Q: What’s better than learning how to deal with bad contractors?
A: Learning how to choose a contractor wisely so you won’t have to deal with bad ones!
Here are a few tips to help guide you in finding contractors that will perform their job satisfactorily and that are easy to deal with.
1. Get referrals – Relying on word of mouth is still one of the best ways to find excellent contractors. Using the internet to come up with a list of likely contractors is okay but getting a good list from people who you actually know and have had a good experience with the contractors on the list is even better. The reason for this is that with referrals you can already be sure that the client testimonials, which in the internet are in some cases all made up, are actually true. However, note that even if you get a glowing review about a certain contractor you should still find at least a couple more alternatives and do the next step.
2. Do a cursory background research – Not that you doubt your friend or colleague’s word but it is important that you still find out more about the company. Learn about their specialties/strengths because your job order and that of the referrer might differ greatly and the reason why they found the service satisfying would be because the strength of the contractor is aligned with the referrers job order but not yours. But even before you go this deep into your research you may already be able to write off some contractors by simply looking at their website and comparing their list of references and portfolios.
to be continued…
Originally posted on May 18, 2008 @ 11:53 pm