Hiring a contractor should be simple – but it typically ends up being anything but simple. Getting a contractor to show up on time and to give you an estimate in itself can be quite a bit of work. But before you start hitting the phones and calling around, consider a few things first.
First of all, we all like to look at online reviews. While this can give us a baseline to work off of, be sure to read through the reviews. For instance, we may see that a company is 5-star rated, but that is easy to maintain if they only have 1 review (which may be from their cousin or mother leaving them a review). Read through all the reviews and see how many they have and how legitimate they al look. Also, don’t be scared if they have a “bad review or two right away – you can’t make everyone happy. instead, read the company’s response and how professionally (or unprofessionally) they handle a complaint.
Then meet the contractors in person. We all live busy lives, but meeting the contractor in person will help us get a feel for them. When we don’t meet them in person, then we often just have a list of estimates to choose from, but we didn’t meet the craftsman who will be actually doing the work.]
Hiring a contractor does not need to be hard. With some homework and legwork, we can make sure we hire the right one.
