Arbor Memorial Services Reviews

Pros

Excellent mentorship and training
If you follow there training program there is no way you can fail

Cons

Extremely long hours. Between 50 - 60 hours per week

Advice to Senior Management

Excellent mentorship, always there for support and feedback.

Pros

A very stable company during bad times

Cons

Not progressive enough to attract young talent

Pros

Although the learning curve is steep, a decent income is attainable. Providing these types of products and services to the consumer is extremely gratifying.

Although the price to get in is high, eventually another competitor will enter the market, and because new ventures are often "sharper", Arbor may not be in a position to hold market share.

This will provide myriad opportunities in this field in general.

Cons

Management is stale and throughout the last 15 years this company has bled talent. What remains are mostly more politician than businessmen in local and regional management positions. In some cases management is nothing less than pathetic, completely out of tune with the basic principals of sales and training. Opportunity is being lost on a monumental level. Regional leadership is more concerned with maintaining status quo and stifling any "tall poppies". A classic case of talentless management fighting for survival. And H.O. by the nature of this monolithic structure becomes an accomplice. Unfortunately revenues are generated more by demographics than by first in class staff. A fat cat, that doesn't hunt anymore, and we all know what eventually happens to fat cats. It is unlikely that current recruits will receive training capable of providing an income much higher than 40k to 50k.

Advice to Senior Management

Open your eyes. Demographics show coming years will be profitable, but take a closer look at opportunities lost. The sales force must be bolstered, training currently is certainly not "best in class". This is because management on local levels is outdated and out of touch.

Pros

It was convenient to get to, and that was all.

Cons

Back stabbing. Wages are not adequate, or on time, which leaves you late paying your bills. right now they are late 3 weeks, and counting.

Advice to Senior Management

Do more spot checks on your out of town offices. There is definitely more going on, then you are aware of.

Pros

excellent products and growth oportunity

Cons

no salary and possibly long sales cycles

Advice to Senior Management

base salary could make things much better, pure commission in this industry a little difficult to take

Pros

As a family counselor there is a lot of flexibility re. your work schedule. The offices at the cemetary's are often open from 9-4. Generally one can come and go as they please - unless they are not "selling" or meeting with an appropriate number of families.

The coworkers at the particular cemetary which I worked at were all pleasant and wonderful people. Those were typically the groundskeepers, who were paid in accordance with what their union had negotiated.

It is a congenial, friendly work environment.

Cons

As the title of this indicates, what was advertised as a "service" orientated job, was in fact a sales oriented job. Family counselors are not at all paid a base rate, draw against commission or anything like that. It is 100% commission.

The job was to take existing client files, which were comprised of those families entering to win 10,000$ draw at our trade/mall/exhibition shows and get face time. During that appointment we would cover any of the questions the families had regarding making pre-arrangements. Pre-arrangements, for those not at all familiar with the term, is when one registers with a cemetary and essentially purchases their plot, and/or cremation services.

The clincer is that we would also have to pressure these families, if they were only seeking information, to purchase arrangements during this appointment.

As you may imagine, this was an exceedingly difficult job & 75% + of the time people would simply shoot you down. We would be paying our own gas to get to a persons house & of course if they did not register their wishes and decide on arrangements we would not get a paychque. For those who did do their arrangements with us, average takehome from an appointment was approximately 100$.

In the interview, I was told the average first year pay was 40,000. In fact all other counsellors who were hired (total of 5) we made approx 1500 our first month. That is 18,000/annually, less than half what we were led to believe the start rate would be. The bulk of what we made was from people who were not prospected by us, but families who had a death occur & therefore needed to make arrangements. We were "given" these families, when our schedule would allow. ie If we were running around the city booking appointments, that likly would not lead anywhere, we would not have a chance to meet with these families who had an immediate need.

Absolutely terrible, though not a total waste of my time. I decided that I would leave & complete a degree to ultimately work with families in crisis situations, as that element of the job I excelled at.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay your staff a minimum salary. 2000$ would be reasonable and within typical sales jobs. Either that, or take the commission element off of the table and pay your staff like all other municipal cemetaries (salary).

Do not mislead future employees.