American Express reviews

4.1

81% would recommend to a friend

(18,601 total reviews)
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Stephen J Squeri

89% approve of CEO

79% positive business outlook

American Express has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 18,601 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The American Express employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Finance industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

19K reviews
1.0
Aug 1, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great pay, benefits and bonus opportunities. The starting pay is very nice and hard to find elsewhere. They have alot of "extra" benefits that are nice. And if you work hard and dedicate yourself to them, you can also make a nice bonus each month.

Cons

The company does not care about you. You are only a number to them. Upon hiring, they tell you stories about how important they think their employees are and you watch videos of Ken Chanault talking about what this company is about and what you and the company can do for each other. Not true!! Beware!! It only applies if you happen to get one of the rare few team leaders that want you to succeed. It took me forever to get hired, a year and 18 applications later, I finally made it. Being a single parent, I just knew it was the career path for me. I graduated 3rd in my training class, worked hard, never had a write up or verbal reprimand, made lots of money for the company by selling on almost every call. What happened you may wonder? I had the unfortunate deal of having a team leader that didnt like me for some reason. I wish I could tell you why, but I dont have a clue. I even asked her and she assured me that she liked me. But I could tell by her actions that she didnt. So one day, she accused me of intentionally dropping calls, which I did not. I answered more calls then anyone on my team and had some of the highest stats, as well. She fired me with no warning, none. I was there one day aand gone the next. All my hard work and dedication for nothing. So beware, one person (for whatever reason or no reason at all) can take your career right from you.

1.0
Jun 19, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amex in the past has had good pay.

Cons

This job will become your entire LIFE! They promote a healthy work life balance when you start, but this changes when you get on the floor. You will give every bit of blood, sweat, and tears for your money, bonus or no bonus. You will not be able to use you PTO that YOU'VE EARNED. You are not able to request a new Team Lead even though your current team lead has ulterior motives and only cares about her stats as TL and how she looks over all. You have to finish EVERY call in 4 MINUTES! All while giving "soffers" (soft offer) or "recommendations" as they call them, but basically they want you to sell card holder MORE CARDS! Also in this 4 minutes you have to transfer points to miles, dispute charges, explain bills, set up payments, online accounts, apple watches, etc... But most importantly sell sell sell more cards. The end of call surveys will land on you regardless if you caused the issue or not. When I left the pay was $17.00 per hr, but now I see its $15 and bonuses have probably changed too. NOT WORTH IT! There are plenty of opportunities on work at home job boards that have less stress! Oh and by the way benefits are good but will consume your entire check! Especially for families. I have since been hired to work for their competitor and loving it!!

4.0
Sep 17, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great profit sharing, 401k and roth IRA matching. In the height of the recession, American Express was the only financial institution to actually make a profit. On top of that, during the same period, the president, Ken Chenault passed on his own bonus to trickle that down to employees. That's why I took the job. I know what American Express stands for, it cares about its people, has great benefits, has great stability, and you feel proud to say you work for this company.

Cons

Painfully slow to adopt new technology (completely normal for a financial institution) Too many veterans and not enough fresh talent. Terrible work-life balance Extreme and dated outlook on working from home/remotely. Working from home/remotely is frowned on and discouraged. If you're looking for flexibility, go elsewhere. Outsourced, contracted and, in some cases, grossly underpaid and under-skilled technical talent. Stupid bonus system for full time employees that "unofficially" unfairly pits you against your peers to determine what kind of bonus you're going to get this year. I say unfair because it's completely subjective, is based off of your top 3-4 "goals" for the year, and has more to do with who knows your name than how good of an employee you are. Unless you are really good at bragging about yourself or making yourself sound important, you won't get a good bonus/raise. It's just broken and doesn't award the people that make the biggest contributions to the company.

Viewing 82 - 84 of 18,601 Reviews

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