Ambiance Reviews

2.7

17% would recommend to a friend

(40 total reviews)
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Donna OLeary

19% approve of CEO

19% positive business outlook

Ambiance has an employee rating of 2.7 out of 5 stars, based on 40 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Ambiance employee rating is 24% below average for employers within the Retail and wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

40 reviews
1.0
10 Nov 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The person who hired me was the best manager I worked for, but she gets obviously stressed and under pressure. The clothes discounts are okay. The locations are okay , I worked on Haight. I will miss a couple of my co workers.

Cons

TOXIC MANAGERS AND OWNER , RUN The place relies on ridiculing and criticizing the employees, perhaps to keep their self esteem low to keep them all at part time, minimum wage, and no benefits. They blatantly, very fake, will treat their customers like VIP at the four seasons and then Immediately 180 to tell you you messed up, most often it’s unwarranted, incorrect, or you have all ready done what they asked. The revolving head staff and managers will yell at you in front of customers which is SO embarrassing and awkward. They treat you like middle school students. There’s no team morale, and the pressure to make sales keeps managers in a horrible, offensive funk that they take out on their employees. The Craigslist ad I saw for employees was totally misleading, saying full time options and benefits are available, but after almost two months it’s clear that they never intend to make you full time. Also I believe nobody gets benefits.(at least the sales associates that I did encounter) 90% sure of that. After averaging more than exceptional sales as a beginning employee I was hardly recognized and there is no commission even after making them thousands of dollars a week, and sometimes even a day! Granted I had some trouble with punctuality, it still seemed like whatever chance they got the would nit pick any reason to criticize you for something. Some of the merch team were extremely catty and weird. Other than the one buyer who always said hi, and the visual merch (thank you for this) Also, strangely, the head staff and long term employees that I’ve witnessed 10/11 were of one specific race and do believe they are the only ones writing good reviews on here. They all had the best positions or were employed the longest and had the authority save one manager I worked for, but who was also extremely high strung and stressed out. There are so many better jobs to be had, I wanted to work here because I loved the shop since I was young and wanted to be a part of a staple SF company, but left knowing that it was totally an unhealthy environment meant to jab their employees into believing they should put up with the disrespect and condescending, patronizing, horribly humiliating behavior their managers put their girls through. All the employees there plus the manager who hired me deserve so much better. I walked out because the day I meet the owner she had nothing to say to me other than a complete criticism and scolds me for not engaging in conversation with two parties that I had all ready talked to and asked if they needed attendance, she came up to me scolding me for straightening the clothes because I wasn’t harassing the customers after they all ready said they didn’t need help, then when she said the exact same things to them and they also walked away almost immediately after, she said the difference between my approach and hers was her “vibes”... although she didn’t even witness me talking to them and the two girls I had to re-approach looked at me with the same look many have after overhearing the managers ridicule the employees ON THE SALES FLOOR... painfully awkward and pitiful. It immediately clicked that this was the source of all the lame treatment and shifts and interactions and weird passive aggressive, and aggressive aggressive manager behavior and head staff behavior came from. I walked out immediately after, something I never thought I’d have to do, but I don’t have a low-self esteem, which may warrant me unreliable to that business. Not sorry. Ive never, ever had that kind of experience with a company owner after working for many reputable companies from sf, to New York, LA, Paris, Mexico, etc. I came to this business to work on my credit and to contribute to a cute environment. Don’t let the quality of the clothes fool you, this place needs a major wake up call. They are not high fashion.

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Ambiance Response
6y
We are very sorry to hear you had this experience. If you would like to talk to me about it directly I would be very happy to have this conversation. Donna@ambiancesf.com. We would like to correct some missing information. We offer Kaiser and dental to full time employees 30+ hours a week. They have to pass their probationary period of 3 months to be eligible. Part time employees if not covered elsewhere are covered by Healthy San Francisco which we also pay for. This employee had only worked 2 months. We are not sure what is meant by low pay. She was working for $16 an hour. We do not pay commission but if you are a great salesperson with a good record we raise you after 3 months. Our current management staff consists of 3 Chinese , 1 Filipino, 1 Korean, 3 Hispanics, 2 African Americans and 2 whites. They are all women. We are saddened that this gal who loved Ambiance, saw it this extreme negative light. We have many 5-10-15 year employees. Over the years we have employed 100%E2%80%99s of people. This employee to my knowledge never requested more hours because she had a full time job for another employer. My door is open to this type of review and constructive criticism and I will be investigating her other claims. I hope she takes the time to contact me.
2.0
13 Apr 2016

Not Worth It

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Friendly coworkers, for the most part, and a slight discount on clothing. Customers are generally really friendly and not overly demanding.

Cons

Long week nights and weekend hours, very pushy sales tactics that they disguise as customer service, very blatant favoritism with managers. Discounts were ridiculous for the over prices clothes that would literally be falling a part in store. They don't care about clients, just their money.

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Ambiance Response
9y
This is the owner of Ambiance San Francisco. I am so sorry you had a bad experience working for us. I will say that we would not have survived as a Mom and Pop for 20 years if we only cared about money. As everyone knows doing something only for money rarely works out.
1.0
31 Aug 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Stores are in great locations, friendly co-workers and for the most part nice customers. That's it.

Cons

Management is horrific, they work you to the bone. They don't care about their employees at all. All they care about is sales, sales and more sales. The amount of girls I've seen breakdown and cry over this stressful environment is staggering. For your own sake and well-being, don't work here. Managers tend to favor some employees, resulting in treating the rest like crap. Going to school and working here was nearly impossible. I now work as a software developer and I can honestly say it is LESS stressful and more rewarding.

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Ambiance Response
6y
Hello, thank you for your considered review. If you would like to talk to me about it so I can get more information to improve my company please email me donna@ambiancesf.com. I am sorry you had such a negative experience.
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Glassdoor has 42 Ambiance reviews submitted anonymously by Ambiance employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Ambiance is right for you.