in the U.S.
stars
Google reviews
In 1990, a 24-year-old named Jimmy Hiller started a plumbing company with $500. Today, Hiller Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electrical is one of the nation's largest privately-owned home services companies: more than 900 associates, a fleet of 600-plus "Happy Face" trucks across 20 locations, and over 2 million service calls answered across Tennessee, Southern Kentucky, Northern Alabama, Northern Georgia, Southeastern Arkansas, Northeastern Mississippi, and Northwest Florida. Jimmy Hiller still serves as CEO to this day. And the guarantee customers know by heart hasn't changed: "Happy You'll Be or the Service is FREE!"™ (If you've caught a Predators or Vols game, you've probably seen the smiley face.)
The reviews back it up. Our analysis found Hiller's Birmingham, Alabama location averaging 4.94 stars across 504 verified Google reviews — #20 among the 357 U.S. HVAC companies we evaluated, and #8 in the South. Zoom out and the story holds: by Hiller's own count, the company sits close to a five-star rating across more than 50,000 reviews when you look at all of its locations.
So how does a company this size keep its reviews this good? It starts before day one. Hiller owns its own trade school, which flips the usual hiring math in the skilled trades. Instead of competing for a limited pool of experienced technicians, Hiller hires for character and fit with its values. Then it teaches the trade.
And what gets taught goes beyond wrenches and wiring. Everything Hiller does is built on one value: care. In practice, care means choice. Technicians are trained to present multiple options instead of pushing one — here's the risk of waiting, here's the cost of acting now — and to get a customer's agreement before any work begins, backed by True Transparency Pricing. Customers walk away feeling like they made their own decision. Because they did.
The same intention shows up in the small stuff. Book an appointment, and you get a text with a live tracking link — no afternoon lost waiting on a technician. Crews are taught to treat the house they're in like their own: leave no mess, damage nothing, and do one extra thing to make the customer's life a little easier. It's a deliberate campaign against everything people dread about letting a contractor in the door.
"At Hiller, we believe our work has meaning when we care about others. When we enter a client's home, we show we care by respecting their time, their property, doing what we say we will, and never leaving someone without essential services. We're honored to have earned the trust of so many families over the past 3 decades, and will continue to earn that trust in the future."
— Jimmy Hiller, Founder & CEO
Customers notice. Across 504 reviews, the same praise kept surfacing: thoroughness, clear explanations, standout technicians. One reviewer put it this way: "[H]e explained everything that was wrong thoroughly and in full detail. Even checked on things outside of the main problem to make sure everything was running great."
Thirty-six years, twelve Inc. 5000 appearances, and two million service calls after that first $500, Hiller is still growing — and still betting that if you hire good people and teach them to care, the reviews take care of themselves.
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