Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2014 10:57:47 -0500
From: Mike Fox
Subject: Following up on contractors who don’t return calls
It may be a bit of a thread hijack but I just wanted to add some comments on Monnda and Al’s posts about contractors that don’t call back or don’t follow up. I just did major HVAC work on my house and I ran into this. It took me 5 contractors to find one that would follow up consistently and meet commitments. When I find one like that, I don’t let them go!
One problem may be location. I think this a challenge that all rural customers, in Chatham or otherwise, have. I had two contractors flat out tell me that they don’t want to work more than x miles from their home base. In my experience x has gotten smaller over time as the Triangle has gotten more densely developed. The one I ended up with told me that at first, but since he was so highly recommended I offered to pay him a consulting fee to come out and look at my place and then he could tell me it’s too far away and I would accept that answer then.
But because as I suspected from googling his location I wasn’t as far from him as he thought, he ended up doing my work. But a lot of these guys make their living going from call to call and if the drive to your location means they only get to do one call in the time they could normally do two or even three in-town calls, that’s money out of their pocket. I didn’t like it but I did respect the ones who flat-out told me that. Except the one who came out, screwed up some work, and then told me I was too far away when I called them to come back and fix what they did 🙂 I think the distance problem may be the case for a lot of the ones who never returned calls as well.
Al also talked about not calling someone back because of putting it off so long that it would be embarrassing or assuming it’s too late. I think that type of time management issue is a problem for a lot of small businesses that rely on one principal who manages everything. We can say it’s unprofessional but it is what it is, these guys can’t afford to hire an office staff to schedule work and make sure every call gets followed up on.
After living out here for 15+ years, it’s simply a drawback that goes with the great parts of rural life and you learn to deal with it. Not that you learn to like it, of course.
Mike