Pros
Name recognition. Still some great people there. Established monitoring center network.
Cons
I was a long time employee & remember when this company used to appreciate you for the hard work that you put in. I've seen upper management slowly and consistently change the company from a career to just a stepping stone job. It used to be a place where you could make a good living and still have a life outside of work. It is now a place where the company expects you to work like a salaried employee but you are 100% commission. Everyone that I worked with was not happy. This was from sales, install, service and admin. I don't want to bash ADT but I just have to be honest. I still talk to ex-colleges and they say that things haven't gotten any better. I see these reviews that say "Great Place!", "Wonderful" etc. and it's hard to believe it. It's like someone is posting these reviews to get ADT off of the "worst companies to work for" list. Mandatory meetings, which I can understand "if" there were some substance to them, but most are to go over numbers and their redundant sales procedures (more on this in a minute). When you factor in the drive time it will burn a half a day easy. Most of the meetings could be done via a conference call which would allow you to be much more productive but they want to see you in person. Most of the meetings would end up with the other sales reps complaining about internal issues with billing and installation. I hate to say it but most of the installation issues were because the other sales reps were inexperienced and sold the wrong equipment for a particular type of residence. This happens because ADT doesn't train the sales people on how to correctly sell the proper equipment per application. They have a script (model sales call) that each sales rep is to learn and use verbatim. This is their "assembly line" sales procedure that they think is the Holy Grail and will turn anyone into a security system consultant. You will be tested on this and if a manager is riding with you in the field, this is the script that you are to use. Here lies the big problem, they hire people with no concept on how a house is structured and how wires can or can't be run. They just tell them some basics and let them go at it. Every house is different and what worked in one may not work in another. The sales rep is so desperate to make a sale because they are 100% commission that they end up telling the customer something incorrect, because they either didn't know or they need to get that signature so they will have a paycheck. Then it goes to install and the techs have to tell the customer that this cannot be done the way the sales rep told them it could. Now you have a pissed off customer, a tech that thinks the sales person doesn't know what they are doing and a sales person that (because they don't know any better because they were never trained properly) thinks install is against them. I've seen this time and time again, year after year. As a sales rep "you" are responsible for everything after the sale. Why? Because if anything goes wrong and the customer cancels, you will get charged back the commission. It doesn't matter if we no show them on the installation because they bumped your job and no one contacted the customer, billing screwed up (double charged, charge their monitoring before install, etc. & happens all the time), there is an install issue or any number of other things out of your control. If you don't keep an eye on your accounts from start to finish it is going to fall on you. The good reps know this and do this but it takes time. Time that the company expects you to be out door knocking, canvassing the neighborhood after an appointment, doing home shows and events (again mandatory with no additional pay) etc. The company used to provide lots of leads. If you know what you are doing, most were pretty good but you would get duds here or there. We would average 5-10 leads per week. The last couple years I was with the company we were lucky to get 1-3 per week, if that, and we were in a very large densely populated area. When ADT was getting ready to split from Tyco (and very much so after) the focus moved to self generated sales, IE NON-company generated leads. Their argument is that it costs the company multiple hundreds of dollars per lead to give to us with advertising and marketing. So in order to save money (To look like a profitable company to shareholders because we were now a separate entity form Tyco) they gave the call center greater discounts then the field reps so they could sell the systems over the phone rather then have us go out and sell it. There are also ADT dealers. An ADT dealer is a third party (Defender, Gayloard, etc) entity that will offer customers a free system (more bells and whistles then you're standard priced package) for a $99 activation and just charge them the monitoring (from ADT). They then sell that contract to ADT. So guess what? If you don't make the sale because the customer you were quoting received a flyer, phone call or whatever from a dealer, and they came in way under your number so they went with them, ADT is still getting that recurring revenue. You spent all that time and effort to lose it to your own company. Most people out there don't know the difference between an ADT dealer and ADT. Did you? People just hear ADT and don't realize that there is a difference. It's not until they do some research that they actually find out that they have signed up with a third party and feel deceived. Search ADT dealer problems and you'll find all the info you'll need. Don't believe me? Check your local Craigslist and search "ADT" and see what comes up. You can also search "ADT dealer licenses" and you can see what dealers are in your state. Service is another issue that you are going to have to deal with as an ADT sales rep. You will spend countless hours trying to take care of customers that are having service issues. The standard 800 number generally will frustrate your customers due to hold times and lead times for an appointment (sometimes 1-3 weeks out). I had to deal with many no shows by our service department. This is completely unacceptable and was one of the hardest things to deal with at ADT. Imagine you're a customer and you scheduled a service call. You take the day off and the technician never shows up or calls. Guess who is going to get a call from a pissed off customer, that's right, you. Now you are spending time calling your manager, the service manager and the customer trying to remedy the problem. Remember, if they cancel you are the one that will be getting charged back the commission and losing any chance of receiving referrals from that customer. There are many more issues but this is very long winded and I think you get the point.