Complaint Review: Kiwi Services (MariettaGA) - Marietta, Georgia

I worked for this company since August of 08. Just to give you a little background info. This company cleans air ducts, upholstery, carpet, tile & grout, and hardwood floorings. They offer training to those that have no experience in the industry. Three days in the classroom learning how to fill out paperwork and upsale your customer. One day out in the field with a senior tech. After these 4 days of unpaid training, you are than issued you equipment which you pay a rental fee for each pay period & you start your 1st 4 weeks of guaranteed pay $600. I caution you don't be late with your 6am call in, your appointments, or turning in your required paperwork in wednesday nights or end of the day saturday. If you are you will lose your guarantee pay for that pay period.

Now the way you are paid you'll just love. Pay day is the 1st & 15th of the month if it doesn't fall on a holiday or sunday. If it does hope you have money saved up because you want get paid until the next available business day. By the way you have to have a DBA to be issued a pay check. You aren't an employee of Kiwi Services you are an independent contractor thru them. Your first two pay periods are ok....as long as you do as they wish you should have no problems.

After the guarantee expect to get 20% off of work that was previously booked thru sales 40% off any additional upsales you were able to make if your upsales totaled more than 50% of the original ticket if not you only get 30%. Here's an example original ticket was $100...you were able to upsale the customer on $200 additional bringing the grand total to $300 here a break down of what you get $20 from the initial sale & $80 off the $200 so you make $100 total off this assignment.

Here lies the problem. Unless you upsale on each ticket you don't make much money. If you aren't able to do the required work or have the additional tools to perform the services you were able to upsale you create an unhappy customer in the process. Or you have another situation where you have independent contractors engaged in unethical practices water EX. down chemicals to make them less effective so they can now upsale the customer on stain removals. I often had to perform redo's to clean-up & fix what the last tech couldn't do after charging the customer for additional services. I'm good at sales however I'm not the one to upsale a service or product to someone that didn't need it nor would I create an opportunity for an upsale. As a result my sales weren't as high as some of the other techs.

We were reminded everyday if we aren't upsaling to get in & get out. If you did poor job you were brought back to redo that job or another tech is sent to clean-up your job & fix the problem this would take what little money you made from the job initially from you & place it in the other tech's pocket. Taking this into consideration...I've always taken pride in the work I did and I'm not about to change that now. So not only were my upsales not up to their liking it took me a bit longer than the other techs because i was more through than they would be...good thing about that most customers requested i be sent for their next cleaning or would tell their friends to ask for me. The flipside I'd average one house less a day than the other techs because i stood behind my work & gave a good cleaning for the money they paid.

I started to aquire my own equipment to eliminate the rental charges & the hassles of turning the rented equipment in every saturday. I made my final purchase in december by not purchasing any presents for christmas & investing in myself. Eventhough I had my own equipment the following pay periods I was still charged the equipment rental fees. I disputed the charges & have yet to be reimbursed for them. On 2nd february I was told I no longer had a position with Kiwi I was told by my actting manager not to ask him why because he didn't know. I expected to get my last paycheck on the 15th of february it is now March 22nd. I've made several calls requesting a statement & check but my calls have fallen on deaf ears. I'd like to resolve this issue & move on with my life.

The reason I'm posting my complaint here is simple. If you are considering working for this company make sure you know upfront what you are getting into. If you decide to work for them I highly suggest you take there words to heart "GET & GET OUT" ,"GET IN" learn all you can & "GET OUT" as soon as you can find something better or the guarantee runs out which ever come first.

As a CUSTOMER BEWARE make sure you fully understand what the tech is trying to sale to you & make sure he/she can do what they say. If you aren't happy with the end result don't pay for the services until they can get it done right or send someone else to do it right. Should you pay than later try to get reimbursed because you weren't happy with the results it would cause you a great deal of lost time... many phone calls & hours of frustration. Even after all this you still run the risk of never getting reimbursed.

don't get kiwi'd

Ohn0u2

Decatur, Georgia

U.S.A.