It’s an incredibly busy time for many contractors across the country and from our experience some contractors are managing this situation better than others. We recently redid an office building in the Metro Detroit area and needed painting, drywall, carpet, and some other basic work requiring various trades and general contractors. Contractors were identified from reputable sources such as Angie’s List, Home Advisor, etc.
What happened next will astound you in terms of how far we really have to go in the construction industry and why some of our peers give us, and our industry, a bad rap. We identified three contractors for each of the trades we needed, bringing in over twelve contractors from painters to flooring.
On average only one in three contractors even showed up for their appointments even though they were paying for the leads or advertising through Angie’s List or Home Advisor. Sometimes we received a call about not being able to make the appointment but majority of the time these contractors simply no showed even though an appointment was scheduled. It was of little surprise that of the twelve contractors only one had a business card and more than 80 percent of them had no type of formal sales process with the customer.
Young contractors texted their basic quotes but with no formatting or terms and conditions. When asked about terms we were told they would send a quote after receiving a commitment that would include the terms and conditions. I don’t know about you, but I want to know the terms and conditions before I commit and I want it with the quote. We also received a couple of hand written carbon copy quotes which at least had terms but legibility of the quote and professionalism was obviously lacking. The best part was the contractors who did show up for the quote/estimate appointment but never sent a quote or they called us weeks later when we had already committed to the job. This type of behavior will eventually ruin your business.
We understand a lot of contractors are busy right now but you can build a business that isn’t feast or famine by doing some simple things to avoid getting a reputation as an untrustworthy or bad contractor:
- Let your potential customer (remember they might have more work in the future) know if you are not going to make an appointment and try to reschedule
- Some basic business cards and a logo or something on your shirt or vehicle goes a long way towards making the customer comfortable with you and your business.
- Texting is fine, but sending a quote via text with no terms and conditions is unprofessional and potentially dangerous for your customers. In a day and age where there are several estimating apps to help you do work on the fly and impress your customers why not use your phone and technology to their full potential?
Maybe the baby boomers are still putting up with this stuff but the Millennials will be a different generation to please as they have grown up with technology and will have different expectations. Build your business to last and start with having respect for your customers and creating a positive experience for them to tell their friends and family.
