Contractor References…how Do They Work?
Posted: Friday, January 08, 2010
by Jim Nanners
The Super 7
References, references, referenceseveryone tells you to ask for them from any contractor you are considering for hire. They are a way to check up on the contractor to make sure you want to do business with them, right?
This is truesort of.
The classic way of receiving and using references is to ask the contractor to provide you with the contact numbers of his references. You then call these references and find out that the contractor was perfect and everyone on the reference list would all "highly recommend" hiring this company.
So what do you do to obtain and evaluate credible references?:
- Ask your neighbors and friends to see if they have had good or bad experiences with local contractors. Simply knowing that another person has had a good experience with a contractor prior to calling them lessons your chance of hiring a problem.
- If you call a reference that the contractor provides, ask the customer how long ago the contractor performed the work. You want recent references. If the contractor is providing references from 8 years ago it makes you wonder if they haven't had another satisfied customer in the last 8 years!
- Try asking the contractor for customer contact information for the last 3-4 jobs they performed. This way you are asking for customers that may not necessarily be on the contractor's "reference list". (Note: Some companies may not provide this information because of customer privacy issues). Again, ask the customer about the dates of work. If the supplied customers are from years ago it is a good bet that there were other customers after them that he doesn't want you to call.
- When talking to a customer reference ask them what things they feel the contractor could have improved on. This discussion may open the door to some issues that the customer may have had with the contractor.
- If one or two customers have had a bad experience with a contractor it should not put that company out of the running for your business. Not every customer can be pleased and sometimes not everyone sees eye to eye. If there is a pattern, then be cautious.
Raleigh Durham Kitchen Cabinets
This Article has been viewed 249 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.