Thirteen years into running his own business, Chris Bontempo is so busy he doesn’t bother to advertise. No website. No ads. A little social media.

“We can barely keep up with work,” he says. “I’m a firm believer that word-of-mouth advertising is going to serve you best. It works.”

It clearly is working for Wisconsin-based Bontempo Plumbing & Drain Cleaning. There may be several explanations for the success of the company, but it all begins with Bontempo being a hard-working entrepreneur. From the launch of his company in 2010, he says he was willing to burn candles at both ends to meet customers’ needs and establish the business. He didn’t burn out at that stage, fortunately, and now only has to work hard, instead of extra hard, to stay on course.

“I did everything in the beginning,” Bontempo says.

That is, he continued to work as a master plumber for another company while he built up a drain cleaning business on the side. After his day job, he would clean drains at night.

“It was just me,” he recalls. “My day began at 4 a.m. and I tried to get home by 6 o’clock and be there when the kids went to bed. Then I’d do paperwork and clean the truck and get ready for the next day.”

In November 2021, Bontempo’s enterprise finally found a business home on South 56th Street in West Allis, a community of about 60,000 people on the outskirts of Milwaukee. The company office fronts a 2,600-square-foot warehouse where equipment and work trucks spend their nights. 

“Before we moved there, I worked from my home, my garage and a storage unit,” Bontempo says. “It’s great not having everything parked at home.”

Now when he goes home in the evening, he can leave work behind.

Customer satisfaction

Bontempo was a plumber before he began working on drains and his mix of business reflects that priority today. He estimates that 55% of his workload is purely traditional plumbing calls, with the other 45% consisting of drain work. They are not mutually exclusive tasks, with some of his plumbing business coming to him from what originally were only drain cleaning calls.

Three quarters of his plumbing service calls are to residences, with one in five calls from restaurants and other commercial businesses and the remaining 5% industrial. Whatever the type of call, however, Bontempo’s service runs take him all around West Allis and into Milwaukee and nearby Waukesha — basically anywhere within a 45-mile radius of his office.

So how do people with leaking pipes in Waukesha know about a plumber in West Allis who doesn’t market his business? Word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied customers, Bontempo says, and customers who call him again when another leak occurs. He estimates that 85% of his business comes from return customers.

Building a network

Industry friends also help. Some of Bontempo’s references come from other plumbers. When he went out on his own, he left word with plumbers he knew at a plumbing supply house to call if there was something he could do for them.

“That just gradually grew into a network of plumbers,” Bontempo says. “We work together, do everything for each other, sharing customers. It works.”

Six other plumbers are in the network. This plumbing trades network is one reason reliance on word-of-mouth is a winning formula for Bontempo.

In the network are specialists of one kind or another who are tapped as needed by the other plumbers. Bontempo, for example, cleans drains and repairs lines using the PipePatch product (Source One Environmental), which he began offering in 2017, so drain cleaning and pipe repair jobs are sent his way. On the other hand, if one of Bontempo’s customers needs a line dug up, the work is subbed to the plumber in the network who has a mini-excavator in his equipment yard. 

Other sources of work for Bontempo Plumbing & Drain Cleaning are several contractors who remodel homes and call on Bontempo to run the pipes and install the fixtures. Occasionally, he also plumbs newly constructed custom homes. 

In short, Bontempo stays busy. Part of his job security comes from the relatively old housing stock in Milwaukee County. He says the oldest house he’s ever worked on was built in 1870. Aging housing in the area was one reason he began working for himself as a drain cleaner. 

“I saw the infrastructure was going to start failing and drain cleaning seemed like a logical starting point for me,” Bontempo says.

Forming the team

“I wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing without the team I have,” Bontempo says.

He is the master plumber the company’s expertise is founded on, but he also has an apprentice plumber, Zach Bajewski, who has worked with him for three years.

In the office on South 56th Street is his office manager of four years, Melissa Wittliff, who does it all.

“She handles all the paperwork — accounts receivable and payable, billing, payroll, scheduling of service calls,” Bontempo says. “She’s a huge portion of this team.”

In her spare time, Wittliff studied up for and last year was awarded a cross connection backflow testing license. The certificate lets her inspect the valves that prevent contaminated water from backing up into a water system when water pressure drops. She does all the backflow testing for the company.

Then there is Allison, an unofficial team member. She’s one of three daughters in the Bontempo family. She knows how to run the RIDGID locator and can operate the camera inspection system.

“She sometimes works right beside me and says, ‘I got this, Dad,’” Bontempo says. 

Go-to equipment

Bontempo’s toolbox has a mix of brands, mostly RIDGID and Milwaukee Tool. This includes RIDGID inspection cameras and a couple of SeeSnake units. A RIDGID SeekTech SR24 locating receiver is what the company uses to locate pipes. Bontempo occasionally does locating work for electricians because the unit’s mapping feature gives them printouts for long-term information on a piece of property.

Bontempo pulls out Picote descaling equipment when a corroded pipe is the problem. For clearing drainlines and other clogged pipes, the company has a trailered Jetters Northwest Eagle 300 jetter with 4,000 psi and 18 gpm flush power. The jetter is cranked up and utilized at least once a week. 

The trailer and tools are carted from place to place using one of two vehicles bearing the company’s orange-and-black logo. One is a Dodge Ram 2500 with a service body, the other a Ford Transit with extended wheel-base and roof.

Two puzzles

Bontempo has run into a couple of attitudes in the course of operating his company. One of the attitudes benefits him, the other puzzles him.

First, the puzzler. A short while after he began plumbing on his own after years of working for someone else, Bontempo encountered resistance when he approached commercial customers about signing up for a preventive maintenance program. The idea of such a contract is to pay a set fee for routine evaluation and cleaning of pipes and systems instead of having a bigger expenditure when a pipe becomes thoroughly clogged or a water system fails.

“But most of the places around here don’t want to get into preventive maintenance contracts,” Bontempo says. “They would rather wait until something happens and then pay to fix it.”

To date, Bontempo has exactly one maintenance contract customer.

The other attitude is not exhibited by customers but by some of his fellow contractors. 

“Most plumbers around here don’t want to do any drain cleaning,” Bontempo says.

He has had difficulty hiring plumbers to work for him because his workload includes cleaning and repairing drain and sewer pipe. “Not interested,” potential hires say. The upside to the situation, of course, is that the fewer plumbers in West Allis willing to work with drains, the more drain business that comes to Bontempo. Pretty good consolation prize.

The future

Bontempo has the equipment he needs for the diverse services he offers, but he says he’s not done. He is toying with the idea of buying a pipe lining system. Already looking for another plumber, he says he might have to find two if he starts lining.  

If things continue to develop as he foresees, he one day will be able to leave the field to his plumbers, sit at a desk in the company office and plan customer shower stalls with multifunction fittings and lots of body space. Such design work is a favorite task.  

Growth and expansion all depend on Bontempo Plumbing & Drain Cleaning staying busy through its word-of-mouth marketing, which is dependent on fostering and maintaining good relationships with customers. Bontempo describes it as a proven system of growing a business.

“It goes back to the good old days of treating everyone with respect,” he says. “When I get a new customer, I like to educate the person on what is going on in the home. The better educated customers are, the better decisions they can make. If you don’t treat customers with respect, they aren’t going to call you back.”