportunities to join startups in whatever positions they can.
- eitally 11y agoMaybe it's not far enough south to be considered Real(TM), but I think you conspicuously omitted Raleigh (the overall Triangle area that includes Durham & Chapel Hill, too).
- simoncion 11y agoI've actually never been in NC, [0] and also don't know anyone from anywhere in the state, so I have no idea what it's like. Do you have either personal or second-hand knowledge of the area? [0] Not even to pass through on the periodic AL<->PA trips I used to take!
- dynofuz 11y agoNo state / municipal income tax in nashville probably and much cheaper cost of living probably means that the actual relative wealth of those employees will increase tremendously. I'd love to see a tech hub grow in the southeast. Having lived in the bay area and in TN, it's definitely not a feeling of being stranded. There's a lot of outdoorsy activities (caving was my personal favorite), though the city life ist as great.
- brianbreslin 11y agoI think being stranded meant, there are no other jobs in the sector to be had.
- hga 11y agoI can't imagine that being true for the Nashville area, unless it's being out-competed by even cheaper areas like I assume mine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joplin-Miami,_MO-OK_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joplin-Miami,_MO-OK_metropolit... I assume our cost of living is even lower). Of course there's also the issue of do you want to stay in the customer support sector if you can possibly help it!
- brianbreslin 11y agoI think the OP probably assumed there were fewer tech company opportunities in the area.
- ennuihenry 11y agoEventbrite in the last year or so has opened an office in Nashville and has around 100 employees there, mostly in Customer Support and Engineering.
- tallanvor 11y agoI 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.
- 67726e 11y agoWhere did you live in the south? I live in Charleston, South Carolina and could scarcely imagine living anywhere near Silicon Valley no matter how good the pay and benefits.
- tallanvor 11y agoI survived 3 years in Raleigh. Never again.
- rayiner 11y agoDefine "the south?" It's Nashville, one of the most awesome places for young people in the country. Amazing food, music, and cheap enough where an educated professional can actually afford to live nicely instead of like a college student. And it's SF - Nashville, not NYC to Nashville. It's not like they're leaving a real world class city with irreplaceable amenities.
- chimeracoder 11y ago> And it's SF - Nashville, not NYC to Nashville. It's not like they're leaving a real world class city with irreplaceable amenities. Dan Francisco residents like to consider San Francisco a world class city with irreplaceable amenities. As a New Yorker, I find it amusing, since San Francisco seems to me like a quaint little provincial town, but what matters is that people moving to Nashville will likely feel that way, whether or not it's actually they.
- blisterpeanuts 11y agoThat'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.
- 15155 11y ago> A pay cut is too much to ask Is it really, when you're not paying $3500/mo for a studio in TL?
- switch007 11y agoIs /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"?
- hkmurakami 11y agoToyota 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 11y agoNashville 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.
- meddlepal 11y agoI 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 11y agoIt'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 11y agoThe distractions can certainly take away valuable devloper time as well.
- someear 11y agoWhy 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 11y agoDistributed 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.
- codeonfire 11y agoWow there are going to be...culture problems both ways.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- robbrown451 11y agoIf you are going to live in the South, Nashville is the place.
- hugh4 11y agoIn 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 11y agoI so agree. Glad to hear someone just say it out loud.
- CardenB 11y agoIt's gotten a lot better lately. East Nashville has become pretty cool.
- bryanbuckley 11y agoit's been "pretty cool" for at least about ten years. to me, that IS Nashville.
- simoncion 11y agoMobile, AL?
- peckrob 11y agoOthers that should be on any list: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charleston, Charlotte, Chattanooga, Huntsville, Raleigh/Durham/Research Triangle, just to name a few.
- mbesto 11y agoI second North Carolina. Super cheap, high quality of life living. Sprawling business (and tech!) ecosystems. Great year round weather.
- gjkood 11y agoSiting 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.
- hkmurakami 11y agoWas the Zappos move to Las Vegas (though this is a while ago) driven by similar motivations?
- ennuihenry 11y agoRight. Urban Outfitters moved its customer support, sales and warehouse jobs from Philadelphia to the Augusta, GA area in 2005.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- johnhkg 11y agoAsking employees settled in a place to move to a different state, and then take a pay cut, seems like a big deal.
- 15155 11y agoWhen 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.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- yardie 11y agoDidn't Garmin do this to their Spot watch team. I believe basically everyone working in that product left rather than move to Utah.
- jzwinck 11y agoThey 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.
- yardie 11y agoIs 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 11y 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 11y agogoogle fiber and nashville has been lyft friendly
- adpirz 11y agoHaving 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_ 11y agoSeems 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 11y agoEven 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 11y agoI suspect this might not have been reported correctly. I doubt anyone was given a "move or leave" ultimatum.
- krschultz 11y agoThis 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 11y agoGood 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 11y agoYou 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-coming-for-Oakland-s-soul-all-right-6528037.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/Uber-is-com... No, probably totally unrelated.
- ennuihenry 11y agoEventbrite and Warby Parker have opened offices in Nashville in the last year for customer support, so it seems like a trend.
- jleyank 11y agoIt'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.