Working as an electrical contractor for the last 20 years I have gained a great many insights and experiences in the electrical field. When you're selecting your next electrical contractor or electrician for your project I would like to share some of these insights with you to help you make your decision. So let's get started. one of the first things I touched on above was online reviews. As I hire electricians on a regular basis I have learned a few things about how to find a person that has the qualifications I am looking for. Over the years it was frustrating as electricians would come into my office and tell me everything that I wanted to hear, and only later would I find out that they were completely misleading me. I thought about it and I realized quickly that the best way to find out about a person's character is to ask someone else. If you are a person with bad character it will probably be pretty difficult to find someone who has nice things to say about you. The same holds true for electricians and businesses such as electrical contracting companies. Online reviews are a great way to hear what your neighbors are saying about the electricians that they're doing business with. I myself have had customers who were not necessarily happy because we showed up late or the electrician made a mistake. However these customers rarely go online and post a bad review. What that tells me is that if someone has a bad review online it is usually because they did something that really irritated their customer. These are the types of individuals you want to steer clear of.
Presence on the phone or via e-mail. How does the electrician or electrical contractor you are considering hiring sound over the phone? do they sound professional? Are they knowledgeable about your job and the items that you are requesting? Do they sound like they've done this 100 times and had this conversation thousand times? Do they demand that they come out a look at the job first before giving you any idea of how much it will cost? If the answer is no to the first question and yes to the second then they are probably someone that you would rather pass over. People who are irritated by normal questions and rude to their customers are probably going to be people that you really don't want to work with. First impressions mean a lot. If somebody answers the phone hello instead of hello do it right electric how man help you. You know this may be a person who is working out of the back of a pickup truck. Even worse if somebody answers the phone saying what. Just hang up. There is no reason to do business with somebody who cannot even answer the phone professionally. If they can't answer the phone professionally it is highly unlikely that they can do your electrical job professionally. I have called electricians back who have posted resumes to my site and they answer the phone what or have some crazy music playing when the phone rings. While I don't necessarily rule them out because of this it is intriguing to me that after they find out it is the person they already called and left a message with about a job, their entire demeanor changes. This basically tells me that they are written to people unless they think that they want something from the person.
Do they have a large advertising budget? My skin crawls when I asked this question. I have seen many customers of mine get quotes of $3000.00 to $4000.00 for a job. They come to me and tell me the company became adding quoted without telling me the dollar amount that they quoted. I already know the large franchise companies with huge advertising budgets that operate in my town. So when they give me the name I already know a ballpark figure of what they've been quoted. We usually do the jobs the franchise companies quote for 50% of what they quoted as a general rule of thumb. The reason for this is advertising is extremely expensive. Running advertisements on the television or radio stations can cost you tens of thousand dollars a month. Literally. No kidding. And yes it is that much. Marketers and advertisers know in my opinion that what they are offering is many times not worth what they charge. They have little or no interest in you staying in business, although they may say the contrary. The truth is if you sign a one-year contract to run television or radio station advertising or even a one-month contract and it does not work out for you they will not refund you one thin dime. If you sign up for the Yellow Pages and decide to pay $6000.00 per month for a full-page ad and your phone does not ring adequately to pay for this they again do not care and will not refund one dime of your money. They will furthermore seek litigation and sue you for the contract amount. If you go out of business there are thousands of businesses that go under every week in the United States. As well there are thousands of people who are starting new businesses. The marketers and advertisers simply move on to the next person and the cycle continues. The truth about advertising is that the effectiveness is entirely dependent on your business and the marketplace and form of advertising that you are using. If you're a large soda pop bottling company and you are selling glorified sugar water your profit margin is extremely high. You can afford a plaster your name all over town. Small brick-and-mortar businesses have a very small profit margin. If they are sinking thousands of dollars into advertising you better believe that their customers are footing the bill.
Are they licensed to do business in the state and city that they're working in. This may sound like a silly question. After all who would go around doing business in the city where they're not licensed? Or worse yet doing work statewide with no license. The truth is that we live in a time of economic crisis. That crisis leads people to do things that they would not normally do. Many people can justify the fact that they're working without a license as a means by which to feed their family. And I can in fact sympathize with this. However you as the consumer do not want a desperate person who is just looking to make a fast buck with no license and no insurance working on your home doing electrical work. This is a recipe for disaster. Electrical fatalities are much higher when it comes to small children. Their small bodies cannot handle the force of electric shock and many times it causes death. Think first and act later when it comes to selecting electrical contractor for your home or business. The liability and the heart ache maybe yours in the long run if you try to save a quick buck.
That topic leads me into the fifth topic. General liability insurance and workers compensation insurance. The way it works when a business hires me as electrical contractor to subcontractors were them is this. They call me up and let me know that they need a certificate of general liability insurance and workers compensation insurance. I then called my insurance agent and he issues the certificate with their name on it. It names them as the insured. With this certificate if anything goes wrong on the job or if one of my workers is injured the customer has proof that they are not liable. You can request the same certificate as a private homeowner or individual.
That leads us into the seven topic are they the lowest bidder? If they are you may want to ask yourself... How did they come up with such a low price? The answer may be that they decided not to buy workers compensation insurance or general liability insurance. It also may be that they're using substandard work practices, not pulling electrical permits, or using inferior material. I look at this the same way a look at purchasing plane tickets. Many people avoid paying any extra costs associated with traveling on a plane. They don't want to pay to check the extra bag. They refuse to buy any of the snacks or drinks on the plane, and they search online for the absolute cheapest price possible. This applies pressure to the airlines to turn a profit. When you're under pressure to turn a profit you start cutting back on business expenses. One of the main expenses for airline is airplane maintenance. I for one do not want to fly on a plane where the airline is under financial pressure and stress. If you do any research into plane crashes you will find that many times the culprit is faulty maintenance, using the wrong screw, and using non-factory parts. The same holds true when you're hiring an electrician or electrical contractor. When they are the lowest bidder the money you saved has to come from somewhere. Food for thought.
In summary the eighth item is, do your homework and take your time. Unless you have a small service call the job that you're doing is usually not an immediate need. Take your time and do a little bit of homework on the person that you're thinking about spending a week or two of your life with. Make sure that you don't end up in small claims court ruing the day that you did not do your due diligence in selecting your electrical contractor. Thank you!
No comments:
Post a Comment