outside sales representative

sales representative

residential advisor

residential sales

business advisor

Retention vs. “Account Management”

I thought my job would be retaining customers but that’s only half of the job. The other half is handling escalated calls from other departments regarding installations, authorized dealers and customers who are looking to get any and everything for free/discounted.

So with that being said here’s my review and why I feel ADT has a hard time retaining talent.

If you’re planning on applying for a career with ADT do yourself a favor and DONT. My personal experience with the company was a horrific one. Disrespectful training staff/management. They talk down to you and treat you unfairly because they know you can be easily replaced. (Hence why they keep a “Now Hiring” sign outside their facility) Conversations with management and the unit manager fall on death ears. They simply do not care about their employees and if they ever tell you they do they are lying. The good ones who want to be there and treated poorly while the ones that place customers on hold while they step outside the building to take a personal phone call are praised and held to a higher regard.

Here’s my personal experience with the company...

Training - the four weeks spent in training was extremely disorganized and very threatening. DISORGANIZED- ADT training was extremely disorganized because we not only had our main trainer we also had the help of two other ADT employees + a SME (subject matter expert). The two additional facilitators, which I am still confused as to what their actual job function really was, would come in on any given day then leave only to show back up 2-3 days later. If there was ever a moment when we had all three facilitators they would constantly go back and forth with each other regarding what procedures actually were and how we should be working accounts. No one was ever on the same page... EVER and nothing is ever fully explained. This caused more harm than good. THREATENING- They give you paper tests (4) at the end of each week and state that how well we do on the test determines our shift. Yes, we spent 4 weeks not knowing what our permanent work schedule would be... as if people don’t have spouses, children, elderly parents etc... Little did we know the test that we’re given we’re purposely full of trick questions and had little to do with our actual job function. My hiring class started with 20 and by the time training was over we were down to 10. They treat you like you’re in high school and belittle you any chance they could. I was personally pulled aside and asked if I really wanted to be there because the training staff was aware of a part-time job I had had at the time. I was completely mortified. Prior to ADT, I had spent 9 years in corporate America and has never been asked anything so absurd. They have no respect for people. I could go on about the training but I’ll stop there.

Once we completed training we were sent to a nesting team collectively. Nesting was a period of time where we reported to a manager and team lead so they could further develop us before we went to our actual manager. I thought this process would go smoothly but I was wrong. The manager we reported to while in nesting is rude, offensive, and extremely condescending. I know this. Other employees know this. And other managers know this and nothing is ever done about her candor. She’s allowed to speak to employees in an unprofessional manner. She does not know the job because she comes from Sales and to my understanding she’s never taken a phone call a day in her life. We were provided with monthly one on ones where feedback and coaching opportunities were provided but the only feedback she ever gave was the same week after week. She is not open to feedback herself which let me know then that ADT was NOT the company I thought it was. If it wasn’t for her team lead I would have left the company during the training process. The lead took his time and made sure we understood our job. He was honest and upfront with us and in my opinion, he doesn’t get the credit he deserves. He essentially was our manager. He does everything a manager is suppose to do.

All and all I wouldn’t recommend ADT to a single soul or at last the Account Management Department. While employed there I would work around the clock and sometimes off the clock because of the work load. Back to back calls because everyone would call out or quit. Workforce constantly pings you, calls your phone, or floor walks telling you to take more calls or check in with the customer. Flat screen TVs show how long you’ve been on break or lunch and if your 1-2 mins late from a break or lunch you can believe someone is approaching you to have a conversation about it. Mandatory 3 hours of overtime a week ONLY when the line of business needed it. So I found myself working Saturdays. If you work the later shift be prepared to stay after your shift ends because you cant leave until you “clear all calls out of the Que” .. 

The base pay for the job is low in respect to the work and what type of maintenance you’re able to perform on customer accounts. On top of the base pay, you are paid a monthly bonus, which is uncapped and delayed. You have to wait an entire month to see your money. Example: contracts locked in for the month of June are paid out to you on the last check in July. Bonuses are based upon the contracts you lock customers in and your save ratio... Although ADT short changes you and never pays you your full bonus, you do have the ability to make great money. You literally have to fight to make sure you’re properly compensated for your contracts.

Since my class that was hired on in January 2019 there has been another training class. I’m not sure how there’s went or how many they started with but Account Management is definitely a revolving door department. To the managers and unit manager it’s all about having a butt in a seat to handle the call flow. 

I hope this review helps those considering applying but most importantly the powers to be at ADT who are in a position to bring about a change.

Working for ADT, I had to be at the first job by 8 AM, this sounds easy, until the first job is 2 hours away. Sometimes leave the house at 6:30, the earliest we had to leave our house except on meeting days, sometimes leaving a 7:15. The jobs on the computer the night before may not be the same jobs you wake up to, and no one ever called to tell you that the schedule was changed. So, thinking you could leave at 7:15, now you find out you are late. ADT expects you to complete 6 jobs per day, while upselling each customer, as a service technician we were there to fix something that didn't work, most often the customer just wants the equipment to work in the first place, but try to upsell we must. Back to the 6 jobs per day, they tell you it's only 5 jobs per day, but they mean 6, they do not take in to consideration the 200 miles that you were scheduled to drive, but still expect the 5 or 6 jobs regardless. If you do not meet the 5 or 6 per day your numbers go down, if a customer chooses to miss the service call by not being home, or they decided to reschedule, your numbers go down. If a customer chooses to change internet providers within 30 days and the cameras go off line, when you were sent there to work on the front door contact, your numbers go down.

While your day started sometimes as early as leaving your house to make it to a 6:30 AM meeting at the office, the end of the day was never guaranteed. Not until the last ticket cleared your board, and even then, a ticket may find it's way to your board as you drive home. Getting home usually around 6 PM, there were rare occasions when I was home by 5, and sometimes as late as 9 PM. So, dinners with the family, evening events with friends and family, planning weekend outings, were nearly impossible because you never knew from one day to the next when you were getting done with work or when a surprise weekend was coming up. 

*A manager and I were on a commercial job site for a fire alarm inspection, something I had never done before and the manager was there to show me how it was supposed to be done. After pointing out that the alarm panel was not the one that the computer said that it was supposed to be and the numbers written on the panel were different from ADT numbers. I was told by the manager to trigger an active commercial fire alarm. I asked the manager if he was licensed to perform fire, he said No, I asked if he had been trained on the alarm panel that was now present, he said, No,  when I hesitated and questioned the manager, I was terminated for refusal to work. This is a violation of Texas Penal code 42.6, but it mattered not to the manager, or ADT. Triggering the alarm that was not in test could have resulted in a misdemeanor or a felony for me, not ADT, not to mention a fine of $250 to $10,000, this would have been to me, not ADT or the manager, and would have cost me the job, evidently not doing so cost me the job anyhow, I was doomed.*

Another technician was on a job site with the same manager, when the technician said that he couldn't safely reach the device from the last safe step on an 8' ladder, informing the manager that he would have to reschedule the job because of the issue, the manager informed him that he had one more step to go, the manager would hold the ladder for him. The manager said that he didn't really want to reschedule the job when there were two of them already on the job.The guy knew that if the manager was telling him to do so and to refuse would cost him his job, he went up to the first rung of the ladder and completed the job. The next morning, the manager called him in to the office and wrote the technician up for  unsafe ladder use. The technician was then told to go to the Ops managers office where he was suspended for his actions, when the technician said that the manager had told him to do that, the manager said that he was only testing the employee to see what he would do. Rather than be suspended the technician figured he had had enough and quit.   

As others have mentioned, they make up numbers to keep the service technicians busy, telling us that we have to work on the weekends, if you refuse, your terminated. They would say that the backlog was up, but when you talk with the coordinator, many of the jobs were being pulled from the next day to several days down the road to keep us busy. 

Raises, service technicians are subject to annual reviews, and potential raises, based on numbers generated by the manager and based on ideas and concepts that came out only recently, like sales on service calls. Based on your sales, although this is not a determining factor, your numbers were at 89, and we needed a 90, so you will not be getting a raise. 

ADT, as a whole, may be a great place to work, they've done something right to be around as long as they have, but with the buy outs and exchange of company ownership, others have pointed out that they are sales oriented and quite honestly care little for existing customers. While I was there, the managers were trying to figure out ways to get around the monthly maintenance plans the customer have so they could charge customers with maintenance for maintenance issues. Like batteries, for example, while some maintenance plans cover batteries, other maintenance plans do not. Charging a customer $150 to replace a $15 battery always bothered me, (prices estimated low)  when knowing the customer had maintenance, but in this case the battery was not included in the maintenance agreement. Having maintenance is supposed to cover a maintenance call, but when the system needed to be replaced, we were told to figure out a way to charge the customer. Their favorite? " Is it possible there was a lightning storm that night?"

I honestly enjoyed working at ADT, other than the manager and the Thursday meetings where we were always at fault for something. Meeting people and fixing their ADT systems, or showing them how to use system, such as a feature they may have forgotten, working on systems that could be 30 years old or two days old, but with the poor management in place, they are running the technicians in to the ground and do not give one penny of concern because they will tell you that the techs are replaceable.

Training was comprehensive, yes. But far more complicated than it needed to be honestly. Training was made far more stressful than it needed to be by management with frequent mentions from day 1 how difficult the training is and a large focus being placed on 2 tests that you have to pass in order to pass training. Which the tests were not difficult and we certainly had reviewed all the material. But this created a lot of stress needlessly and I think scared some people off pretty quickly. The training was some of the most rote, dry training I’ve ever experienced in any company. The material was old, there was an utter lack of creativity or stimulation at all. I believe the trainer was mostly skilled and very helpful but I think, like many things there, that innovation and new ideas are stifled by a few people at the top. My training class started out with 8 people I believe and there was a concurrent class going on for an alternate shift that had 6 people in it. About 3/4 of the way through training we had lost a few people, one or 2 I think but the other class was down to 2 individuals so they ended up combining our 2 classes. 
I felt that the information they expected each dispatcher to handle was far to voluminous and this was one, among many, problems that I saw right away. It was completely overwhelming. I wondered why they didn’t have a larger staff, not only as a “buffer” but also a larger staff would allow for more specialized training and agents and make the job a lot less complicated than it needed to be. Well it was not only my observation but the actual reality of operations there, attrition was so incredibly high that they could not keep enough people to even be properly staffed on most days, let alone have any sort of buffer. This chronic lack of staffing led to some of the worst aspects of the job….no lunch breaks, 4 hours of mandatory OT every week for each employee, and another bit of craziness I won’t even try to explain called a “mandate”…basically being told with very little notice that you have to work an additional four hours to make up for a shortage on the next shift.
I will give ADT this much credit, they were very upfront about the mandatory overtime, the possibility of working any schedule as they are a 24/7/365 operation, the lack of a lunch break, and the mandates.    But it’s a bit difficult to really understand the scope of these things until you are actually in the job. It was a good fit for some who could handle the stress, the micromanagement, the hours, etc but it was not for me, at all! And based on all I was told by nearly every long term employee there, that it was not a good fit for most people, alas the ridiculous attrition rate despite the excellent pay, shift differentials, unlimited overtime and good benefits. So basically the ended up relying on a very small core of very dedicated, very overworked core of people
I think that had they not been so rigid about things they might be able to retain more people. For most people, money is not the end-all-be-all, they want some sort of work/life balance. I can’t speak for the whole company of course, or other locations and positions, as for the Longwood, FL operations center, they do not even pretend to care about work/life balance. The culture there is basically that your job at ADT should come first, every other aspect of your life should be conformed around that, I was quite literally told this by the person that hired me.
So for the right personality and lifestyle, this may be a great fit. But you have to be flexible always, because they don’t flex on anything. 
Additional grievances during my time there which are probably a bit more subjective but, for me, contributed to the overall toxic culture and were demeaning:
-During training you have homework assignments every night, overall I didn’t have a problem with this. My issue with the “homework” is that literally at the start of class a training assistant would come around to check if you had done all your homework and, if you didn’t, your name got marked down. After one or two not fully complete homework assignments you got a talking to, by the trainer if you were lucky but most people actually got sent to the center director’s office for a reprimand. I really found the whole thing childish and demeaning. I didn’t even get treated like that in high school
2. You don’t really realize this until you start on the floor  and no one really told me until I violated the rule….you have to ask for permission to go to the restroom. Or to leave your desk for any reason. I understand the reasoning of maintaining staffing levels but I have worked in numerous call center operations and never have I had to ask permission to leave my desk. It is pretty uniform that you place your phone in a pre-selected “off-duty” status and get a drink, use the bathroom, etc as long as it’s not an excessive amount of time. Again this goes back to the chronic staffing issues yes, but I found it extremely demeaning to have to ask permission to use the restroom, in particular. It is not a common practice in any job or industry I have worked in, it is beyond demeaning actually and ultimately, treats grown—ups like they are elementary school students 

This job is a not for most people  to say the least. They are losing customers and lie so much to potential customers and mess them up into contracts. So people have 72 hours to cancel with no problems when they call in they must have a contract, which they may not get from a 3rd party vendor like defenders. Now the big issue is you can not really help a customer. We have 345 seconds on each  calls, to trouble shoot and fix all the problems. That is 5 minutes and 45 seconds, we all can agree someone explain an issue can take a few minutes. We need people to do self help and send self help information. We also charge to go out to change batteries. We can only have a 7 percent job creation and can not have call backs. This is almost impossible. The company wants us not to help customers and keep raising the stats to make any head way, oh do you need to go to the restroom? Not here you better not you will get fired. If you go in to emergency aux because you have to use the restroom you have to explain it and it still takes you out of adherence. You can not get off the phone for any reason, we were supposed to help people.But, now we can not have a high handle time or create jobs, so in fact we can not help that effectively.  Do you like mandatory over time? Well welcome aboard. The sites are critically understaffed. You should have a few minutes between calls to not feel stressed and like a robot. Not here the moment you log into the phone you are busy, meetings get canceled and you are never up to date on any change. You will get emails, that your supposed to read in between calls, remember it is back to back to back. So you can not do that. You have learning modules you must complete, well you may not get enough time to do it. Now think about learning a new process in 20 minutes or so, they rush you through it and boom there is your training. So, you retain zero knowledge of the material and better be an expert because you have a handle time of 345 seconds. I feel like the company will be going under, the stock has dropped dramatically and this business practise is horrible. Step 1 do not send out techs, step 2 do not lower Bill's or offer discounts. If you need to lower it you better call a lead, we have 4 dollars per call we can give out for any error, just think if your angery calling into a company , well if Adt messed up agents will fight tooth and nail not to do it. You wont get to help people, you will be micro managed. You will get to work ot if needed and you have 0 choice even if you have kids, forget it you better find a way to help the business you are nothing. Even if new hires do not last, the agents on the phone are nothing. If you miss time for medical reasons and they do not seem it worthy it will be rejected even ADA. We have adherence here, you are expected to control the call.if your break is at 8 pm and you go to break at 8 05 because of a call your already 5 minutes outside of adherence. Now you have mutiple breaks and lunches, you will get fired. Better not hang up on a caller, that's call avoidance. Manage your time, learn skills that you have no time to, take calls one after another which can be soul sucking, meet metrics that get increased year over year. One metric that may been exceeding will now be effective which means your one hair away from failing. Some managers are great, they just can not do anything for you. It is not your managers fault, adt as corporate makes the strict rules, they set call times and handle times by an algorithm that it came up nwith which was robots taking calls in a simulation so AI. Now we know a human can not do that, we also know that people cheat do not do right things in calls and cheat stats. Then all employees must cheat or find ways to not get fired.  You go to a team called tops, if you can not get better your fired. They have got a lot stricter and it is tough for anyone. I would not nbn come on to adt unless your homeless or a chance at it, use it as a stop gap but not a career. People legitly cry before taking calls. One girl left with no jobs or plans because it has become to much to deal with. A lot of people go get fmla from the mental stress, there is such a high call out rate daily because of the stress. Knowing you may not be able to pay a bill but you cant handle work is a crazy thought. I would highly think before joining adt. The training class is okay, once you hit the phones it is not.

*The typical day consists of constant threats regarding every word said on calls in Rochester's call center in NY. This bombardment of micromanagement causes a robotic effect in customer service agents who fear the Quality Assurance evaluators more than the customers' reactions. Literally, every phrase and sentence spoken is evaluated with a harsh evaluation. 

* The recruiters use blunt lies in order to convince candidates to accept job offers, due to ADT's rating on Wall Street as #6 Worst Employer in the United States. In my case, the HR recruiter told me that the CSG position reaches as high as $25 per hour (non-overtime rate). The head director was shocked by this fact which was emailed to me. The recruiter extremely stretched the truth regarding schedule flexibility and career opportunities as well. 

* The operational management operate with micromanaged lens toward workers. Every agent experiences supervisors standing over them with the belief that employees are untrustworthy and should be scolded.  At every interaction with customers, the feeling of a boarding school surrounds each cubicle. 

* The majority of incoming hires are mainly inner city blacks and HIspanics with little higher education. Due to the low compensation, most higher educated graduates do not accept this environment with low pay too. Therefore, ADT's recruiters target lower-class citizens who are desperately searching while utilizing the city's transit bus for travel. 

* At any given hour of the day, up to 4-6 training classes are taking place due to the rapid turnover. The trainers are pushed to threaten employees with write-ups for being a minute late, regardless of cause. I was in a car accident which my car survived due to a snow storm. Upon arriving to ADT, the management never asked me about my health or my car, but they wrote me up for "not being on time". When I asked about compassion, the management laughed. 

* Every side-person who sat with me in the call center expressed strong discontent toward ADT. No positive feedback entered the trainees' ears. 

* The senior director leads this dysfunctional workplace. When challenged, his eyes showed disdain and callousness toward me. However, due to his long-term status with ADT as an employee, his influence reigns over credibility temporarily. When the phrase "wolf in sheep's clothing" surfaces, this man fits the metaphor. 

* The fringe benefits are poor in quality. The monthly bonuses were removed from the workforce, and the wage increases are annually done in small increments starting at $10.50 an hour. 

* The biggest factor: ADT is losing its competitive edge in the marketplace against other companies who offer security services under combined billing with discount incentives. The Pulse App for ADT is not bringing as much revenue as the strategic management anticipated. In response to this crisis, the upper management are coercing customer service reps to request email addresses from all callers in order to solicit online information about new services or products. Although the billing factor plays a role in getting customers to pay their delinquent bills, the majority of reasons serve other goals for increasing revenue. But, the negative reactions from existent customers are causing reps to react humanely meanwhile being punished by Quality Assurance for non-compliance regarding aggressiveness about email captures. In other words, the management are pursuing bottom-line survival through whatever means necessary. ADT will enter textbooks as one of the bad examples of poor management in the knowledge economy. 

* The care reps are coerced into following scripted "manners" as if their livelihood depended on not being punished by a nun holding a ruler.

When I was looking for a job, a family member who had previously worked here told me it was a great place to work. I gave it a shot, got the position, and found out that they were absolutely right - it was great! I had an awesome manager, my coworkers were great, the pay was good, and the job was fulfilling. At this time, I was working for Brink's Home Security, and I bled blue working hard for this company - I was happy and proud to work here. The company took care of ita customers, and it took great care of its employees as well. I felt like my employer cared about me as a person, because they did.

But then the company split off to become Broadview Security, in what would eventually be a very obvious move to sell the place to ADT, the big competitor, and everything went downhill.

During a merger, you expect there to be a bit of turnover. What you dont expect is about eight entire departments, plus almost all of HR, to ve laid off without any option to transfer to another department. You don't expect about 30 people within your own department to jump ship over the ourse of about a week (half the department!).

And then we were ADT.

Now, everyone is a number. The company doesn't care about their employees - they hire 25 or so people every threw or four weeks, so you can guess what the turnover rate is like. There are no longer any parking spaces in the lot, you get to come in and desperately search for a seat with little success. New hires are paid more starting than I am now after almost five years of service - and my annual raise is 0 this year! Management is godawful; the people who used to take care of you have been replaced by people who are so uncaring that it's clear they are only looking out for themselves. They also seem to be clueless as to how to manage people or run a department, and are also so incompetent that they do not know or understand their own policies and procedures, many of which are in place not to peotect the customer, but the interests of the business itself. They say that we have a "customer-obsessed culture", but in reality it is an obsession with screwing you over - customer and employee alike.

I have personally been screwed out of about five advancement opportunities by management not knowing up from down, and I've seen other stories like that here as well - including one person who used to be a supervisor but has since been "reassigned" about four different times, landing in a worse position each time. Policies are set that nobody can agree with or on: employees are penalized for not taking and returning from their breaks exactly on time - which is an issuw because sometimes you get a call that runs over into a break, and management refuses to adjust the break time accordingly; fights and other incidents have become frequent; even somethimg simple like a schedule change with another person is a nightmare.

It is, however, worth mentioning that some people DO advance or get promoted...unfortunately, they tend to be the people who really didnt have a clue about how to do their jobs to begin with. But that means they fit in just fine with management.

Service quality has dropped since training standards have become lax.

In short, this place is a soul-crushing place to work, with inconsistent policies and treatment of employees, little in the way of advancement prospects, and overall poor treatment of any employee who has lasted more than about a year.

Don't believe what they tell you - this place is horrible. Avoid at all costs! Don't think that it will improve if you just "stick it out" a little while - it doesn't get any better, only worse. Went from the best to the worst place I have ever worked. Only take a job with this conpany if you are desperate, and only until you find something else!

NOT A GOOD PLACE TO WORK

When I started, I was looking forward to the experience as I have worked for tech and low voltage companies for years and this one presented itself as a cut above the rest. Out of the gate, they made sure I had lots of training. I had two and a half weeks of video training in the office. Eight hours each day doing video training and quizzes and reviews on what I watched. The next month and a half I shadowed people for installs, service, and updates. They followed through on purchasing uniforms, getting me a vehicle, a gas card, and a work phone. The vehicle was acquired before I started going into the field as was the cell phone. The uniform took a bit longer.

What is not so great. The hours are not set. They expect you to work until the job is done regardless of what time it is. I was on a job until after 8 PM, while the customer was waiting to eat dinner and trying to get to bed because that is what is expected. When talking to managers about a job still on the schedule that hasn't started and it's after 5 PM, they say "we have to show up. It's our policy." My schedule was agreed upon to be from 8 AM until 4:30 PM. Most days I am home after 6 PM. The schedulers are continuously making changes to the list of jobs and they will remove and add jobs at random. While this is to maximize productivity it also creates a nightmare of a problem for parts. Every tech does not carry every part as they are not in control of their inventory. All the inefficiencies are due to an overly bureaucratic process. There is little to no autonomy as this is seen as ineffective. 

The techs are expected to be low voltage experts, salespeople, e-waste experts, inventory managers, trainers, customer service specialists, schedulers, and the list goes on. They do not have people who specialize in specific areas, at least this is not how they are trained. Techs are expected to do trainings every month. This would be fine if there was time given for this to happen. But because techs are needing to arrive at the shop early to figure out their inventory, stay late to fulfill company obligations, they have no time in the day to complete these training modules and can only complete them on their own time without pay. 

My final issue is with the lack of communication when things are not important to the managers/staff. I have been in contact with two supervisors and two HR managers, at least I have reached out to them, with no response to multiple inquiries. I am asking a simple yes or no question and they ignore all of my messages and emails. When I seek to get help it is much the same. I have to resort to group messages on multiple platforms to get any response. This is likely due to them being overworked as well. 

The one positive, besides the training and providing a vehicle and gas card, is that the techs support each other. It is an understanding that "we have to have each other's backs because no one else will". When I call another tech they answer and give me the best answer they have. They send me to other techs who have specific experience, or they provide another resource to help me along. There is true comradery within the ranks of the techs. On the outside of that, you are on your own. 


Where do I begin, there is so much to dislike about working for this company..Let's start with the office conditions. There were not enough computers for all of the employees when all of the employees were in the office at the same time (call nights). Every computer station did not have a WORKING PHONE next to It.? I had to scavenge around the office to find a working phone to set up next to my computer. I had to settle for a phone that had a short in it. When I was on this particular phone and it started to go out I had to tap the receiver to make it work. This happened right in front of the manger on call night. He did nothing (Willie Wynn) about getting new phones. The network is so slooow in the office it makes doing anything on the computer in the office such a chore because it takes five minutes just to log in! I told the manager that IT needs to increase the bandwidth on the network. He stated that IT was aware of the situation, but nothing ever gets resolved.  I wondered why I was not receiving any telmar leads for about two weeks. I got an email one day from my manager (Willie Wynn) and it stated that I was just put back into telmar. Why was I out of telmar for two weeks? When I was in telmar and going on appointments they were faulty appointments, meaning the name I was given for the appointment did not match the resident in the address I went to. This happened about six times. My manager (Willie Wynn) forgot to submit my expense reports for my cell phone bill numerous times. I had to remind him every time to do it. Maybe because he was managing two sales teams at once, the resale and new resi sales teams...My job offer stated that I would receive an Ipad to use for work. After six months of employment..nothing! I brought it to the managers attention numerous times, still no Ipad. He stated that they were on back order (six months) LOL. I attended mandatory sales meetings were they gave training on the Ipad. I was the only sales rep without a Ipad. I also was never told about informax. I feel the sales compensation is too low, especially the ADSC. 15% on $750.00 and up. LOL the Company should offer residuals to sales people as well.

Customer cancellations. First, know up front that this is a commission only job as a sales rep. When you sell a job, they pay you the commission up front. For ANY reason, if that job cancels, they take the money from you. So if you do EVERYTHING right, and someone else in the company upsets that customer off and they decide to cancel, you lose the commission. Most of the other staff around you is hourly, so they could care less if a customer cancels because an installer kicks a dog or falls asleep, or they get billed 3 times for the same thing they already paid for. 

Auto allowance. They give you money on your weekly paycheck to "cover" you using your own car and gas for this job. It's not nearly enough to even cover the gas, let alone the miles you put on your car and the wear and tear that comes with it. The weekly auto allowance is barely enough to cover your benefits, and in some cases, it’s not enough.

The company talks a lot about values that are great, but they dont seem to be upheld in most cases. From outsourcing an entire department, to making stats unobtainable, not listening to feedback, and unrealistic expectations for schedule adherence. In my role as an Emergency Dispatch Operator, we have no sick time. If you call out of a single shift in a month, you are written up. In other words, being sick is not tolerated. The company almost never sides with you, when a customer submits a survey that doesnt apply to you (made clear in the comments of the survey) it sticks anyways, tanking your score. These metrics are a direct influence on your raises, promotions, and other advancements in the company. It seems as if they are kept at an intentionally impossible standard to hold you down. The scoring system (currently, maybe it will change) is unreasonable to determine your customer satisfaction rating. There are 3 groups, promoters, detractors, and neutral. Promoters are 9-10/10, neutral is 7-8/10, negative is 6 or below/10. A single negative survey seems to weigh just as much as 3-4 perfect score surveys. This is all just a dice roll for your stats, especially when it's up to chance whether people submit surveys, surveys as a whole are predisposed to having negative responses (people who are upset are more likely to do a survey than people who are satisfied). The work is non-stop. In an 8 hour shift you can expect to take 100-150 calls. Even with this extremely high call volume through the entire shift, you will still be considered either unproductive or barely productive by their metrics (125 calls in a shift is almost a call every 3 minutes and calls on average take 3 minutes. This is almost literally back to back). I, persinally, was lied to about the type of work I was taking on. I took this job with a paycut thinking this was a dispatch only job. This was untrue. I was told we would be doing minimal troubleshooting in the interview and all through training. It was only after being on my own it was clear I would be troubleshooting equipment and dealing with very unsatisfied customers very often. for reference I was told I would take 4 or 5 troubleshooting calls a month, I currently take around 10 a day. Overalll, the pay and the amount of work does not feel like you are paying compensated fairly, the absence policy makes it impossible to be sick, having children or other responsibilities can hamper your progress with the absence policy. The workplace environment is very stressful due to feeling like you are always performing poorly with the way stats are laid out. I don't recommend working here unless you are really in a pinch for money. The only positive is no overtime (currently) and a remote position, everything else is a negative


If you work and can sell, you can make a lot of money. However, post sale is MUCH more difficult than making the actual sale. The installers are over worked and can easily blow out your job if they’re just not feeling it that day.
1)
The worst part is the install origination is the one controlling ADT, not the sales organization. So the technicians and install manager’s will commonly charge the customer more money to activate existing equipment and zwave devices. Which just angers your customers.
2)
And then there is management and their holy model sales call. (Which is complete garbage, that some VP decided was God’s gift to mankind). They constantly attribute asking for discounts and loss of sales to cheaper competition to failure to invoke the beloved MSC correctly. Even if you are a top producing rep...

Management will get angry if you don’t work 6 days a week and if you take some nights off. Which can be tough if you’re married and/or have kids. Though, in residential customers are mostly available during nights and weekends.

3)
Dealers.... ADT operates with 2 channels for residential, direct (corporate) and indirect (authorized dealers | separate companies that sell ADT. Customers don’t understand the difference and often fall victim to some bad actor dealers like safestreets and Defender. These 2 companies sell garbage products and bate and switch tactics, leaving you to have awkward conversations with customers about how the $28.99 monthly charge is nearly impossible.

Not all dealers are bad though, in fact, they’re cheaper because they don’t have 10 levels of upper management  to train you on the MSC. So they will often come in and undercut you on the install. For example my $350 install could be done for $99 by my dealer competitor. At the end of the day if it’s a decent dealer, the customer just wants that cheaper install price.

This whole indirect vs direct can be extremely frustrating, because at least with Vivint, it’s another brand and a dealer you risk damaging your own brand.

4)
Lastly, ADT is pricey. $80 a contact and $150 per glass break. That is ridiculous. Unfortunately, they simply can’t afford not to charge that much, because their overhead is through the roof. However, other companies are doing zero down and similar monthly monitoring for 36 to 60 months. It’s simply a better deal. 

You will lose a lot of deals to the other guys and dealers out there, do to the install being so high. 

——

These are the negatives, but if they could fix these issues the company would be the best place you could ever work. Pay is AMAZING if you produce, you make your own schedule, get decent benefits, get set appoints that you just have to close.

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