In the land of opportunity, anyone can start a business, it so easy that all you have to do is say you are in business and you are! Sole-proprietorship’s, a business consisting of only one owner with no formal organizations and no real requirements, make up a large part of businesses today, contractors are no different. As such, research into a contractor before you hire them is critical. Just being in business does not a good contractor make, experience, knowledge and a proven track record are musts, and customer reviews are a testimonial to these qualities.
In the past, researching a contractor consisted primarily of contacting previous and current customers, checking with the Better Business Bureau, maybe even checking out licenses and such. The problem with this is people didn’t have time to gather the information needed and mostly relied upon testimonials by previous customers provided by the company. Obviously, contractors didn’t want to soil their reputation with negative responses, so these lists were carefully put together to ensure they gave prospective customers a great review every time! Unfortunately, this didn’t do consumers any good, the whole purpose of obtaining reviews and testimonials of previous and current customers is to get an honest picture of how the company operates.
The internet has changed all that, with the launch of websites such as Angie’s List, Yelp, Google Places, Kudzu, Yahoo! Local, Citysearch and others, consumers are now able to post their honest reviews without interference or censoring from contractors. Gone are the days where bad contractors can easily fake their way to new customers. With proper research, you can tell exactly how long a company has been in business, how the treat their customers and how well they do the jobs they are contracted for. More importantly, you get to see how a company handles mistakes and problems. People will make mistakes, it’s human nature, it’s how the mistake is handled that tells you the type of company you are considering and if they are a good match. As long as consumers continue to utilize these sites, posting reviews good and bad, finding the best contractor for the job will continue to be easier and easier.
This is why it’s so important to post your review to multiple sites, get your experience out there! Did the company go out of their way to make sure your experience was great? Tell the world! Were they rude or did they leave the job unfinished? Tell the world! Did the contractor do better than expected? Let everyone know! Not only does your review paint an honest picture for future customers to see they also allow the company to identify problem areas and improve upon them making their services better for everyone! Even the the highest rated companies make mistakes and not all mistakes deserve a bad review, but if the company fails to acknowledge and fix any problems with the service the advertise, future customers deserve to know, a company is only as good as it’s reputation and a reputable company will go out of their way to avoid a bad review.
So the next time you hire a contractor or even buy something from a any company, leave them a review (or post one to multiple sites), your not only are helping the next person who is looking for a similar product or service you are helping the better companies stay in business and that’s good for everyone!