When faced with a DIY problem at home or an emergency that requires professional help fast, most property owners will either turn to the local paper directory such as Thomson Local or get online and Google for someone local to come to the rescue.
As a consumer it is often quite difficult to distinguish between the local companies and the national advertsiers, in fact a lot of you may not even realise your are dealing with a national company on the phoneline.
Before I give you tips to help distinguish the two I will tell you why you should be avoiding the nationals and call centres!
A national company usually consists of an emergency call center. Once your job is booked in the call centre will attempt to find a contractor subbing for them that is reasonably close to your location. Reasonable in their opinion could be a two hour drive away.If they cannot find one of their own contractors then the usual procedure is to search just like you did initially for a local trader (usually a self employed small guy) and then negotiate terms with him to come and complete the work on their behalf, unbeknown to the customer of course...
So work completed and you are handed an enormous bill!
Nationals and call centers charge a premium for their service!
I have worked for several locksmith companies in the past operating nationally.
They spend millions in advertsing and this costs is passed straight to the customer.
The prices i had to charge on their behalf were 3-4 times what i would have charged to do the work through my own company and often parts were marked up to twice the recommended price.
More often than not you will have problems with the work, the sub contractors don't give 100% on these jobs as are usually paid poorly for the work regarding Locksmith Greenwich CT. Many have little or no experience in the trade they represent.I worked with a few locksmiths that were literally fresh off the training course and had been thrown straight into complex lock openings and tough jobs. When a customer complains it usually falls on deaf ears. It is hard for the call center to arrange for the same subby to go back and rectify the work at his own expense and the customer will be messed about terribly.
Using a local company will both save you money and ensure you get a satisfactory service from a real local business. Most being self employed tradesmen will go that extra mile to build upon their local reputation and provide an overall better service than a national company can offer.It is important to support local business in these difficult economic times and ensure they can survive the recession.
National companies are making it extremely difficult for the local guy by out advertising in his own area. Obviously in the long term this could mean the death of a lot of small local firms and encourage the growth of large companies that would monopolise the market as is the case with superstores crushing small corner shops. Once this happens there is very little choice for the consumer but to use them.
So how do we identify a national/call centre when searching the Yellow pages?
They will often have huge advertisements listing numerous 'local' phone numbers across many areas. A small business rarely uses this tactic as it involves setting up various line diverts which can be pricey. The advert usually has 'AAAAA' in the corner somewhere. This ensures their listing appears at the front of the category.
Upon calling the number you will usually get through to a receptionist or operator of some sort that will want an awful lot of information that a local tradesmen would not need. Detailed address requests usually mean they need to Google it and check they have an 'Engineer' in your area. The use of the term 'Engineer' is another dead give away.