Okay so this has nothing to do about wine but I needed a venue for a public rant so bear with me. After the horrendous winter we have had here in Richmond we need some minor repair done to our roof, siding and a couple of window frames. Seems pretty basic right?
Our first call was to someone that Megan’s parents have used and who they were pleased with. Things went well at first, they came out the day after our call to inspect, were very nice and professional, took plenty of pictures, explained what they needed to do and so on. This was a Wednesday, and he said he would try and get an estimate to us the next day but if he didn’t it would be the following Monday because he was headed out of town on Friday… well that was 4 weeks ago. In between then we called twice, finally getting a call back from their secretary to say that the person that was doing our repair needed to come back and look at something else, but it would be sometime next week because he is now on his honeymoon. WTF!!!!! This was last Monday.
So not having another referred option we just searched on Google for a company, found one and called to setup and appt. for Tuesday at 10am. I had a meeting in the morning but got home by 9:45, and there I sat until 10:45 before I called the company to ask why no one had shown up. “Oh, we double booked and needed to reschedule”, UM HELLO, HOW ABOUT A PHONE CALL! The gentleman who was supposed to come out, called after that to say he would be in the area, and apologized about the inconvenience, and would give me a call when he was near the house in the afternoon. That was the last we heard from them. No call that day or any other day to setup an another appointment or apologize for stiffing us. Again WTF!!
In between this time we have called three other people, left our information and had no return phone calls for the actual inspection visits.
Thursday last week we called another company, blindly, and the gentleman came out that day, was super nice, did an inspection and said we’d hear from him Monday. He was the most prompt and courteous of the bunch so I hope he works out.
Megan and I are completely baffled at how utterly hard it has been to get our house repair work looked at, much less done. You would think in these hard economic times companies would be jumping at the opportunity for work. Apparently the economic downturn hasn’t hurt the home repair business, because from our experience the last 3-4 weeks, nobody wants to do any work!
If anybody in Richmond knows a good company for home repair, we would be happy to know and contact them. Unfortunately the last guy that came out only does roof repair.
Anything Wine 
How aggravating! The guy I got to do some siding work a few years ago has since retired, unfortunately, so if you find somebody good let me know too!
Kirk Aikey – http://www.aikeyconstruction.com/
Did pretty much the entire exterior (siding, roof, windows, doors) of my friends’ house for a very reasonable price & time frame. Use my friends’ name – Matt & Lesley David – for a reference.
Or, contact Jill at River City Referrals – http://www.rivercityreferrals.com/ for more reliable contractors. I used several of her referrals when prepping our old house for sale.
Rant away… it’s good for you every once and a while. I can personally relate to what you saying here – as I’m sure most everyone else reading this can as well.
You make a funny, yet sad point that is much larger than the home repair industry – I feel this lack of accountability and overall disregard for customer service affects nearly every industry.
We’ve had a similar problem with our deck… you would think, given the current economic malaise that people would get off their azzes and work double time when the work is there. Not so much! How dare we expect people to show up on time, ‘work’ while their supposed to be working, and maybe stay a little after 5pm to get the job done. Ok, sorry, now I’m ranting.
Your situation really highlights a real opportunity – a company could really prosper in this economy by focusing relentlessly on customer service and meeting commitments.
thanks for the comments everyone – and for the suggestions Ron, I appreciate it.
You’re right Frank – it does highlight the lack of customer service in a lot of industry these days – an area that is very easy to focus on and can drive customers to your business during harder times – or in this case away from your business.
The only company I know of is Creative Energy Exteriors, but they do improvements more than repairs.