Having lived through Hurricane Harvey and rebuilding my flooded home, I’ve learned a lot about choosing the right contractor for a job. I used to believe personal recommendations were the absolute best way to find a trusted contractor. However, today, I believe personal recommendations fall just below hiring a company with a public presence on internet review platforms.
Here’s my explanation for why a company with high review scores on Google, Yelp, Angies List, etc is a better indicator than a personal reference. During our rebuild, we saw neighbors hire the same contractor that just did a great job on another neighbors home only to find out that a completely different crew handled the next rebuild. In many cases, the second customer of a particular contractor were not nearly as happy with their rebuild as the previous customer. The contractors had more business than they could handle so they would split their crews into 2 or 3 crews and add new employees who did not perform at the same high level the first crew did. If the contractor has a place where people can leave reviews, it is much more likely they will do what is necessary to ensure the customer is happy with their work. This gives the customer a little leverage with the contractor.
We receive a lot of personal recommendations for our tile cleaning, grout cleaning, marble polishing, and travertine repair services. Many people hire us with just those personal recommendations, but others find us with a simple web search. These people can feel just as comfortable with us as those who received the personal recommendations. Generally, you’ll be happier when you hire a company with good reviews for the work you need performed.
If you need grout cleaning, be sure to read a companies reviews to see how they do with tile and grout cleaning. If a company does mostly carpet cleaning, you’ll want to read through the reviews to ensure customers are getting good results with the service you need performed. Grout cleaning takes a different skill set than carpet cleaning or air duct cleaning. A 4.5-star rating doesn’t mean much when you are asking a contractor (or employee) to perform a task they don’t perform nearly as often. After a little digging, you may find out their bad reviews are for the tasks you need done.
One more point. Always consider public reviews (Google, Yelp, BBB) much more valuable than reviews posted on a companies website. It is easy for a company to post a review that they made up themselves. It’s better to trust a review from someone posting on a public review site.
I hope this helps give you food for thought when hiring your next contractor to perform a job for you.
If your floors are starting to look a little dingy and you could use tile and grout cleaning or natural stone restoration, give us a call! We’re in Katy, TX and regularly clean in Cinco Ranch, Cross Creek Ranch, Long Meadow Farms, just to name a few.
