Zep Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Zep

Pros – You can make as much money as you want if you work hard.

Cons – Management does not care about the customers anymore

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

Pros – (Houston project)great manager, very supportive. Great group of people to work with.

Cons – They treat you like a sweat shop. you have a higher goal/quota every month. No structure and no standard company best practice or way of doing the job. High expectations and not given the proper tools to be successful.

Advice to Senior Management – Take time out and see how other companies are doing business and investing in employees . That way your turn over would be lower and your ROI will go up.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – Great team atmosphere in branches. Company's tries to do well by the employees.

Cons – Health insurance is non-existent
Sales Reps are allowed to treat CS staff like second class citizens, berating, yelling and name calling are daily occurences.
Some managers care deeply while others make you wonder how they manage to stay employed.
When you change an operating program make sure it is a right fit for the company, not just the right price
Treat all employees equally
Actually fire incompetent employees (warehouse managers too) who not only dont know what they are doing, but make is dangerous to do so

Advice to Senior Management – Look at managers and not what their supervisors say about them. Hold managers accountable for what they do. Make sales rep accountable for the way they treat people, we are not trash we are here to help, if a sales rep berates and abuses someone they should be fired immediatley, not be allowed to slide by because they make a lot of sales.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Zep full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – There are opportunities for new people who can bring in their experience from larger companies, and there are good people still at the company.

Cons – The company has had a lot of changes to its mid and high level management positions. It doesn't matter if it is to cut costs or to eliminate what leadership considers "B" level players, this continues to create non-value added changes within the company.

Advice to Senior Management – I would hope that the core of the company's retention and morale, human resources, will make significant improvements in their leadership.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Zep full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great products, and work/life balance

Cons – No one knows anything to hard to get answers haven't had a direct supervisor in almost 2 years.

Advice to Senior Management – Create a better culture

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Zep full-time for less than a year

Pros – Co-workers are fun, everyone works as a team. Generous commission % at the highest level. Given a book of accounts to call on, that are protected as long as they purchase every 6 months.

Cons – No immediate supervisor, impossible to achieve growth goals that increase every month - expected to double or triple a customer's monthly purchase every month - avg sale is $150. Lack of any real health benefits, told it was a salaried job but have to punch a timeclock and get paid by the hour.

Advice to Senior Management – Hire immediate supervisors, formulate a better strategy to compensate sales reps, understand that your average mom and pop auto shop does not need to buy 4 gallons of hand soap every month.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Zep full-time for less than a year

Pros – its good job to gain experience for sales 101

Cons – you use all your own gas, put miles on your car. Use your own technology and they tell you relocation is included and then they say its not. The salary is entry level and the commission is almost nothing. Only 10% lol

Advice to Senior Management – Im not sure . They say it is but you have to work like a race horse on cocaine to move up

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Zep

Pros – They provide all the support you need from management and other sales reps as well as products for samples.

Cons – If after 6 months you aren't making enough sales they give you a short time frame to achieve the sales goals or you are done with Zep.

Advice to Senior Management – Help new sales reps that do not have experience by showing them how to find potential customers. Going door to door is not an effective method for finding new business.

Current Employee – been working at Zep

Pros – Decent Salary, Good promotional material, decent product. Company seems to have an established name in the marketplace and has been around for a while.

Cons – This would be a great job in an unpenetrated market, the problem is that the larger market areas are heavily oversaturated with Reps who have been with the company for years and pretty much have a stranglehold over territories. Not only do you have to compete with Auto Zone and Napa, who by the way,(sell Zep products off thier shelves for almost 40% less than you will be selling them for out of the catalouge), you also have to compete with your direct sales manager AND OTHER REPS IN YOUR HOME TOWN. Their are no protected territories and the market crunch has gotten so bad that reps from other states will come in to your market to fight for scraps.

Most of the sales objections are based on price of product plus shipping cost. The people you will be trying to sell to know that they can go to Auto Zone and buy the EXACT same handsoap for way less than you are permitted to sell it for out of the catalouge. At the current rate, Zep's existence is based on retention of old accounts. No one in this climate is willing to pay extra for basic product that can be bought at heavier discounts from Wal-mart, Sam's Club or Auto Zone

Competitors: Echolab and Kimball Mid West.

WARNING: THIS JOB IS SALES 101. BE PREPARED TO "RE-LEARN" SALES BASED ON "DEMONSTRATING" THE PRODUCT IN FRONT OF EVERY SINGLE COLD-CALL/ CUSTOMER (20 PER DAY).

 YOUR MANAGERS REALLY DON'T WANT TO HIRE A NEW SALESPERSON. THEY ARE BEING FORCED TO BUY UPPER MANAGEMENT.. THERE IS NO ROOM FOR YOU. LOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE!

* Training consists of two days in a hotel conferance room, you won't have time to do any real studying as you will be way to busy making cold calls to fill your pipeline only to have your mangers cherry pick through it in the end! You are really just being paid to generate leads for your mngrs. SMOKE AND MIRRORS!

Advice to Senior Management – Take a serious look at the management skills of your sales reps before you promote them to train others. Why do you think you can't hang on to talent?

* Give your new employees at least a few days to learn the product! If your going to throw them to the wolves, at least let them be half-way prepared.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Zep

Pros – A chance to earn an unlimited income while making contacts that can last a life time.Good initial training. Great experience.

Cons – About 15 or 16 years ago, the upper management started a gradual turn around of what I considered the best company I had ever worked for. They started putting continous arbitrary pressure on the sales reps, picking out almost at random who they wanted to harass. For the first time they hired supervisers from outside the company, which they had previously prided themselves on not doing.

Advice to Senior Management – If sales reps could somehow take their accounts and leave the company,there would be no one left.. It's not the company that I joined twenty years ago.