ADT Security Services Reviews

Pros

The company seems to genuinely care about its customers and products (though often at the cost of caring for employees).

Cons

The Aurora location is still a "good old boys" club, meaning you need to work there for 10 years before anyone will consider you for management. Many of those who are in management appear to have worked there since high school, and their skills are often severely lacking - many managers are unprofessional and apallingly ignorant. Innovation in processes is resisted even when the present process is impractical and inefficient. There is little organization. The dealers in the dealer program are frequently hostile, and will verbally abuse the telephone reps on a regular basis. The level of respect from management and co-workers is generally low, the opportunities for advancement are few, and the pay is terrible.

Pros

The people you work with are nice. Most managers are good people.

Cons

They trick you into getting the job by a sales pitch, they promise you 50k base and that 15 percent of reps make over 80k a year. Actually, reps with any experience make 30k a year and have second jobs that pay hourly. They stay with ADT because of the insurance. They promise you 3 company leads a week, give it to you for the first 2 months then pull them all away and say find your own leads and tell you to work a lead list you have to beg for which is normally 100 percent worthless. They micromanage every part of your day and then make you feel worthless by having conference calls to talk about your horrible day in front of co-workers. The pay is a joke, it is costing me money, wear and tear on my car and I feel like I have been scammed. Also, they hire as many reps as they can so they can make their numbers and don't care about individual numbers.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire less reps, pay a base salary and work more off company leads, that is what sells.

Pros

Benifits in 30 days, thats it.

Cons

Training not organized, thats why turn over is so high.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want to retain people, let them know they are going to be knocking on alot of doors.

Pros

Great benefits as far as health goes.

Cons

Everything else, they tell you how great it is and then your first day comes and your peers tell you how bad it is.

Advice to Senior Management

Get some new management or work drastically on communication and drive.

Pros

drug and dental plan, RRSP contribution

Cons

toxic environment like crabs in a barrel, very preferential treatment and bias shown by management

Advice to Senior Management

hire managers that are qualified to manage and lead. Management should be based on qualifications and not preference for friends

Pros

Decent compensation plan for management but personal and professional growth limited based to 'who you know' and not performance based.

Cons

Micro managers, upper level management not industry knowledgeable. Transaction driven rather than relationship builders.

Pros

Leader in Security Business with "Brand Name Recognition".
Support from local office staff.
Company provides marketing support and customer service.

Cons

Cannot survive on current compensation plan. Car allowance does not even pay for the gas you use. They pay you half your commission when you write the sale and half when the system is installed. It can take weeks to get a new system installed. If the customer changes their mind before the installation is complete the sales person is "charged back". You are expected to make 60 outbound phone cold calls each day which are monitored by your manager. High turnover. I worked over one year and outlasted everyone in my office including my manager.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay sales people a living wage. The car allowance is a joke. Making reps wait weeks for commission is wrong.

Pros

The boss is very nice and respectful of employees, but is too busy to train the new employees except for very little. He is always there for us when we call though. If you are new, you have to ask questions and learn the HUGE wealth of knowledge that you have to learn about all the security systems ON YOUR OWN completely! That is the worst part. Then on top of that you do not make enough to even pay your bills because of all the gas spent going to the appointments all over "tim-buck-too" to someones house that might be a creep all by yourself. Also, the little money we were making on sales just got cut virtually in half. :( The last and final thing is that when you go to an appointment you could drive as far as 2 1/2 hours away and then the customer does not want a security system, so then you wasted you time, all of your gas, and you got ZERO dollars out of the whole thing. All of this is ONLY COMMISSION! There is hardly no way for anyone to live on commission alone.....even if they are making the 50 calls a day to try and get an appointment set to sell a security system. There are great people that I work with including my boss who is nice and understanding and help the best he can....but they give him too much work for him to be able to help very much. But unfortunately just working with nice people won't pay my bills. :(

Cons

I stated everything in the above paragraph, thanks!

Advice to Senior Management

Give a base pay to all sales employees and a bonus for sales sold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pros

Your own schedule
Benefits after 30 days

Cons

It is very unfortunate that this didn't work out. I was very hopeful and can honestly say i gave it a good shot. The problem is that the "system" is drowning in old marketing and management styles. Training and support is just not there. All ADT wants is the reoccurring revenue from your circle of influence. Once they have that you are just another one of the 80% that will leave once you see what is behind the smoke and mirrors..

TIP.. DO NOT leave until you get all $ due you. Once you are off their books you will never get paid what they owe you without going through a lot of steps.

Advice to Senior Management

WAKE UP... When someone with over 25 years of experience sends you a 4 page letter addressing issues YOU MIGHT want to at least respond!!!!

Pros

-Good local company based managerial support for both install and sales.

-Weekly commission payouts based on last weeks production and installations.

-Lots of resources available to vet out potential clients both within company reporting, and through services the company provides.

-Higher level monitoring systems Pulse/CCTV/Access Control are separators from the market to a degree. Not many other vendors have products like these, although CCTV is VERY pricey.

-Fairly competent installation crew. They may not get it right on the first try, but they will come back and get it right eventually most of the time.

-Pretty comprehensive benefits to take advantage of if you can make enough money to pay for them.

-Telemarketing department to supply reps with the 'occasional' company lead. These typically are rare, averaging maybe 1 a week. Quality can range widely. Some are very good, some are not. Some company based leads can take you 50+ miles out of the way to sell a new key pad for a net commission of $25.00. Overall having a telemarketing department is good though.

-Company marketing is fairly good too. ADT has ad campaigns, mail campaigns, or so I've heard, though I've never seen mail go out with a rep's name on it, and generally speaking, the ADT name is well known, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

-Referral program for companies and people that refer you business is a nice perk, but not used much. Difficult to take advantage of with all the other responsibilities of the job.

-Training is good, very good actually, probably best in the industry.

Cons

-Commission only job.

-Poor expense reimbursement and company equipment based on real expenses and requirements for doing the job:
-no mileage outside of 80.00/week, but you'll use that more than twice over in gas unless you own a Prius
-no daily allowance for food
-no company computer, phone, or ability to get email into personal phone. (In all fairness I heard some of this may be changing though...)

-Senior management has no idea how to price their services. All security companies (including ADT dealers) pretty much offer $0.00 installs for a basic system, and oftentimes, even for multi-zone systems, yet ADT company reps are expected to collect installation fees ranging from $100 - 250.00+ for similar installations, or beg for pricing exceptions.

-Market security monitoring prices range but typically ADT is 45-65% higher than local market prices.

-Base level systems (what about 60-80% of what small business owners need) are hopelessly over priced, yet management either does not know or care. Ironically, however, at the end of the month if the unit numbers are low, price exceptions to monitoring and installation can be had (this can be a 'pro' too). "Variable price strategy" based on monthly timing and regional quota requirements could imply an element of budget/timing based greed on behalf of senior management though. Definitely not "Saturn Style" pricing.

-Aside from redundant monitoring and the fact that we handle our own monitoring (we don't assign it) there is little to differentiate ADT from other major local and regional vendors for basic monitoring services.

-Management measures everything; phone activity, outside call activity, business cards collected, it goes on and on and on, yet with all this information nothing seems to change for the better.

-Concept of "territory" does not exist. There is plenty of business out there for everyone, but there are days when reps from the far southern reaches of the state are chasing leads in the far northern reaches of the state and the northern guy/girl drive an hour and a half to the south. Company based telemarketing leads can pull you anywhere anytime. It almost a comical waste of time and gas for reps.

-Its a job you can make 500-1000/week if you really push it. Bitter sweet b/c the company has a lot of good people in it, but you won't retire early, and based on the pace of schedule and pressure, you may not make it to retirement at all...

Advice to Senior Management

Very high turnover. On a 9-10 person team, sadly, I saw 5 come and go, in about 6 months or so. This means all 10 will turn in a year, statistically speaking (in reality not true, 2-3 producers will probably be mainstays, but the rest - who knows)

In summary, the failings of the setup all start at the top with senior management. If ADT wants it to be commission only, make it 1099, pay more in commissions, and assign territories more succinctly. If its W-2, make it salaried with heavy commission incentive, and pay for true expenses. Reps don't have a lot of skin in the game with a 320/month car allowance, when the real mileage reimbursement for miles driven would be closer to 600/month or more for most reps that are pulling hard. Finally, understand what the market will bear. ADT is a good name for sure. Tag's and Rolex'es are good watches too, but some people just want to be able to tell time. In the case of the small business owner, many just want a basic system, not rocket science and gadgetry.