Pros
To be honest, I cannot think of any. When they took over our community, it sure sounded good, and unfortunately, several of us fell for their "yay we are so great and things will be so much easier with all of our technology" routine instead of taking the offered severance and moving on!
Cons
When they took over our community we lost 13 employees. They replaced the 13 lost with ONE. ONE person from the corporate office. This meant that those of us who stayed on with First Service were doing our regular jobs, and then some. They never bothered to find out what anybody's job was or how our association was run (successfully for over 20 years). The management was awful. Condescending to employees and to homeowners. There was very little training or support. We were given a "help line" to call if we had questions, but everytime someone from our office called the help line people told us they had no idea and they were overworked without training as well. Homeowners did not have their calls returned or their questions answered. The management from First Service was seen rolling their eyes at employees when employees would tell them a homeowner wanted to speak with them. The First Call (or, cult session, as it is known at our office), is a joke. They ask you what comments or ideas for improvement you have - but be warned, if you have any comments about something that isn't working or something you think can be improved upon, they don't ACTUALLY want to hear it. They will tell you they'll "take care of that" and then will completely ignore the problem.
