Roto-Rooter Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Roto-Rooter full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Freedom to grow your business unit
Flat organization
Great Pay
Flexible Work Schedule

Cons – 24/7
High tech turnover
Can be stressful

Advice to Senior Management – Be prepared to grow your business. Its the expectation.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Roto-Rooter full-time for less than a year

Pros – Decent pay with a good opportunity to learn new skills. Work schedule is not too bad, but do have to rotate thru weekend coverage.

Cons – Pressure to complete tasks to a point you feel like you are being rushed thru jobs. Also when billing it seems as if you are overcharging for services rendered.

Advice to Senior Management – None.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Roto-Rooter full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Overall great techs and plumbers. Fantastic manager who's been a plumber all his life and is a great General Manager. Hard to find those two things in one boss. The best office staff I've ever had. And I like the independence. You get the job, satisfy the customer and go on your way. It's professional and a good fit for me. Also my branch is one that is company owned. Others out there may be franchised businesses which can be like comparing apples and oranges.

Cons – Commission pay structure which doesn't suit everyone. You have to be able to sell yourself to the customer to get the work. Then you have to be technically competent to complete it. Just being a salesman or just being a good plumber doesn't cut it. Biggest con is not enough people know we're plumbers too not just drain cleaners. That's changing. Just slowly.

Advice to Senior Management – Improve the field tech's ability to code out jobs, handle receipts and bill customers.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Roto-Rooter full-time for less than a year

Pros – You can make decent money there if you're a good salesman and willing to work hard
There are a lot of good people from very diverse backgrounds
There is room for advancement if you share the companies goals
It's a big name company that gets a lot of calls
Excellent safety education program

Cons – Until recently there was no monetary reimbursement for the use of your vehicle, this has since changed due to legal action taken by former employees To compensate for the .55 a mile they're now giving they cut down their already low tech commission 10-12%, they have installed GPS units in every truck owned by a tech to track their milage after they get to their first job (which could be 50 miles from home) and after their last job; I've heard stories of a tech being logged off by dispatch while still working because he had to drive a lot that day, once logged off the GPS is shut down and they stop paying the tech for milage. Basically, since they started paying for milage they have been going out of their way to avoid paying for it and paying techs at a lower rate. I worked for Roto Rooter for 10 months, 8 of those driving my own truck and, I drove over 40k miles in that 10 months with minimal compensation; I spent more than $7500 on gas and repairs in that 10 months, my truck wasn't old or beat up when I started, it wasn't worth crap when I left.

The pay structure always favors the office, no matter what. I did a job that was sold for $7500, total parts/equipment costs were $800-900, I was paid commission for $2800 worth of labor.

They sell themselves well to potential employees and rarely deliver; this is heartbreaking to see especially when that new employee has to own or purchase a truck within 12 weeks of them starting there.

A lot of the techs have no idea on what they are doing, even with the company mandated plumbing school. A new employee can walk into Roto Rooter without any plumbing knowledge at all and will be on their own in 12 weeks; you can't learn 1/20th of what you need to know in 12 weeks, this shows in some of the work that is performed.

There is plenty of incentive for a tech to rip off an unknowing customer, it happens often and, the tech is rarely called out on it by the office because there is a good chance that tech is in the top 25% of sales. While I was at Roto Rooter a customer discovered through another company that the work she paid more than $12k for wasn't completed, in fact only about 25% of the piping that was supposed to be replaced had been replaced; all but one of the techs on the job had already left the company, the one remaining tech (the guy that actually sold and ran the job) is one of the branches top sellers, he received no real punishment.

The company will set strict standards on things they don't understand and won't yield; my (State Farm) insurance agent had to argue back and forth with corporate on whether my insurance policy was to par because to didn't say "commercial", it said "artisan"; I'm willing to believe the largest auto insurer on the planet should know whether a policy meets the standards set before them by a plumbing company.

Very high turnover rate for people new to the industry, very high stress level for techs that have experience due to the messes created by the office and green techs.

You don't get paid for meetings, period.

There is a good chance that your boss will have absolutely no plumbing experience at all, RotoRooter sees a manager as a paper pusher; you can't expect them to understand what you really do for a living.

Advice to Senior Management – You demand a lot from your techs but pay well below the industry average, while at Roto Rooter I was getting 31% on all plumbing labor and 25% on all dig labor while driving my own truck and dealing with the office not paying me on markups for things like tool rentals. I currently make 31% driving someone elses truck and I don't have to deal with $300 taken out of my pay because I needed to rent a machine (that they should already have) for $150.

There is very little value placed on a techs personal time, this shows in all the repetitive mandatory meetings that are nothing more than pep rallies.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Roto-Rooter

Pros – * good benefits
* potential to make money
* a yearly dinner for reaching sales goals for the team

Cons – * unprofessional staff all around ( 90% of co-workers have a bad attitude), poor communication from office staff, dispatchers, and some members of management
* car allowance doesn't cover expenses weekly
* favoritism to senior estimators
* poor pay structure
* dealing with a lot of angry customers, with no oppt. to sell...
* company money from your paycheck w/o an explanation
* language barrier between reps/ and lead techs
* hard to have a day off, and enjoy it, stress free w/o hearing from someone
* nextels ( 2 way press to talk) and the party on the other side ( unresponsive, never gets back too, or gives attitude)

Advice to Senior Management – * change the pay structure, so that with all the running around, if nothing sells, makes the estimator feel like they earned something at least ( i.e- $50 a call, with a minimum if its slow) and if sales exceed minimum, then $50 a call is void)
* place someone in charge of weeding out the " waste of time" calls ( i.e- tech puts in ticket from the property line clean out, or it needed a mini-cam, or it’s a paid camera but the customer doesn't know how much it will be ( then they refuse when we get there), or tech couldn't open line @ 200' so a camera wont tell the customer anything.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Roto-Rooter

Pros – People are great to work wih, good pay

Cons – Advancement opportunity is limited due to size

Advice to Senior Management – Provide more training to managment and focus on lean practices of 6 sigma, and other types of training to produce higher output.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Roto-Rooter full-time

Pros – Small team environment, outstanding product(s), good amount of autonomy

Cons – Executive team is budget conservative and marketing, lead generation, campaigns, etc are lacking. True leadership from a sales perspective is light

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Roto-Rooter full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – There are many oppurtunities to move up in Roto-Rooter and everyone is rewarded financially for their performance. Many high performing service technicians have been able to transition into management and have done well in that role. Overall there is a healthy work environment.

Cons – Despite performance, there are upper level managers still in place that try to micro-manage at the branch level. This was not always the case and I would expect it to change in the future.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Roto-Rooter full-time

Pros – You get out of it what you put into it. Freedom on the road Get to meet new people
 Benefits 401 k a good salary

Cons – Have to pay for your own gas in spite of the new pay plan
 Have to pay for gas. Did I mention you have to pay for gas
 Working past 10 pm at night 4 non emergency jobs
 no sick days
 management get bonuses the people that do the work do not get any bonuses
 health insurance way too expensive
 have to pay for gas

Advice to Senior Management – To come up with a bonus plan for employees
 A special pay incentive program after 10 pm would be nice

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Roto-Rooter

Pros – Compensation is directly related to being able to sell and perform in a timely manner. Commision based pay benefits are great

Cons – Commision based and some leads are not qualified correctly when you get them. Sometimes employees viewed by numbers to as people.

Advice to Senior Management – Better qualified leads. More employee events, outings. Some have worked here for years and don't recognize co-workers.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend